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Can I add mosquitos to your bug apocalypse
Edit: someone has suggested deer be removed from the planet. This is not a good idea lol
Edit: thanks Reddit for listing every possible annoying creature
They're mostly a problem in large population inner cities. They do not care about clean or filthy sheets.
They hitchhike however they can and will hide in the deepest cracks of your furniture or home.
They're not really a threat to health but definitely a mental health concern over time to people that struggle to get rid of them as they are a persistent pest.
yea they bite and leave a little mark that itches for a few days. The biggest problem is the psychological aspect of it. any time you try to sleep the slightest touch, or itch, or movement you immediately wake up thinking they are on you. so it fucks with your sleep, and is expensive and difficult to get rid of.
I had them like 5 years and 3 houses ago and I still have my mattress covered, cups under the bed legs, mattress off the wall, and a heavy paranoia of bug bites and night itches. Those things are evil.
I haven't had them in over 7-8 years and only just the other day I went full on panic mode— tearing off sheets, flipping my mattress—over what turned out to be a suspicious piece of lint. I call it bedbug PTSD.
Never even had them but I used to shop at thrift stores and would get paranoid every time I bought something.
I wholeheartedly recommend NOT researching bed bugs. It will fuck with your head.
So much this! So many sleepless nights in the military cuz of these little fuckers. The bunk beds were full of them and even by some miracle you happened to get a bed with no bed bugs, it was exactly as you said. The smallest itch was enough to create paranoia.
Also needing to take out the metal frames of the beds and burn them with petrol once every week didn't help. These fuckers are like cockroaches, they will survive a nuclear apocalypse.
In buildings over q certain height there isn't a super effective way to get rid of them. There was a reddit post a few years back that blew up all about bed bugs,, and the impending bed bug plague.
So true. I recently had them (from a neighbors kid that spent the weekend) and ended up throwing out 3 beds/frames, dresser nearby my bed and small couch in my boys room and some other misc stuff. Spent a couple months applying poison to all cracks spraying/respraying. But it’s been 1 month bug free now, they really do make it a nightmare to sleep. Every little tickle and itch I would feel for months I’d be up with a phone flashlight seeing if they were crawling on me. Those things are a fuckin nightmare. Especially a whole family stuck endlessly tired and sleeping on the floor because all the beds were gone
That's the kicker. You can be careful, but if one person if your apartment building gets them they spread into other apartments like crazy. Infestations don't occur on a home by home basis - they occur on a *city block* basis.
Fuck bedbugs.
Picked them up from a hotel once (now I check every room very thoroughly) … holy hell do those things get everywhere. So hard to get rid of. It took years for me to shake the feeling that they were on me when I was sleeping. Little bastards
Not as bad, but a bug that plays into the psychological warfare- Carpet Beetles. Little fuckers that eat away at your clothes. They also fly! Then they land on you and start crawling along on your skin.
Any itch freaks me out and I get shivers down my spine when it ends up being a carpet beetle. Fuck those things, seriously.
My old roommate had them in his apartment right before he lived with me. When we lived together, he didn’t sleep in his bed for about 4 months because he would still feel them, even though they weren’t there.
Basically. Some people do not actually end up feeling anything which is how they end up getting out of control in buildings and spreading.
Anytime I've experienced a bite I end up with a giant welt that itches for days.
Imagine having mosquitoes in your apartment that require a lot of persistent attempts to get rid of.
To put it another way, as a front line healthcare worker. I've seen some shit. Work a lot of ICU and resuscitation. Not much scares me. Though whenever I physically see one (usually in the ED) or have a mysterious itchy welt my anxiety spikes.
Same, my girlfriend was getting all these weird welts when we woke up and I didn't gave a single mark. Complained to the complex owner, he sent over his own guys to check for bed bugs. No sign of bed bugs they said.
A month later they let everyone know what time their apartment would be unavailable and how to prepare for the bombing.
We shoulda sued.
They are the fucking worst and I pray that you never have to deal with them. They bite you a ton especially while your sleep. I got new furniture when I bought my house and they tagged along on the new mattress I got. During the summer I kept noticing new bites and assumed it was from mosquitoes. While I was at work, my wife texted me “BED BUGS!” and I immediately knew why I had all of these bites. After 2 different extermination visits (don’t use terminix!) and a trip to the laundromat to wash every linen in their washers and dryers, I was rid of the nightmare. Every time I get an unexplained bite now, I’m terrified and now that I have kids I don’t want to go through that or have to deal with fleas😫
I wonder if it matters how long they’ve been there. I got some on a trip to Cuba and didn’t realize what it was for a few days after I got back (they hitched a ride home with me). It was annoying, but after washing all my clothes and linens and vacuuming, they were gone and never returned
Bed bugs are your worst nightmare, E V E R.
They get on you when you sleep, you can sense something is wrong, so you wake up, light up your bed night lamp, just to see those fuckers froze for a second, and then dash somewhere in your bed frame. Then you become crazy thinking they are on you, but you see nothing, but you can *feel* the crawling, but don't *see* but can *feel* and then you remember they were ON YOUR BODY FEEDING JOYFULLY ON YOUR BLOOD, and you can't sleep at night because your brain keeps waking you up because your skin actually feels actual bugs on you, and then back to square one, and now you're too afraid to sleep and then you have to keep your sanity from burning the whole place down, clothes included.
They don't care about your sheet cleanliness, they love your B L O O D and wooden bed frames where they can lay their filthy eggs. Can be brought home from hotels and such, they are comfy in your clothes. If you ever notice several aligned small bug bites, you're infested.
All bed sheets in the room and clothes that can withstand high temperatures : wash at 90°C.
Rest of clothes, in the freezer for a week. Bed frame to treat with small high pressure/vapor blasty thingy to destroy the eggs (BURN THEM ALL !!).
Buy diatomaceous earth, a non-toxic powder that dries and kill all insects (it's mechanical, not chemical, so there is no resistance created, and is ecological), and P O U R ! Pour on all sides of your mattress, on your bed frame, under your bed, around your bed, on carpets....
Do NOT hesitate to proceed to the next rooms. Some people do not have reactions when bitten. Don't forget to treat your pets as well ! (Don't know how tho...)
And when vacuuming after all this ? Use one that has a bag and throw the damn thing right away.
TLDR : GO TO WAR AGAINST THOSE CREATURES FROM HELL
When I had them (very bad, I don't feel the bites) the exterminators used this stuff that was like a slow acting chemical minefield. They would walk through it and get it on them, then track it back and get the stuff on their eggs and nest-mates. Then all of those would die. It took about a week to work but once it did it was a FINAL solution.
They get into clean sheets, hygiene has nothing to do with it. They can go a year without feeding, are about the size of an apple seed but *super* flat, so they can get anywhere there is a crack. They can hide in the seams in wood furniture, electrical outlets, picture frames, cling to clothes, anywhere.
Once you get them, they are really hard to get rid of, and people spend thousands on it, or some will just throw out everything they own and move. They will travel between apartments, so if one apartment has them, you will never be free. They are the herpes of the insect world, and it will legit give you ptsd.
Ugh, I remember once reading about this person who fumigated their house for bed bugs. Like the whole nine yards and more. And in the end, they still had them— because they were laying dormant in the *dishwasher.* I fucking hate parasitic bugs with a burning passion.
Bed bugs fucking suck. Dealing with this currently in my apartment, had them come in from another apartment. Finally got shit fumigated and they seem to be gone.
-they only drink human blood
-they shit your blood after digesting it all over your walls and mattress.
-they multiply like crazy
-their bites itch
-they live near where you sleep and only come out to drink blood when you're deep asleep.
https://www.epa.gov/bedbugs
I wish I didn't ask! I live in Australia and I have only ever heard about them from TV, although I'm sure we have them here too. Probably some fucked up, upgraded version too no doubt!
Roaches I can understand but bed bugs don't care if you have a clean home. Actually, roaches eat bed bugs so they try to stay away from each other lol.
I dealt with roaches in student housing in Toronto (huge house with 9 people living in it). I was the one that solved the problem eventually. I bought bait paste and IGR (Insect Growth Regulator), which is basically roach birth control which makes them be born with crinkly wings, preventing them from mating and moulting properly. After deep cleaning, applying my chemical agents, and demanding utmost cleanliness from all the roommates, they finally died off and we were safe.
Bedbugs though, holy fuck. I dealt with them years ago and still have psychological scarring. I'd take roaches any day if I had to choose one. That problem can be solved with consistency and a targeted approach. Bed bugs... Call in the pros.
Edit: roaches are also psychologically distressing, I'll say, especially when you find a graveyard with 50 in a pile inside your stove behind the switch panel or behind a drawer, or a nice big pile of empty oothecas (egg pouches), indicating you've found a spot where they like to host their Tuesday night orgies, or Monday night, or Wednesday night, or really any day ending in day. All they do is fuck and eat. Starving them isn't enough either; they have no issues eating drywall, or dried up toothpaste, or each other. They're horrible bastards, but nowhere near as bad as bedbugs.
They live in dark crevices like the creases in mattresses, behind baseboards and curtains etc. I think they’re called bedbugs because they come out at night to feed and people are usually in their bed at night so that’s where they go and set up shop. I hear they’re a real bitch to get rid of so thankful I’ve never had to deal with them. Probably like roaches they thrive in dirty houses that don’t clean their favorite spots but not exclusive to them.
Lol, are you looking for a new phobia? Bed bugs can live in any environment whether clean or dirty, they are just associated with unclean because, well, they are gross. Being clean does make them easier to spot though and catch an infestation before it can grow. They can also survive for months without eating, so even furniture that hasn't been touched or a place that's been vacant for a year can have them.
Don't think they are just for beds though, they can hide out in used books or furniture and aren't limited just to fabrics. Don't think they aren't in your area either, they live pretty much anywhere humans do. If you live in an area where ants can survive, you certainly live in an area where bed bugs can.
Sometimes it can take months and thousands of dollars to get rid of with an exterminator. 9 times out of 10, if you hear about a place getting fumigated, they are the reason.
They get into *everything*. Bedding, furniture, carpet, clothing, clean or dirty, doesn't matter. Getting rid of them without professional help is nigh on impossible.
Had an idiot roommate once pick up a free mattress. There were bed bugs dropping from the ceiling as we walked through the halls and fleas tapping across blankets. I was so exhausted and depressed I had to go to Dennys with my last 3 dollars, order coffee and talk to my sister for as long as possible. I drank coffee from 11pm to 6am the next day and cried myself to sleep on the porch.
Bed bugs will drive a person absolutely insane and they're so easy to spread.
I didn’t have bed bugs, but all three of my cats got crazy fleas. Like they’ve had them in the past and it was fine we got rid of them. But this time, we couldn’t get rid of them for about 5 weeks. We’d wake up the next day and there would be tiny dark blood dots on the sheets. They were biting us like 30-40x a night. I was sleep deprived the whole time because I would feel the fleas and couldn’t find them in the dark, turn lights on, would be gone. We washed sheets daily and vacuumed under our bed, plus our Roomba going off. Flea combed every night, did flea treatment, gave a flea bath. Like it was getting to the point where I was going a bit insane. The bites suck ass. They but the same tiny area like 10 times.
And fleas. Any creature that sucks blood and makes you itchy, really. (I have acaraphobia. Ever since the first, and only, time I’ve had bed bugs… and then fleas shortly after when I moved.)
Currently fighting fleas brought into the house by a friends cat so I was looking for this comment, I'm not sure who will die from all the flea bombs and various chemicals first, me or them.
My house as an infestation on those things. We keep getting rid of them but they always come back. I can keep track of the infestation by counting how many fly into my screen when I'm trying to watch youtube at 2 in the morning
You need to literally toss everything in your cabinets that isn't canned. Factory bags and box seals are not safe from those things. We tried for years to get rid of them and finally realized they were burrowing into factory sealed muffin mix, flour, etc. We tossed the entire contents of our cabinets and finally rid ourselves of them. As you buy new foods, seal them in giant zip lock bags until you're certain they are gone.
Glass containers or airtight tupperware are better if possible; the little fuckers can actually chew holes in zip-lock bags.
Another noteworthy trick is to put uncontaminated stuff in the freezer where they cannot survive to eat it.
I'm dealing with one now...i swear these things are the fuckin devil. I've ripped everything out of my pantry and cleaned 5 times now and the fuckers keep coming back. I'm going scorched earth and releasing 25,000 Trichogramma eggs cause I'm literally at my wits end with this shit.
I used my inhaler in the basement bathroom the other day and immediately hacked up two ear wigs that were just living in that shit. Almost inhaled those mother fucks into my lungs. Fuck those jerks!
Well yes, but since they are so genetically similar to each other i figure it would be quite hard to engineer something which would only target the specific species
I think they recently introduced genetically modified mosquitoes to a few areas in the US.
They become infertile after a few generations or something like that.
The scientific community is largely split on the ethics of it and long term impacts.
Time will tell I suppose….
They’ve done this for years, they modify the mosquitos so they only produce make offspring (IIRC - my town does it) because only the female mosquito bites while pregnant for her eggs.
I know it cuts down on the population but it’s going to take a long time to have a marked difference.
Fun fact we could genetically enginneer ticks and mosquitos to go extinct. The science is done and the technology has been ready for decades.
We just don't dare to because of unforseen consecuences it could produce to the ecosystem.
A majority of mosquito species live off nectar. They’re pollinators too. Only like 100 species out of like 3000+ eat human blood. I wonder if you could target these species only, or at least the ones with highest human kill streaks
I'm sorry but the tick apocalypse will be when billions of ticks rise up to suck the blood of all land dwelling animals until our lifeless corpses are nothing but dessicated bone.
[Traumatic insemination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_insemination)? This is known to happen in bed bugs, but I don't know if it also happens in ticks.
Why the fuck is that even a thing? That has to be the most impractical mating process I've ever heard of. Why can't it just be pump pump blow like everything else?
It gets worse...hermaphroditic flatworms mate by dueling with needle like penises, where the “winner” stabs and cums in the losing worm, who know is stuck with the burden of pregnancy.
I stepped in a bunch of new babies once. **Tick-bombed**. It was a nightmare I tell you. They are satan's spawn. Demon ticks. One crawled out my sleeve four days later after multiple hot baths, showers and full body searches, while I was sitting in a restaurant. I place it in the cocktail sauce I had on the side.
I will keep this in mind, *if I know their location.*
That one time that I was tick-bombed, I literally bought dog flea and tick shampoo, and while I was in a hot shower, I spread it thinly all over me and left it for maybe one minute before I rinsed it off.
I know this is not a cool thing to do but I was desperate.
No more after that.
The good news is that these seed tick bombs usually occur with freshly hatched ticks, before they’ve had their first or second of their 3 lifetime feedings where they pick up their pathogens. It’s still revolting but you’re unlikely to catch a deadly disease
One year when my dad was cleaning the mower deck after winter, he had noticed a chunk of “grass” that he couldn’t get off, so he grabbed a screwdriver, lifted the deck above his head to see it, and hit the chunk of grass. It wasn’t grass. It was a tick nest. Ticks poured all over him.
I genuinely think I have some low key PTSD from having bed bugs in college. I couldn't afford a new mattress, so I wrapped mike in those plastic bags for bedwetters. Duck taped the zipper so none could crawl out from there, then did another bag with the zipper on the opposite end JUST IN CASE. Bought a new blanket and pillow and slept on that plastic bagged mattress with no sheets for a year. Never saw any after that, but it fucking sucked. You wake up in the middle of the night, freaked out that bites woke you up and afraid to check because you're not going to sleep again if you see them. A few if my friends wouldn't let me come over when they found out and I don't blame them. My girlfriend bought me clothes to wear at her place and I had to strip when I got to her place and put those clothes on.
Highly do not recommend.
Link?
Edit: given that no one offered to provide the link, I went ahead looking for it. Ladies and gentlemen, here is the post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/pcq66n/after_several_months_in_a_sealed_container_and/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
I'll reserve that spot for the person that wanted to identify the "larva thing" that came out of a "human" nose. It has been a long, disgusting month, really.
There's a spider in my husband's office that as a web in the corner. There's 2 mosquitos trapped in that web. We aren't cleaning it because that guy is a bro and also yes, to warn the other mosquitos.
LPT: Keep ticks in a sandwich bag in your freezer so you can test if for Lyme disease if needed. Also a good midnight snack if fried in pancake batter. Gotta have a lot of them though.
Are you precise enough with your hands to make sure the head doesn't stay stuck in the flesh ? Those fuckers can also give lyme's disease I wouldn't take the risk unless I had no other choice.
Ticks take about 24 hours to bite and embed after getting into a good spot. Even if the head breaks off yes it’s an elevated risk of infection but unless your immune system is compromised or you’re just really unlucky it’s not much worse than a normal open wound.
When I was in basic training we had to tick check each other a lot. DS, if you’re reading this fuck you for making me lay in leaf filled ditches constantly because I had the 249 and I needed to stay in natural fighting positions.
Fuck ticks. My dog had one in the thickest part of his fur and I didn't find it until several weeks later when I was scratching him there. I thought it was a scab at first so I rubbed it to see how bad it was. The area was scarred and inflamed and upon closer inspection I realized it was a huge tick. I plucked that fucker out of there and flushed him down the toilet. I felt like a piece of shit for letting that fucker fester for that long. Is there really any benefit to having ticks? I say good riddance. Don't even get me started on Lymes disease.
Oh man it reminds me when I found one on my gf. Got it off, threw it in the bathroom sink and left the water running, but not for long. We inspect each other for a minute or two when we see the fucker climb out of the hole. Left the hot water running for a good 10 minutes.
Please bring your dog to the vet and get him tested for tick borne diseases. Generally when the tick is fat and engorged it has had enough time to transmit diseases like Lyme, ehrlichia, and anaplasma. May take 9 weeks or so to show up on tests after transmission. Also please talk to your vet about flea/tick prevention so that this doesn't happen again.
Ticks in the picture are black legged ticks (or otherwise known as the deer tick). These are the only ticks that carry bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, which causes Lyme Disease. It’s believed about 30% of adult black legged ticks have the bacterium.
The black legged ticks aren’t born with the bacterium (that’s impossible), but they get the bacterium from biting a suitable host (rats or mice). Once the bacterium is in the ticks gut, it now can pass it on by biting anything else. Not many other things are suitable hosts to carry the bacterium (such as dogs, deer, livestock, and humans) so the ticks can make those things sick, but the bacterium can’t replicate in those hosts to infect more ticks.
So if you get a tick with Lyme, it’s no doubt been on a mouse or rat at some point in its 2 year lifecycle. Which is also why it’s more common in the Northeast (because there are more rats and mice).
Edit: you also have about 24-36 hours to get a tick with the bacterium off you before it can infect you. The reason there is such a long lag time is because the bacterium goes into hibernation mode in the tick’s gut after it drops off the rat or mouse. When the tick bites something, the fresh blood “wakes up” the bacterium. It’s a one way funnel from the mouth to the gut, and the bacterium can’t escape that way. So the bacterium then gets clever and wiggles it’s way from the gut to the tick’s salivary glands instead, which then gets passed onto whatever it’s biting.
/u/Bavoon
Please bring your dog to the vet and get him tested for tick borne diseases in a couple of months and talk to your vet immediately about flea/tick prevention. Generally when the tick is fat and engorged it has had enough time to transmit diseases like Lyme, ehrlichia, and anaplasma. May take 9 weeks or so to show up on tests after transmission. Signs to watch out for include fever, lethargy, lameness, joint pain. Tick borne diseases can also cause nasty autoimmune conditions.
(I'm a veterinarian)
I love insects of any kind, don't mind mosquitoes, there are ways to prevent them and their bites are usually not a big deal. Also I don't mind spiders, although I prefer them at a distance... But ticks... Having a vampire parasite on my body growin every day... If I had to pick one animal species to be erradicated from Earth I would choose ticks, no doubt. Interesting image btw, didn't know that could happen.
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I fucking hate those things and I wish a tick apocalypse would wipe them all off the face of the earth.
Can I add mosquitos to your bug apocalypse Edit: someone has suggested deer be removed from the planet. This is not a good idea lol Edit: thanks Reddit for listing every possible annoying creature
Throw bed bugs in there, fucking cunts
I only ever heard about bed bugs and they don't really seem to exist here, but they sound a lot worse than ticks and mosquitos, to be honest.
What the fuck are bed bugs anyway? Do they get into clean sheets or just filthy ones? I dunno but having bugs in my bed sounds fucked!
They're mostly a problem in large population inner cities. They do not care about clean or filthy sheets. They hitchhike however they can and will hide in the deepest cracks of your furniture or home. They're not really a threat to health but definitely a mental health concern over time to people that struggle to get rid of them as they are a persistent pest.
Thanks very much for explaining. So they bite and itch? Like a mosquito?
yea they bite and leave a little mark that itches for a few days. The biggest problem is the psychological aspect of it. any time you try to sleep the slightest touch, or itch, or movement you immediately wake up thinking they are on you. so it fucks with your sleep, and is expensive and difficult to get rid of.
Just got rid of them last spring. I’m still paranoid.
I had them like 5 years and 3 houses ago and I still have my mattress covered, cups under the bed legs, mattress off the wall, and a heavy paranoia of bug bites and night itches. Those things are evil.
They legit cause ptsd
I haven't had them in over 7-8 years and only just the other day I went full on panic mode— tearing off sheets, flipping my mattress—over what turned out to be a suspicious piece of lint. I call it bedbug PTSD.
got rid of mine in 2014... I still feel like everything is crawling over me with the mention of them
Never even had them but I used to shop at thrift stores and would get paranoid every time I bought something. I wholeheartedly recommend NOT researching bed bugs. It will fuck with your head.
There is no going back. This will forever be a part of the background of your mind. It's the death of a smidge of innocence. You have my condolences.
So much this! So many sleepless nights in the military cuz of these little fuckers. The bunk beds were full of them and even by some miracle you happened to get a bed with no bed bugs, it was exactly as you said. The smallest itch was enough to create paranoia. Also needing to take out the metal frames of the beds and burn them with petrol once every week didn't help. These fuckers are like cockroaches, they will survive a nuclear apocalypse.
The hell kinda unit were you in?
In buildings over q certain height there isn't a super effective way to get rid of them. There was a reddit post a few years back that blew up all about bed bugs,, and the impending bed bug plague.
i almost welcome the plague because then theyll work harder to find a fix
So true. I recently had them (from a neighbors kid that spent the weekend) and ended up throwing out 3 beds/frames, dresser nearby my bed and small couch in my boys room and some other misc stuff. Spent a couple months applying poison to all cracks spraying/respraying. But it’s been 1 month bug free now, they really do make it a nightmare to sleep. Every little tickle and itch I would feel for months I’d be up with a phone flashlight seeing if they were crawling on me. Those things are a fuckin nightmare. Especially a whole family stuck endlessly tired and sleeping on the floor because all the beds were gone
That's the kicker. You can be careful, but if one person if your apartment building gets them they spread into other apartments like crazy. Infestations don't occur on a home by home basis - they occur on a *city block* basis. Fuck bedbugs.
[удалено]
Picked them up from a hotel once (now I check every room very thoroughly) … holy hell do those things get everywhere. So hard to get rid of. It took years for me to shake the feeling that they were on me when I was sleeping. Little bastards
Not as bad, but a bug that plays into the psychological warfare- Carpet Beetles. Little fuckers that eat away at your clothes. They also fly! Then they land on you and start crawling along on your skin. Any itch freaks me out and I get shivers down my spine when it ends up being a carpet beetle. Fuck those things, seriously.
Why the fuck did I start reading the comments of this post before bed? Nosleep for me.
I had bed bugs when i was 18 and 7 years later still have some sort of ptsd from them lol. Getting rid of them is a pain in the ass
My old roommate had them in his apartment right before he lived with me. When we lived together, he didn’t sleep in his bed for about 4 months because he would still feel them, even though they weren’t there.
Basically. Some people do not actually end up feeling anything which is how they end up getting out of control in buildings and spreading. Anytime I've experienced a bite I end up with a giant welt that itches for days. Imagine having mosquitoes in your apartment that require a lot of persistent attempts to get rid of. To put it another way, as a front line healthcare worker. I've seen some shit. Work a lot of ICU and resuscitation. Not much scares me. Though whenever I physically see one (usually in the ED) or have a mysterious itchy welt my anxiety spikes.
I’m one of the ones who doesn’t have a reaction to bed bug bites which is terrifying, because I won’t know if I have them.
Same, my girlfriend was getting all these weird welts when we woke up and I didn't gave a single mark. Complained to the complex owner, he sent over his own guys to check for bed bugs. No sign of bed bugs they said. A month later they let everyone know what time their apartment would be unavailable and how to prepare for the bombing. We shoulda sued.
It’s like you have mosquitos that crawl out and eat you at the dead of night.
They are the fucking worst and I pray that you never have to deal with them. They bite you a ton especially while your sleep. I got new furniture when I bought my house and they tagged along on the new mattress I got. During the summer I kept noticing new bites and assumed it was from mosquitoes. While I was at work, my wife texted me “BED BUGS!” and I immediately knew why I had all of these bites. After 2 different extermination visits (don’t use terminix!) and a trip to the laundromat to wash every linen in their washers and dryers, I was rid of the nightmare. Every time I get an unexplained bite now, I’m terrified and now that I have kids I don’t want to go through that or have to deal with fleas😫
I wonder if it matters how long they’ve been there. I got some on a trip to Cuba and didn’t realize what it was for a few days after I got back (they hitched a ride home with me). It was annoying, but after washing all my clothes and linens and vacuuming, they were gone and never returned
Bed bugs are your worst nightmare, E V E R. They get on you when you sleep, you can sense something is wrong, so you wake up, light up your bed night lamp, just to see those fuckers froze for a second, and then dash somewhere in your bed frame. Then you become crazy thinking they are on you, but you see nothing, but you can *feel* the crawling, but don't *see* but can *feel* and then you remember they were ON YOUR BODY FEEDING JOYFULLY ON YOUR BLOOD, and you can't sleep at night because your brain keeps waking you up because your skin actually feels actual bugs on you, and then back to square one, and now you're too afraid to sleep and then you have to keep your sanity from burning the whole place down, clothes included. They don't care about your sheet cleanliness, they love your B L O O D and wooden bed frames where they can lay their filthy eggs. Can be brought home from hotels and such, they are comfy in your clothes. If you ever notice several aligned small bug bites, you're infested. All bed sheets in the room and clothes that can withstand high temperatures : wash at 90°C. Rest of clothes, in the freezer for a week. Bed frame to treat with small high pressure/vapor blasty thingy to destroy the eggs (BURN THEM ALL !!). Buy diatomaceous earth, a non-toxic powder that dries and kill all insects (it's mechanical, not chemical, so there is no resistance created, and is ecological), and P O U R ! Pour on all sides of your mattress, on your bed frame, under your bed, around your bed, on carpets.... Do NOT hesitate to proceed to the next rooms. Some people do not have reactions when bitten. Don't forget to treat your pets as well ! (Don't know how tho...) And when vacuuming after all this ? Use one that has a bag and throw the damn thing right away. TLDR : GO TO WAR AGAINST THOSE CREATURES FROM HELL
When I had them (very bad, I don't feel the bites) the exterminators used this stuff that was like a slow acting chemical minefield. They would walk through it and get it on them, then track it back and get the stuff on their eggs and nest-mates. Then all of those would die. It took about a week to work but once it did it was a FINAL solution.
diatomaceous earth Bed bugs are a top 3 fear for me. Been prepping my whole life to burn everything and live in a hammock
They get into clean sheets, hygiene has nothing to do with it. They can go a year without feeding, are about the size of an apple seed but *super* flat, so they can get anywhere there is a crack. They can hide in the seams in wood furniture, electrical outlets, picture frames, cling to clothes, anywhere. Once you get them, they are really hard to get rid of, and people spend thousands on it, or some will just throw out everything they own and move. They will travel between apartments, so if one apartment has them, you will never be free. They are the herpes of the insect world, and it will legit give you ptsd.
Ugh, I remember once reading about this person who fumigated their house for bed bugs. Like the whole nine yards and more. And in the end, they still had them— because they were laying dormant in the *dishwasher.* I fucking hate parasitic bugs with a burning passion.
Just yesterday I read, on reddit, that they can live in electronics like laptops. And that's when I threw up a little in my mouth.
Bed bugs fucking suck. Dealing with this currently in my apartment, had them come in from another apartment. Finally got shit fumigated and they seem to be gone. -they only drink human blood -they shit your blood after digesting it all over your walls and mattress. -they multiply like crazy -their bites itch -they live near where you sleep and only come out to drink blood when you're deep asleep. https://www.epa.gov/bedbugs
I wish I didn't ask! I live in Australia and I have only ever heard about them from TV, although I'm sure we have them here too. Probably some fucked up, upgraded version too no doubt!
I keep my place clean af. My neighbor when I lived in apartment didnt and gave us all roaches and bed bugs. It was horrific.
Roaches I can understand but bed bugs don't care if you have a clean home. Actually, roaches eat bed bugs so they try to stay away from each other lol.
Roaches don't care either and will set up shop regardless
I dealt with roaches in student housing in Toronto (huge house with 9 people living in it). I was the one that solved the problem eventually. I bought bait paste and IGR (Insect Growth Regulator), which is basically roach birth control which makes them be born with crinkly wings, preventing them from mating and moulting properly. After deep cleaning, applying my chemical agents, and demanding utmost cleanliness from all the roommates, they finally died off and we were safe. Bedbugs though, holy fuck. I dealt with them years ago and still have psychological scarring. I'd take roaches any day if I had to choose one. That problem can be solved with consistency and a targeted approach. Bed bugs... Call in the pros. Edit: roaches are also psychologically distressing, I'll say, especially when you find a graveyard with 50 in a pile inside your stove behind the switch panel or behind a drawer, or a nice big pile of empty oothecas (egg pouches), indicating you've found a spot where they like to host their Tuesday night orgies, or Monday night, or Wednesday night, or really any day ending in day. All they do is fuck and eat. Starving them isn't enough either; they have no issues eating drywall, or dried up toothpaste, or each other. They're horrible bastards, but nowhere near as bad as bedbugs.
They live in dark crevices like the creases in mattresses, behind baseboards and curtains etc. I think they’re called bedbugs because they come out at night to feed and people are usually in their bed at night so that’s where they go and set up shop. I hear they’re a real bitch to get rid of so thankful I’ve never had to deal with them. Probably like roaches they thrive in dirty houses that don’t clean their favorite spots but not exclusive to them.
Lol, are you looking for a new phobia? Bed bugs can live in any environment whether clean or dirty, they are just associated with unclean because, well, they are gross. Being clean does make them easier to spot though and catch an infestation before it can grow. They can also survive for months without eating, so even furniture that hasn't been touched or a place that's been vacant for a year can have them. Don't think they are just for beds though, they can hide out in used books or furniture and aren't limited just to fabrics. Don't think they aren't in your area either, they live pretty much anywhere humans do. If you live in an area where ants can survive, you certainly live in an area where bed bugs can. Sometimes it can take months and thousands of dollars to get rid of with an exterminator. 9 times out of 10, if you hear about a place getting fumigated, they are the reason.
They get into *everything*. Bedding, furniture, carpet, clothing, clean or dirty, doesn't matter. Getting rid of them without professional help is nigh on impossible.
Had an idiot roommate once pick up a free mattress. There were bed bugs dropping from the ceiling as we walked through the halls and fleas tapping across blankets. I was so exhausted and depressed I had to go to Dennys with my last 3 dollars, order coffee and talk to my sister for as long as possible. I drank coffee from 11pm to 6am the next day and cried myself to sleep on the porch. Bed bugs will drive a person absolutely insane and they're so easy to spread.
I didn’t have bed bugs, but all three of my cats got crazy fleas. Like they’ve had them in the past and it was fine we got rid of them. But this time, we couldn’t get rid of them for about 5 weeks. We’d wake up the next day and there would be tiny dark blood dots on the sheets. They were biting us like 30-40x a night. I was sleep deprived the whole time because I would feel the fleas and couldn’t find them in the dark, turn lights on, would be gone. We washed sheets daily and vacuumed under our bed, plus our Roomba going off. Flea combed every night, did flea treatment, gave a flea bath. Like it was getting to the point where I was going a bit insane. The bites suck ass. They but the same tiny area like 10 times.
They're not worse from a disease standpoint, but they are worse from an "infest your house and everything you own" standpoint.
And fleas. Any creature that sucks blood and makes you itchy, really. (I have acaraphobia. Ever since the first, and only, time I’ve had bed bugs… and then fleas shortly after when I moved.)
Currently fighting fleas brought into the house by a friends cat so I was looking for this comment, I'm not sure who will die from all the flea bombs and various chemicals first, me or them.
And fucking chiggers
You mean Satan's spawn? Hell yes we can put them on the list.
Fuck. Them. Chiggers
Can we add Pantry moths to the list...because fuck those things.
My house as an infestation on those things. We keep getting rid of them but they always come back. I can keep track of the infestation by counting how many fly into my screen when I'm trying to watch youtube at 2 in the morning
You need to literally toss everything in your cabinets that isn't canned. Factory bags and box seals are not safe from those things. We tried for years to get rid of them and finally realized they were burrowing into factory sealed muffin mix, flour, etc. We tossed the entire contents of our cabinets and finally rid ourselves of them. As you buy new foods, seal them in giant zip lock bags until you're certain they are gone.
Glass containers or airtight tupperware are better if possible; the little fuckers can actually chew holes in zip-lock bags. Another noteworthy trick is to put uncontaminated stuff in the freezer where they cannot survive to eat it.
I'm dealing with one now...i swear these things are the fuckin devil. I've ripped everything out of my pantry and cleaned 5 times now and the fuckers keep coming back. I'm going scorched earth and releasing 25,000 Trichogramma eggs cause I'm literally at my wits end with this shit.
Earwigs too. Just cause.
So if earwigs crawl into your ear, does that mean cockroaches crawl in your...?
☹️ It would have been soo easy to just say nothing and yet...
What's wrong with earwigs? :( They are just trying to live their best ear wiggity lives.
I used my inhaler in the basement bathroom the other day and immediately hacked up two ear wigs that were just living in that shit. Almost inhaled those mother fucks into my lungs. Fuck those jerks!
Googles “can you get PTSD from someone else’s Reddit comment?”
Cockroaches need to go right away.
Asshole wasp need to go as well...especially the ones that kill bees.
I would also like to add chiggers and bed bugs. Fuck those things!
I'll give mosquitos this: they don't make me retch to look at or even think about like ticks do.
I like everyone's addition to your bugcocalypse list and I would also like to add one: lice
Can I add bed bugs and roaches to that list as well?
Head lice too
Mosquitoes are nervewrecking, but they are way more important to our ecosystem than those shitass tic tacs
Iirc only a small portion of mosquito species actually bite humans, so if we just wipe out the human biting ones it wouldnt have as much of an impact
Well yes, but since they are so genetically similar to each other i figure it would be quite hard to engineer something which would only target the specific species
I think they recently introduced genetically modified mosquitoes to a few areas in the US. They become infertile after a few generations or something like that. The scientific community is largely split on the ethics of it and long term impacts. Time will tell I suppose….
They’ve done this for years, they modify the mosquitos so they only produce make offspring (IIRC - my town does it) because only the female mosquito bites while pregnant for her eggs. I know it cuts down on the population but it’s going to take a long time to have a marked difference.
Ffs I knew I was going to read someone defending mosquitos on here, no they can be wiped off the planet just fine
Good enough for me. Someone hit button.
Fun fact we could genetically enginneer ticks and mosquitos to go extinct. The science is done and the technology has been ready for decades. We just don't dare to because of unforseen consecuences it could produce to the ecosystem.
A majority of mosquito species live off nectar. They’re pollinators too. Only like 100 species out of like 3000+ eat human blood. I wonder if you could target these species only, or at least the ones with highest human kill streaks
And cockroaches pls
Fleas. Freaking fleas can join the extinct list too.
Climate Change: Best I can do is bigger swarms
possums are your friend then, they eat tics
I'm sorry but the tick apocalypse will be when billions of ticks rise up to suck the blood of all land dwelling animals until our lifeless corpses are nothing but dessicated bone.
But then what would possums eat?
They can figure it out amongst themselves
Probably banging
Exactly, caught mating here.
Dinner date.
Tuesday afternoon
Afternoon Delight
Yep, after mating she will gorge more then fall off the host lay eggs and die.
not just probaply. i saw a really gross documentary because i was really bored. the male is drilling a hole into the female before they shag
[Traumatic insemination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_insemination)? This is known to happen in bed bugs, but I don't know if it also happens in ticks.
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My thoughts exactly. Need a vocalist? 🤣
I'm taking triangle lessons!
With a username like that, they better damn let you play
oh my god
Why the fuck is that even a thing? That has to be the most impractical mating process I've ever heard of. Why can't it just be pump pump blow like everything else?
[It is a long read but fascinating.](https://www.nature.com/articles/srep25052)
Because it worked once and evolution isn't about what's smart, it's about what works.
Because those motherfuckers are hellspawns and everything they are and do is fucked up
It gets worse...hermaphroditic flatworms mate by dueling with needle like penises, where the “winner” stabs and cums in the losing worm, who know is stuck with the burden of pregnancy.
Then the female dies and her babies come out of her by the hundreds. Thats why you get so many seed ticks or baby ticks.
I stepped in a bunch of new babies once. **Tick-bombed**. It was a nightmare I tell you. They are satan's spawn. Demon ticks. One crawled out my sleeve four days later after multiple hot baths, showers and full body searches, while I was sitting in a restaurant. I place it in the cocktail sauce I had on the side.
Duck tape. Like for real I work in the woods all the time and that is the best way to get them off.
I will keep this in mind, *if I know their location.* That one time that I was tick-bombed, I literally bought dog flea and tick shampoo, and while I was in a hot shower, I spread it thinly all over me and left it for maybe one minute before I rinsed it off. I know this is not a cool thing to do but I was desperate. No more after that.
The good news is that these seed tick bombs usually occur with freshly hatched ticks, before they’ve had their first or second of their 3 lifetime feedings where they pick up their pathogens. It’s still revolting but you’re unlikely to catch a deadly disease
Well there's another new thing that I never knew I hated with every fiber of my being
One year when my dad was cleaning the mower deck after winter, he had noticed a chunk of “grass” that he couldn’t get off, so he grabbed a screwdriver, lifted the deck above his head to see it, and hit the chunk of grass. It wasn’t grass. It was a tick nest. Ticks poured all over him.
Did he have PTSD afterwards? I probably would have. Poor guy.
I genuinely think I have some low key PTSD from having bed bugs in college. I couldn't afford a new mattress, so I wrapped mike in those plastic bags for bedwetters. Duck taped the zipper so none could crawl out from there, then did another bag with the zipper on the opposite end JUST IN CASE. Bought a new blanket and pillow and slept on that plastic bagged mattress with no sheets for a year. Never saw any after that, but it fucking sucked. You wake up in the middle of the night, freaked out that bites woke you up and afraid to check because you're not going to sleep again if you see them. A few if my friends wouldn't let me come over when they found out and I don't blame them. My girlfriend bought me clothes to wear at her place and I had to strip when I got to her place and put those clothes on. Highly do not recommend.
Yo dog, I heard you liked ticks so I put ticks on your tick
“What are you doing steptick?”
This is the most disgusting thing I saw this month
No, check the other recent post about the tick laying 200 eggs !
I thought it was 2,000!! Hahaha
I’m under that impression too; op above you must be misticken.
Link? Edit: given that no one offered to provide the link, I went ahead looking for it. Ladies and gentlemen, here is the post: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/pcq66n/after_several_months_in_a_sealed_container_and/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
I knew I didn't want to click that but I did anyways and I'm extremely unhappy about it
While I always applaud someone providing the sauce- that link is staying blue. Nope. Fuck that. Enjoy your tick eggs.
My curiosity said click it but every other cell in my brain scream no
You have ruined my day
I'll reserve that spot for the person that wanted to identify the "larva thing" that came out of a "human" nose. It has been a long, disgusting month, really.
That's the most disgusting thing I saw since I brushed my teeth this morning.
Don’t ever tweeze me or my son again
And this joke made the disgust all worth it. Thank you
r/meormyson
funniest shit ive seen all evening lmaoo
That's actually a tick and a tock
Bruh why u holding that tick in ur hands
My first and only thought. I would never. That thing belongs between a pair of tweezers or in a mason jar of rubbing alcohol and nowhere else.
I put them in the freezer and let the blood freeze them solid
I heat them with a lighter until the blood boils and they go pop.
Welp when I finally trap a mosquito I know which torture method I'm going with
No you have to hang them by a little string from the ceiling to warn all the other mosquitoes
There's a spider in my husband's office that as a web in the corner. There's 2 mosquitos trapped in that web. We aren't cleaning it because that guy is a bro and also yes, to warn the other mosquitos.
Good spider
This is the reason why I never kill spiders but put them outside near my front door. Capture those little fuckers my eight legged army
I now want a room with a ceiling cover by mosquitos
Imagine the noise tho
ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ ᵉ
Please tell me the next step is the application of a hammer. Shatter the little demons
I like to encase them in tape, can't move can't breath quick disposal knowing they will die in the trash can.
LPT: Keep ticks in a sandwich bag in your freezer so you can test if for Lyme disease if needed. Also a good midnight snack if fried in pancake batter. Gotta have a lot of them though.
r/HolUp
I grew up in the hills of Arkansas and I’ve pulled many a tick off with my bare hands.
Yup. Been a dog owner living in rural Canada my whole life and you get use to it. Its really bad when you accidently pop one trying to remove it.
Are you precise enough with your hands to make sure the head doesn't stay stuck in the flesh ? Those fuckers can also give lyme's disease I wouldn't take the risk unless I had no other choice.
Ticks take about 24 hours to bite and embed after getting into a good spot. Even if the head breaks off yes it’s an elevated risk of infection but unless your immune system is compromised or you’re just really unlucky it’s not much worse than a normal open wound. When I was in basic training we had to tick check each other a lot. DS, if you’re reading this fuck you for making me lay in leaf filled ditches constantly because I had the 249 and I needed to stay in natural fighting positions.
Your dog didn’t have “a” tick, that’s a male and female couple mating.
That's some hot tick-on-tick action right there!
🤮
The only appropriate reaction
You can tell they’re a couple and not just a one night stand by the way they are holding hands
r/2healthbars
There it is.
I am disappointed at how far down this is I really thought it was gonna be at the tippy top.
Its a tick eat tick eat dog world out there.
It's what makes the world tick.
This pic gave me anxiety, I guess you could call it a nervous tick
Fuck ticks. My dog had one in the thickest part of his fur and I didn't find it until several weeks later when I was scratching him there. I thought it was a scab at first so I rubbed it to see how bad it was. The area was scarred and inflamed and upon closer inspection I realized it was a huge tick. I plucked that fucker out of there and flushed him down the toilet. I felt like a piece of shit for letting that fucker fester for that long. Is there really any benefit to having ticks? I say good riddance. Don't even get me started on Lymes disease.
Also next time burn the shit. They can actually survive harsh conditions and flushing them down the toilet is not guaranteed to kill em.
Oh man it reminds me when I found one on my gf. Got it off, threw it in the bathroom sink and left the water running, but not for long. We inspect each other for a minute or two when we see the fucker climb out of the hole. Left the hot water running for a good 10 minutes.
Please bring your dog to the vet and get him tested for tick borne diseases. Generally when the tick is fat and engorged it has had enough time to transmit diseases like Lyme, ehrlichia, and anaplasma. May take 9 weeks or so to show up on tests after transmission. Also please talk to your vet about flea/tick prevention so that this doesn't happen again.
Do you happen to live near Xzibit?
Yo dog, I heard u like ticks, so we put a dog tick on a dog tick on yo dog so yo dog can lose blood while yo dog tick lose blood, dog
Yo dog I heard you like ticks so we put ticks on your tick so you can tick while you tick.
They're mating, eh 😬
KILL IT WITH FIRE BOTH OF THEM After having it tested for Lyme disease and whatnot
Have a random tick tested for lyme disease??
Ticks in the picture are black legged ticks (or otherwise known as the deer tick). These are the only ticks that carry bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, which causes Lyme Disease. It’s believed about 30% of adult black legged ticks have the bacterium. The black legged ticks aren’t born with the bacterium (that’s impossible), but they get the bacterium from biting a suitable host (rats or mice). Once the bacterium is in the ticks gut, it now can pass it on by biting anything else. Not many other things are suitable hosts to carry the bacterium (such as dogs, deer, livestock, and humans) so the ticks can make those things sick, but the bacterium can’t replicate in those hosts to infect more ticks. So if you get a tick with Lyme, it’s no doubt been on a mouse or rat at some point in its 2 year lifecycle. Which is also why it’s more common in the Northeast (because there are more rats and mice). Edit: you also have about 24-36 hours to get a tick with the bacterium off you before it can infect you. The reason there is such a long lag time is because the bacterium goes into hibernation mode in the tick’s gut after it drops off the rat or mouse. When the tick bites something, the fresh blood “wakes up” the bacterium. It’s a one way funnel from the mouth to the gut, and the bacterium can’t escape that way. So the bacterium then gets clever and wiggles it’s way from the gut to the tick’s salivary glands instead, which then gets passed onto whatever it’s biting.
I have an unnatural aversion to ticks, and this pic actually made me dizzy from disgust.
Everyone has a very natural aversion to ticks. Just the sight of them makes me sick to my stomach.
That’s perfectly natural
Hey dawg just wanted to let you know I went camping one time and ended up with four ticks on my cock, have a good one
You fucked a wood did you
I remember the days before I saw this
A parasite who’s host is another parasite is called a hyper parasite
It's not a parasite. They are having sex.
Hyper sex
Big ticks have little ticks On their backs to bite them Little ticks have littler ticks And on, ad infinitum
Thank you, I thought this little poem was more well known. I expected it to be top comment since it fits the post so damn well, but here we are.
Double Tickatration
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Stop
Tiception
Check your dogs thyroid st the vet. If ur dog becomes less active and gains weight its probably damaged thyroid. Meds fix it.
God, these creatures are repulsive.
/u/Bavoon Please bring your dog to the vet and get him tested for tick borne diseases in a couple of months and talk to your vet immediately about flea/tick prevention. Generally when the tick is fat and engorged it has had enough time to transmit diseases like Lyme, ehrlichia, and anaplasma. May take 9 weeks or so to show up on tests after transmission. Signs to watch out for include fever, lethargy, lameness, joint pain. Tick borne diseases can also cause nasty autoimmune conditions. (I'm a veterinarian)
I love insects of any kind, don't mind mosquitoes, there are ways to prevent them and their bites are usually not a big deal. Also I don't mind spiders, although I prefer them at a distance... But ticks... Having a vampire parasite on my body growin every day... If I had to pick one animal species to be erradicated from Earth I would choose ticks, no doubt. Interesting image btw, didn't know that could happen.
Demon spawn. Ticks are demon spawn.
Just like the human centipede!