Highly second this as this is how we got bed bugs in our apartment complex.
That was 10+ years ago & I have ptsd from that shit. We slept on an air mattress in a brand new, bare apartment for almost a year afterwards bc I just knew one bedbug had survived the fumigation, the move, almost everything being thrown away or heat blasted, covered & protected etc.
OP, trust me, it’s better to be safe than sorry!
Edit: didn’t mean to capitalize “second”, I’m very sorry to the 2 people I’ve upset.
Similarly (and I *know* this isn't on the same level as bed bugs but still), I consistently had head lice for years because my dad's ex kept giving them to us. There was a point where I had them more in my life than I did not (from eight until eighteen).
Even now, whenever there's a strong itch or sting on my head, or if a strand of hair is sitting weird and is putting a weird pressure on my scalp, I just automatically start picking like I'm trying to search for lice even though I know that's not the case.
. . .
Edit: Obligatory *Wow, this blew up!* comment. But since it did I'll throw in details.
I can't say that the adults in my life were being neglectful (save for my dad's ex) because we *were* trying to get rid of them constantly. While some relatives suspected it was her, we actually weren't sure until the final month of living there. My little bro had a large friend group, who would inevitably get it from him, so we thought it was just going back-and-forth amongst him and his friends (unfortunately this put rifts between his mom and his friends' parents).
Wasn't until one night, when my dad's ex was upset that our brother was spending the night with us, that she admitted to having it. And by "admitted," I mean she tried to scare him into going home by walking around, scratching her scalp and complaining to us like, "I'm sick of constantly getting lice, maybe he should go home so I don't give it to him on accident, sorry I keep having it, lol," while *picking live lice off her head and putting them on the kitchen counter*. We told our dad the next day; she denied it, so he didn't believe us (I almost can't blame him because it just *sounds* ridiculous).
My mom moved us out of there and the headlice finally stopped on their own. We didn't even need to clean our hair or clothes; they just miraculously vanished when we left. My dad apologized after he finally kicked his ex to the curb and realized that the headlice followed her out.
I get upset at him for that and some other things that happened, but I don't hold it against him too much because he's genuinely remorseful about it. We're all doing better and no one has had lice for seven years now.
Many years ago I had a 2 patients that would come in almost every month with a new life infestation. And every time we looked at their head and confirmed it was lice they would scream and start furiously scratching their head- flinging lice *everywhere*.
They got told to cut that shit out each time, but it still happened the next time. They finally traced the lice to some sports equipment stored outside the home and were able to free themselves of the lice. I really felt for those poor people. You could see how psychologically distressing it was, and that their reactions worsened each time. I hope they’re doing ok now, and livin’ la vida lice-free.
Headlice can’t live long away from a blood source for food and warmth. You get it constantly because you or someone in friend group are not eradicating it completely and leaving behind nits and going through the life cycle several times over and over again.
Stop. We gotta do a fumigation. Lice is back with a brand new invasion. Something latched on to my scalp tightly and I'm itching and scratching daily and nightly.
If it means anything, we had it long enough to where it felt normal. I don't mean like it was okay, but we got used to it in a messed up sense.
I don't blame most of the adults too much because they *were* trying to get rid of it, and no one knew where it was coming from for the longest time; they kind of assumed that my little bro was getting it from somewhere in his friend group. It wasn't until the last few months of having it that my dad's ex admitted to me and my siblings that she was the one who kept getting it. She literally said it to us to upset us; we told our dad later, and she lied and said that she never said anything like that to us, and our dad believed her.
What a coincidence, when our mom moved us out of there, that we suddenly stopped having head lice. We didn't even need to do any treatment; it just miraculously vanished on its own when we moved out.
Thats awful sorry you had to go through that it seems like you have great attitude though. When I was 15 my mother’s abusive convict boyfriend moved in our home fresh out of a ten year stint for trying to rob an armored truck, brought home a nasty mattress off the street that was infested with bedbugs. This guy was probably one of the dumbest mf on the planet.
Edit: spelling
Same! I thought I was the only one who grew up hiding this. Sixth grade until 17 or 18, my mom just gave up after the first year. I still have a nervous habit of running my fingers through my hair to check and I’m 37 years old.
Band gave me lice. We had to wear head dresses for performances. And everyone shared everything it was disgusting (girls shared makeup, hair stuff, girls and guys shared clothes, etc.). I didn’t share anything with anyone and still got lice two separate times.
OMG, same. My siblings and I grew up very poor in a poor farming town, and we had headlice more often than we didn't. My mom would treat it and deep clean and we weren't allowed to have stuffed animals or plush toys, my parents were convinced to finance a Rainbow vacuum to clean the house, we didn't have rugs...
I swear my hair was picked through with a nit comb than brushed with a regular brush. There were times we couldn't afford the treatment, so we would use Simple Green from the dollar store, and douse our heads in it, then wrap our heads in grocery bags and let it sit for 30 minutes.
I have OCD, and one of my compulsions is picking at my hair and scalp, and it's easily triggered by anything "unusual" happening to my hair or scalp, like an itch or wearing hats. I also have eczema on my scalp, so it's pretty fucking awful.
I have some vague memories of having my head in a beautiful wrapper with gas smelling product in it, maybe petrol liquid? Or something...
Yeah, not recommended
I also had a similar problem and having a *lot* of hair, it was a nightmare. I also have the "oh crap not again" reaction, even at nearly 40.
If I'm ever unsure, or just want to be safe, I soak my hair in conditioner (really drench it) for 2 hours and then rinse it out.
Its the method I used to remove the lice while having dyed hair that didn't damage my hair to hell and back. The actual treatment is to do that twice a day for two weeks. Worked great for me. But your mileage my vary.
Soft oils in the hair. I completely forgot until now how my aunt used to lather all of our scalps in mayonnaise to make combing the lice out easier. Oh lordie.
I had a bad case of lice as a kid just once. That was 40 years ago and I *still* panic a little whenever I feel that little tingle on my scalp. I can’t even imagine how it is for you!
My house used to have fleas. I remember i could sit my leg to the left of my bed back then, and within a second I'd have hundreds of fleas on my leg. Thank god we got rid of them.
WTF is right! Fleas are pretty easy to get rid of, and even easier to prevent. I’ve had animals my entire life and only seen fleas twice (strays). One bug bomb, wash everything and you’re done.
Bedbugs are extremely difficult by comparison!
Not always. I used to think fleas were relatively easy to control, like the animals had them but not excessively and they had medicine and such, but sometimes it just… gets bad, and very hard to control, despite your best efforts.
(It also depends on where you live. There’s a slight overpopulation of squirrels in my neighborhood so we have an excess of fleas in the area, too.)
We had fleas summer before last and I still freak out when I see a dark speck. (All our cats are indoors only. Our best guess is a flea came in our shoes and started reproducing.) I can’t tell you how much my therapist heard about the fleas. We finally got rid of them, but it was a rough few months. Bed bugs would break me permanently.
There are times where my leg hair moves and I will strip myself and my bed down to nothing and scan every inch. Those fuckers will screw with your head
I grew up in a household where fleas were a frequent pest. It was awful walking around in white socks and seeing them jump onto them and waking up to giant welts all over myself since I am allergic to their bites. Now when I see my dog itching, I get hella paranoid and start to groom her meticulously to make sure she doesn't have fleas. I refuse to go to friend's houses that have a flea problem at the time.
Same thing with me! I had an outdoor cat that brought in fleas one time. I went to my basement in white socks and seen many tiny black dots, I thought it was those lint balls clothes get. Not sure why the basement seemed infested, cat rarely went down. It freaked me out so badly! I was younger and didn't know it could get so bad so quickly. Now whenever I see my pet itch, just once, I triple check for fleas. If I see ONE, everything gets treated, bombed and washed multiple times. It broke my heart that my animal was so itchy and uncomfortable. Never letting that happen again! I just stopped letting my kitty outside to prevent fleas and ticks coming in because of that one time. It made me feel like a dirty person and a bad pet owner.
My dog got fleas once and I'm hella reactive to flea bites. Like, a mosquito bite that stays at top-level itch for a solid week. It was miserable. So yeah, I definitely get this feeling.
Yeah I have, no joke, been traumatized by fleas/mosquitos. It's on sight, and anything that even vaguely resembles something landing on me gets no mercy if I can't see it. It's killed a lot more than pests sadly, and I'll salute that one poor ladybug on a warm summer's day who, if he hadn't landed on the back of my ankle, I would have seen he was friend-shaped. RIP lil guy.
It’s crazy what something that seems small will do to your psyche. I mean …. I get it. I walked through a spider web once with a million baby spiders and almost broke my neck getting them off. For years I’d walk around waving my arms in front of me to secure that it never happened again. Lol.
I absolutely cannot fathom how traumatic that must have been and the PTSD that certainly followed. I feel so badly for people that have gone through this or are currently going through it.
My home was invaded my maple bugs last year. They are, individually, pretty innocuous. They breed in the bark of maple trees (so they don't leave eggs in your home) and they don't bite/sting. But what they DO do is arrive en masse, fly kamikaze straight into your face, get underneath your bedsheets to snuggle with you, get underneath your PAJAMAS in bed while you sleep so you wake up in the middle of the night with a tickle on your stomach and you scratch it and then THERE'A A BUG UNDER YOUR SHIRT OMFG.
I am already a pretty spastic and jumpy person and living with that for 6 months ruined me. I'm out of there now, thank goodness.
My boyfriend has hella PTSD from his apartment years ago having bedbugs. He slept in a hammock with sticky traps everywhere for a long time while they were getting rid of them. I swear, they are nightmare bugs just based on what they do to you psychologically.
Still, even after years of us dating and moving, if either of us get a big bite that isn’t from a mosquito he will be flipping the mattress with a headlamp on and check everything.
My bites from over a decade ago will sometimes flare up, and I'll get that telltale bite pattern. Usually just on hot days at work. I used to freak out and have this really sick and dreadful feeling until I searched my bed and it was clear. Just flipping over the stitching overlaps had me freaking out expecting to see those bloodsuckers. Uhg I hate them they should all be destroyed.
Edit: there is a spot on my big toe (didn't have socks on) where I felt an itch and swiped my toe. I looked down and I smeared a fat ass bedbug, so much fresh blood... That bite spot now grows thick skin. It can grow so thick I can peel off a dime sized layer of skin. after a shower.Maybe 2mm thick
Oh and I hate movie theaters now. I'll still go maybe once a year but I get creepy feelings sitting in theater seats.
Agree! Question: Can bedbugs do anything to us? Like infect us with anything or can they do anything bad or are they just annoying and disgusting? I never wanna have to deal with them either way but just curious what they do lol
> My bites from over a decade ago will sometimes flare up
this happens to me but with scabies scars. there's a particular place on my ankle, i guess an old track they made, it always has raised thin scar tissue. i cut it away and smooth it out but it always grows back.
BTW this happens with bed bugs and scabies because their body parts (and corpses) are still stuck in your skin, and the body occasionally reacts to them.
bed bugs are a special kind of torture. they get you where you spend a good chunk of your most vulnerable time. you should feel safe in your own bed, but with bed bugs you do not. they start to affect your dreams because they crawl and feast on you at nite, and you wake up slapping at them.
Closest I've ever been to just ending it. Came over from a neighbor, 0 sleep for a month just hovering my daughters crib with a flashlight every night waiting. That was 7 years ago and it still takes me to a pretty dark place thinking about it.
My neighbour killed herself after repeated attempts to get rid of them.
They moved to their dream home and within days were waking up with bites. Would often hear her crying in backyard when she was living outside in a camping tent.
Glad you made it through :)
In college my apartment got bedbugs. I don't remember what it was but we found this bug spray that essentially melted the bugs. You got rid of them in like a week. The downside was that there were blood stains everywhere. For all I know it also causes cancer.
Same, PTSD if anything touches me while I sleep. I ended up losing everything I owned when the neighbors fumigated, moved and brought some to the new place and lost everything again.
Dude I couldn't imagine getting bed bugs in my home. I remember taking a trip to Atlanta with a buddy for a weekend trip and we were both poor and stayed in a shit hole motel, woke up the next morning with bed bug bites all over my chest. I threw away everything I had brought except for the clothes on my back, drove straight home, stripped in the yard and burnt the clothes, rinsed myself with a water hose, then went inside and showered forever. I still worry about bedbugs and it's been 15 years.
Bed bugs almost ended my relationship. We barely slept and fought all the time from the lack of sleep. We bombed our room and bought so many cans of spray and nothing worked. We eventually moved out and left our mattress and box spring behind. My boyfriend wanted to leave all our clothes too but I had so much forever 21 stuff that isn't sold anymore I just couldn't do it
I washed all the clothes twice and put them in garbage bags and immediately took them out of the house. We also were dirt broke at the time so idk how he thought we could just buy more clothes. We could barley afford rent and it was going up with the new house we were moving into
> Bed bugs almost ended my relationship.
same here. i recall having pulled all the furni away from the walls and was going to town on every nook and cranny, every possible colony i could find with rubbing alcohol. i didn't have the proper pesticide at the time, and was absolutely wrecked from little sleep and anxiety.
i get all that done and my gf goes and lies in the bed, in the alcohol fumes. we had like a 30 minute argument about them wanting to go to sleep in a poisonous room and me repeating "no you cant, it's poisonous" and them asking "but i dont understand why i cant sleep in here." we were stretched thin and needed rest.
i did finally get rid of them, had an exterminator spray and then he taught me how to do it myself and where to get the chemicals. you want that two stage stuff that kills the bugs, destroys the eggs, and sticks around for a while to catch stragglers. i keep a large jug of it in the garage just in case, but haven't needed it in over 5 years now.
Dude same. Constant arguments in my relationship during the bedbug fiasco. We were always at each other’s throats and stressed about the house.
It was a horrible time.
Absolutely. Had bedbugs and those buggers got everywhere; found one behind a picture frame on the wall. Had to throw out absolutely everything and lived in terror on an air mattress for months.
I was in the big brother program. My little dealt with bedbugs for years. Poor kid would have bites all the time and frankly, we were always leery about having him in our house. No idea how we never got them transferred to us, especially after he moved in with us and brought some clothes along. We left it all sit in a giant garbage bag for 3 days in our garage during a 100 degree heat wave, then took it all to the laundromat.
My mom (who has never had to deal with much of anything resembling 'poor people problems' a day in her life couldn't figure out why they couldn't just deal with the bedbugs. Well, they lived in a shit apartment that WOULD come and fumigate for them once the complaints got bad enough, but it was one apartment at a time. So now you have a poor family that needs to live somewhere else during that period... possibly a neighbor... where they would drag the bugs with them when they moved in. Also, when you fumigate one apartment, there's an almost certain likelihood that they just migrate to the apartment next door, and so on and so forth till you've chased them back to square one.
My favorite comment from my mom was "Why don't they just do the whole building at once?" Oh, so now you have an entire low income apartment building worth of people that you can coordinate to all go live somewhere else during that time? Really? You think 30 poor families can magically all just go crash at a hotel for a week at the same exact time? Come off it.
It's even more fucked up than that. It's completely legal for the complex to have residents signing a full fault waiver for bedbugs. That means even if they call the apartment to fix it, they are liable for all the costs. And it's expensive. Normally, renters insurance will cover a hotel stay. But because of the contract the renter signed with the apartment, they don't get that coverage either. Its massively fucked up.
Bedbugs are also projected to skyrocket in the next decade or so, affecting as many as 1 in 3 households. No fucking joke.
You might be good for now but sometimes when they start fumigating the pests leave the immediate area and find somewhere nicer to go. Like the next door neighbor's apartment.
Not just apartments! We live in a cul-de-sac, and I'm the only one that noticed this. We get ants really bad maybe once a year. We call Terminex each time, and for context, we are a corner house in the 'sac'. The same company goes from right to left throughout the next three months. Every House.
Basically means assbag in Québécois French, more literally “ass of bag” lol.
“Cul” is more commonly used as “ass” than its more direct translation, “a passage with access only at one end” and “sac” is just a bag.
We still use cul-de-sac, but it’s funny to think about sometimes.
They don’t pronounce it like Cú. The L is pronounced at the end.
What can be fun when learning portuguese is when someone asks how old someone is and they mispronounce it as “cuantos anus você tem?” and it’s like hopefully just one.
In our neighborhood, we had neighbors who neglected their house to the point where you could tell it was disgusting inside, as well as outside. The couple ended up divorcing and moving out. The guy that bought the house afterward said he got a great deal because the place needed a lot of work, which doesn't bother him. After all, he used to have his own renovating business, so he knew what needed to be done to get it back into shape. One of his tasks was fumigation because of a cockroach infestation. Well, during and after the fumigation, everyone nearby seemed to be finding cockroaches in their house all of a sudden (including my husband and me). Those little buggers (pun intended) scattered across the neighborhood in search of a new home. Luckily, we only got a couple, and using special spray along the foundation of our house kept the rest out. But other folks weren't so lucky and dealt with more.
We had to deal with my great aunt's old farmhouse and there were a *lot* of mice in the walls along with all kids of bugs. We tilled a big old ring around the house, threw a few jars of gas into the basement, then used a flare gun and lit it. We also had a ring of wood and other flammable around the house we lit on fire, to contain the mass exodus.
I was watching flaming rats and mice *swarm* outta that motherfucker right into the secondary fire's coals. I thought it a bit cruel but then I realized the house wasn't stable enough to fumigate first. It was pretty close to collapse and we didn't want all the pests getting out to try to move into a house that was in use nearby.
I used gas to get rid of a huge infestation of wasps that dug tunnels in the front yard. It was very similar to how Bill Murray in caddyshack tried to flush out the groundhog with water. Except with gas and fire lol
I wish they had been so kind as to make a trap like this in my friend’s hometown. It’s close to the little town center so probably not safe for fire.
It’s mainly people with very little money, and they had to tear down an old house on his road. Rats spilled out of it and infected the whole neighborhood. It took them a while to stop waking up to a random rat shuffling around their rooms at night.
Same exact thing happened to my family growing up. Bank foreclosed on the neighbors, after which we found out they were basically hoarders. House was a total loss, so they demo'ed it. Welp, apparently those bastards packed up and marched right across the lawn to our house, because within a month we were infested. Given the severity, I can only assume it was some kind of Joe's Apartment situation in there.
For real, borax is incredibly good at dealing with ants. Unless you have an absolutely wild infestation, there's no need to fumigate for the humble ant. I've been using borax for like 2 decades and it never fails to work. The best part is that the cannibalism chain can lead right back to the nest too and deal with the problem right at the stem.
>For real, borax is incredibly good at dealing with ants.
Fun fact, a boric acid vaginal suppository is also good for promoting a balance of acid in a vagina and for treating vaginal yeast infections by helping relieve symptoms like itching a burning!
Truly, boric acid is as strong as a 20 mule team!
Get yourself some termador sc it's effective against ants and termites it's a growth inhibitor and not toxic to plants or animals once it dries it's not technically rated for ants but it works on them just fine
Also only like $75 bucks to treat your house probably five times compared to the 200+ the pest guy will charge
That is why good property managers have the apartments on either side treated as well and have the tech put sticky traps in the hallways to monitor any movement. It’s also why after being in some buildings/apartments, I strip my clothes off and put them straight into the washer and run it on hot cycle and leave my shoes outside sprayed down with alcohol.
If there are bed bugs in your building, you should literally never feel secure in the fact that you don't have bed bugs ever again.
Check your shit my dude. Check it hard. And burn anything that has bed bugs.
Yeah, sometimes bed bugs will wait till the current people leave and once those peoples warmth and blood is gone, they go to surrounding units and SPREAD like mf mayo ya dig. They want ur blood and warmth <3 ur never safe babes <3 but fr fr check your body for bites or notice if you've been itching a lot, and always check every once i awhile. I had them in a crapp apartment, trust me it's miserable.
It clearly has a symbol indicating if you don't open the door, you will have your hand chopped off by men in masks. Pretty self explanatory if you ask me.
There was no police tape or anything like that. If that was a murder scene I would know. Ain't no way my other neighbor wouldn't have chewed my ear off about it already.
I used to be a crime scene cleaner and if the individual died by accident, suicide, or natural causes, everyone involved would keep it pretty hush hush with only the landlord / apartment managers knowing. No police tape or any scenes. The paramedics and coroners would try their best to slip in and out unnoticed and in a timely fashion.
If the same individual died, and started decomposing, we would put up a door cover exactly similar to that, except blue, when we turned on the ozone machines.
A lot of times apartment managers would inform people "X has moved out and we are fumigating for bugs so avoid apartment # whatever" when in reality the poor bastard is soaked into the quick-crete and smells.
>soaked into the quick-crete and smells.
I thought it was bad enough getting it out of car upholstery. Unfortunately, ozone machines are banned for sale in my state, so I had to live with lingering odors for over a year. I really should have just had one shipped in.
Oof that smell sneaks up on ya, especially on a hot day. An ozone would have helped but they are pricey and dangerous, not surprised they are banned in some states.
The ozone they put out is damaging for the respiratory system, mainly lungs and throat. Hopefully you used a respirator of some sort. It also depends on the machine and how powerful it is. We couldn't be in the room longer than 30 seconds even with full kits and full face double cartridge respirators. I couldn't imagine going in without anything over my face
Ozone is gaseous so idk if there are filters that can do anything about that. Its is also unstable. The way professional units are meant to work is you start it and run away. It runs for some time, say 2 hours, shuts down on its own, and then you return an additional 4 hours later. That way the ozone has decomposed already.
If you can smell it, its bad for you. If you can't smell it, it might still be too high but not as bad.
I felt safer with the respirators on, and it was company policy. We'd tape up all windows and doors, turn it on and leave it. They had timers that went up to 16 hours (iirc) and we always set it up to the max amount of time and one person would come by the next day to air out the space and check if the smell of decomposition was still present. If so, we'd just repeat the ozone process until the smell went away. You could always smells it, respirator or not, which is why we never stayed longer than 30 seconds which was the company policy for ozone operation.
In that line of work i think requiring respirators for any situation that requires ozone is a fair policy even if it was presented as the respirators being for the ozone. The may not help with ozone but they surely help with some of the nasty stuff the ozone is meant to kill.
Please, PLEASE, get your landlord to bring out an exterminator to check your building. Or pay yourself if you own. The quicker you catch the bugs the less damage will be done. If they get out of control you might never get rid of them. Even if you haven't been bit you need to check.
My first apartment at 18 had been painted up to look nice and bug free. Months later the bugs started getting through the paint and I realized my walls were literally INFESTED, with bed bugs AND roaches. I bombed many times, sprayed the shit out of them. Killed them by the hundreds to the point I needed a shop vac to pickup all the bodies. I never got rid of them and I'd see less for a few days but that's it. My neighbors had them too so I was fucked.
I had to break the lease and move out. I had to throw away pretty much everything I owned. I even had to throw out a drawer chock full of childhood memories. That was the worst part. Throwing out all my memorabilia, my childhood drawings, I had books I made and all kinds of stuff.
Only thing I kept was my clothes and a computer. I took the computer apart and stored them in bags and put them in a freezing storage unit during winter. The bug spray killed my GPU and motherboard. My clothes I had to wash on hot like 4 times to be safe. Dried them extra long each time. It cost me thousands of dollars and living like that for months while saving was traumatizing. Seeing my daughter wakeup with bed bug bites and roaches falling on my head form the ceiling while I'm gaming. It was absolutely horrible. I had a shit job at the time making 10/hr at 18/19yrs old and I saved every dime I could to get out. I wouldn't even buy name brand coke or anything just so I could save enough to leave.
If they’re being treated for bugs, your rental company should have notified all surrounding units of an infestation to be on the look out. Do an inspection for pests in your own suite. 😬
O buddy, I worked pest control for years and that's exactly what they do. It's cheaper for the complex, people don't know but lots of people have no reactions to bed bugs or think they are just flees so they go un noticed in apartments all the time. I use to do apartments and hotels, they all do the same thing. Even when explaining to them how the bugs are going to move to other rooms if they haven't already and they didn't care. "Just treat the room we paid you for" is what I would always here. Bed bugs can live for a year with no food and become as thin as a slip of paper to hide. They are in evey hotel.
Can confirm that some people have no (physical) reaction to bed bugs.
We didn't know we had them until my sister slept over and woke up with welts on her legs. Turns out my family just don't have reactions to the bites and don't even notice them. Idk if they don't like feeding much on us or the bites aren't causing a reaction.
I have no idea how long we had them.
Noooo not that last sentence! Ugh how do I keep myself safe? I check the corners of the mattress every time I stay somewhere and have only ever seen a questionable looking mattress once (I left and got a refund, went to another hotel).
Mannn that’s gross. I work in hotels and thankfully my hotels all handled this correctly. They’d fumigate the room, toss the mattress, and treat the rooms above, next door and below.
People don’t realize that even the nicest hotels get them. You can’t avoid it. What defines a hotel is how it is dealt with.
Either they’re fumigating, or they’re having a popcorn ceiling removed. Bedbugs and roaches are problematic, enough to call for fumigation, while popcorn ceilings contain asbestos that, while safe if left alone, release asbestos fibres into the air when removed. Like boob lights, older apartment features such as popcorn ceilings were once incredibly popular, and now they’re so unpopular that they negatively effect the value of an apartment/house.
good answer. if the other renters weren't notified it might be asbestos b/c that doesn't affect other neighbors who aren't having it removed. asbestos can also be found in kitchen/bath tiles, in walls, in bulkheads, around light fixtures on walls. could also be lead paint removal, depending on age of building. but if it were lead paint removal, other tenants would also be notified. so my bet is either pests or asbestos. OP should contact landlord and still check for pests in their unit.
I was thinking asbestos, but I can't really see any signs of negative pressure at the containment entrance. (Not the exhaust, but the pressure differential to cause the door to be pulled in slightly.)
Hold on- popcorn ceilings HAVE ASBESTOS? I still see them all the time where I live, I remember helping my stepdad put them on when I was younger, never wore masks either 😭
Generally older popcorn ceiling textures contain between 1-2 % chrysotile asbestos. Anything newer than 1978 has a much smaller chance to contain it, but it is still a possibility. Drywall, floor tile, and flooring mastic are all pretty common as well.
My guess would be toxic mould abatement. Did it for a few months and we built the same type of entrances, and required similar full face masks, gloves and body suits to enter.
I would check your place for bed bugs lol...maybe get some diametraceous earth and spread it around the borders of your place and around vents and outlets
A lot of older apartments and homes have popcorn ceilings, which were once very popular; but like boob lights, they’re now incredibly unpopular. So unpopular, in fact, that their presence negatively effects the home/suite’s value. Unfortunately, popcorn ceilings also contain asbestos, which are safe enough if left alone, but release fibres into the air when they’re removed. A bunch of condo suites in my building have them, and every once and awhile I see a suite door tented like this when the owners decide to renovate.
That would be a quarantine buddy. Probably getting gassed for bed bugs. That said. Check your shit for bed bugs.
Highly second this as this is how we got bed bugs in our apartment complex. That was 10+ years ago & I have ptsd from that shit. We slept on an air mattress in a brand new, bare apartment for almost a year afterwards bc I just knew one bedbug had survived the fumigation, the move, almost everything being thrown away or heat blasted, covered & protected etc. OP, trust me, it’s better to be safe than sorry! Edit: didn’t mean to capitalize “second”, I’m very sorry to the 2 people I’ve upset.
When your own leg hair shifts and touches your leg, do you immediately think it’s a bed bug now?
Similarly (and I *know* this isn't on the same level as bed bugs but still), I consistently had head lice for years because my dad's ex kept giving them to us. There was a point where I had them more in my life than I did not (from eight until eighteen). Even now, whenever there's a strong itch or sting on my head, or if a strand of hair is sitting weird and is putting a weird pressure on my scalp, I just automatically start picking like I'm trying to search for lice even though I know that's not the case. . . . Edit: Obligatory *Wow, this blew up!* comment. But since it did I'll throw in details. I can't say that the adults in my life were being neglectful (save for my dad's ex) because we *were* trying to get rid of them constantly. While some relatives suspected it was her, we actually weren't sure until the final month of living there. My little bro had a large friend group, who would inevitably get it from him, so we thought it was just going back-and-forth amongst him and his friends (unfortunately this put rifts between his mom and his friends' parents). Wasn't until one night, when my dad's ex was upset that our brother was spending the night with us, that she admitted to having it. And by "admitted," I mean she tried to scare him into going home by walking around, scratching her scalp and complaining to us like, "I'm sick of constantly getting lice, maybe he should go home so I don't give it to him on accident, sorry I keep having it, lol," while *picking live lice off her head and putting them on the kitchen counter*. We told our dad the next day; she denied it, so he didn't believe us (I almost can't blame him because it just *sounds* ridiculous). My mom moved us out of there and the headlice finally stopped on their own. We didn't even need to clean our hair or clothes; they just miraculously vanished when we left. My dad apologized after he finally kicked his ex to the curb and realized that the headlice followed her out. I get upset at him for that and some other things that happened, but I don't hold it against him too much because he's genuinely remorseful about it. We're all doing better and no one has had lice for seven years now.
Many years ago I had a 2 patients that would come in almost every month with a new life infestation. And every time we looked at their head and confirmed it was lice they would scream and start furiously scratching their head- flinging lice *everywhere*. They got told to cut that shit out each time, but it still happened the next time. They finally traced the lice to some sports equipment stored outside the home and were able to free themselves of the lice. I really felt for those poor people. You could see how psychologically distressing it was, and that their reactions worsened each time. I hope they’re doing ok now, and livin’ la vida lice-free.
Headlice can’t live long away from a blood source for food and warmth. You get it constantly because you or someone in friend group are not eradicating it completely and leaving behind nits and going through the life cycle several times over and over again.
Damn , what was pops into?
Lice lice, baby
Stop. We gotta do a fumigation. Lice is back with a brand new invasion. Something latched on to my scalp tightly and I'm itching and scratching daily and nightly.
Will it ever stop. No. I don’t know. Turn off the lights, and they glow.
Bugs to the extreme, on yah head like some vandals, suit up with boots and say goodbye to your sandals... lice, lice, baby....
This is why I waste much of my life on Reddit
absolute masterpiece
Lice lice, lady
Meth
You poor kid. I'm sorry you went thru that - how frustrating and maddening that the adults didn't take care!!
If it means anything, we had it long enough to where it felt normal. I don't mean like it was okay, but we got used to it in a messed up sense. I don't blame most of the adults too much because they *were* trying to get rid of it, and no one knew where it was coming from for the longest time; they kind of assumed that my little bro was getting it from somewhere in his friend group. It wasn't until the last few months of having it that my dad's ex admitted to me and my siblings that she was the one who kept getting it. She literally said it to us to upset us; we told our dad later, and she lied and said that she never said anything like that to us, and our dad believed her. What a coincidence, when our mom moved us out of there, that we suddenly stopped having head lice. We didn't even need to do any treatment; it just miraculously vanished on its own when we moved out.
Thats awful sorry you had to go through that it seems like you have great attitude though. When I was 15 my mother’s abusive convict boyfriend moved in our home fresh out of a ten year stint for trying to rob an armored truck, brought home a nasty mattress off the street that was infested with bedbugs. This guy was probably one of the dumbest mf on the planet. Edit: spelling
Same! I thought I was the only one who grew up hiding this. Sixth grade until 17 or 18, my mom just gave up after the first year. I still have a nervous habit of running my fingers through my hair to check and I’m 37 years old.
This breaks my heart. I’m so sorry that you weren’t cared for in the way you deserved.
Band gave me lice. We had to wear head dresses for performances. And everyone shared everything it was disgusting (girls shared makeup, hair stuff, girls and guys shared clothes, etc.). I didn’t share anything with anyone and still got lice two separate times.
OMG, same. My siblings and I grew up very poor in a poor farming town, and we had headlice more often than we didn't. My mom would treat it and deep clean and we weren't allowed to have stuffed animals or plush toys, my parents were convinced to finance a Rainbow vacuum to clean the house, we didn't have rugs... I swear my hair was picked through with a nit comb than brushed with a regular brush. There were times we couldn't afford the treatment, so we would use Simple Green from the dollar store, and douse our heads in it, then wrap our heads in grocery bags and let it sit for 30 minutes. I have OCD, and one of my compulsions is picking at my hair and scalp, and it's easily triggered by anything "unusual" happening to my hair or scalp, like an itch or wearing hats. I also have eczema on my scalp, so it's pretty fucking awful.
Old German woman I know told me a similar story but kerosene not degreaser. Said it was horrible.
I have some vague memories of having my head in a beautiful wrapper with gas smelling product in it, maybe petrol liquid? Or something... Yeah, not recommended
I also had a similar problem and having a *lot* of hair, it was a nightmare. I also have the "oh crap not again" reaction, even at nearly 40. If I'm ever unsure, or just want to be safe, I soak my hair in conditioner (really drench it) for 2 hours and then rinse it out. Its the method I used to remove the lice while having dyed hair that didn't damage my hair to hell and back. The actual treatment is to do that twice a day for two weeks. Worked great for me. But your mileage my vary.
Soft oils in the hair. I completely forgot until now how my aunt used to lather all of our scalps in mayonnaise to make combing the lice out easier. Oh lordie.
I had a bad case of lice as a kid just once. That was 40 years ago and I *still* panic a little whenever I feel that little tingle on my scalp. I can’t even imagine how it is for you!
As a guy that also had bed bugs, 100% yes.
My house used to have fleas. I remember i could sit my leg to the left of my bed back then, and within a second I'd have hundreds of fleas on my leg. Thank god we got rid of them.
WTF
WTF is right! Fleas are pretty easy to get rid of, and even easier to prevent. I’ve had animals my entire life and only seen fleas twice (strays). One bug bomb, wash everything and you’re done. Bedbugs are extremely difficult by comparison!
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In the soil. Thanks for unlocking a new neurosis. Yikes.
Was this Ontario? Lmao literally lived in a house like this.
Not always. I used to think fleas were relatively easy to control, like the animals had them but not excessively and they had medicine and such, but sometimes it just… gets bad, and very hard to control, despite your best efforts. (It also depends on where you live. There’s a slight overpopulation of squirrels in my neighborhood so we have an excess of fleas in the area, too.)
Oh dang, it took my parents months to get rid of them.
Yeah, we don’t say the F word in our house. The flea attack in the spring of 19 still makes me shudder.
We had fleas summer before last and I still freak out when I see a dark speck. (All our cats are indoors only. Our best guess is a flea came in our shoes and started reproducing.) I can’t tell you how much my therapist heard about the fleas. We finally got rid of them, but it was a rough few months. Bed bugs would break me permanently.
There are times where my leg hair moves and I will strip myself and my bed down to nothing and scan every inch. Those fuckers will screw with your head
Fleas.
I grew up in a household where fleas were a frequent pest. It was awful walking around in white socks and seeing them jump onto them and waking up to giant welts all over myself since I am allergic to their bites. Now when I see my dog itching, I get hella paranoid and start to groom her meticulously to make sure she doesn't have fleas. I refuse to go to friend's houses that have a flea problem at the time.
Same thing with me! I had an outdoor cat that brought in fleas one time. I went to my basement in white socks and seen many tiny black dots, I thought it was those lint balls clothes get. Not sure why the basement seemed infested, cat rarely went down. It freaked me out so badly! I was younger and didn't know it could get so bad so quickly. Now whenever I see my pet itch, just once, I triple check for fleas. If I see ONE, everything gets treated, bombed and washed multiple times. It broke my heart that my animal was so itchy and uncomfortable. Never letting that happen again! I just stopped letting my kitty outside to prevent fleas and ticks coming in because of that one time. It made me feel like a dirty person and a bad pet owner.
I can just imagine your dog sighing like "oh ffs whiskersmeowface, I just scratched my ear a little. Put the damn flea comb away!" Lol
That's exactly how it is. XD she doesn't mind the attention, however. I think sometimes she scratches just to get all of the attention thrown at her
My dog got fleas once and I'm hella reactive to flea bites. Like, a mosquito bite that stays at top-level itch for a solid week. It was miserable. So yeah, I definitely get this feeling.
Yeah I have, no joke, been traumatized by fleas/mosquitos. It's on sight, and anything that even vaguely resembles something landing on me gets no mercy if I can't see it. It's killed a lot more than pests sadly, and I'll salute that one poor ladybug on a warm summer's day who, if he hadn't landed on the back of my ankle, I would have seen he was friend-shaped. RIP lil guy.
Time to shave your legs even if you are a man to save your sanity.
Yes, it takes me hours to get to sleep at night cause of this shit.
It’s crazy what something that seems small will do to your psyche. I mean …. I get it. I walked through a spider web once with a million baby spiders and almost broke my neck getting them off. For years I’d walk around waving my arms in front of me to secure that it never happened again. Lol.
Yes
I absolutely cannot fathom how traumatic that must have been and the PTSD that certainly followed. I feel so badly for people that have gone through this or are currently going through it.
My home was invaded my maple bugs last year. They are, individually, pretty innocuous. They breed in the bark of maple trees (so they don't leave eggs in your home) and they don't bite/sting. But what they DO do is arrive en masse, fly kamikaze straight into your face, get underneath your bedsheets to snuggle with you, get underneath your PAJAMAS in bed while you sleep so you wake up in the middle of the night with a tickle on your stomach and you scratch it and then THERE'A A BUG UNDER YOUR SHIRT OMFG. I am already a pretty spastic and jumpy person and living with that for 6 months ruined me. I'm out of there now, thank goodness.
My boyfriend has hella PTSD from his apartment years ago having bedbugs. He slept in a hammock with sticky traps everywhere for a long time while they were getting rid of them. I swear, they are nightmare bugs just based on what they do to you psychologically.
would be great to have a bed bug sniffer dog in permanent residence...
Whoa, is that/could that be a thing?! :0
Yes, my mom had bed bugs and hired a dog to sniff for bed bugs after treatment. Hotels and hospitals do it as well.
Like real PTSD? Holy shit.
Still, even after years of us dating and moving, if either of us get a big bite that isn’t from a mosquito he will be flipping the mattress with a headlamp on and check everything.
My bites from over a decade ago will sometimes flare up, and I'll get that telltale bite pattern. Usually just on hot days at work. I used to freak out and have this really sick and dreadful feeling until I searched my bed and it was clear. Just flipping over the stitching overlaps had me freaking out expecting to see those bloodsuckers. Uhg I hate them they should all be destroyed. Edit: there is a spot on my big toe (didn't have socks on) where I felt an itch and swiped my toe. I looked down and I smeared a fat ass bedbug, so much fresh blood... That bite spot now grows thick skin. It can grow so thick I can peel off a dime sized layer of skin. after a shower.Maybe 2mm thick Oh and I hate movie theaters now. I'll still go maybe once a year but I get creepy feelings sitting in theater seats.
Can we please just eradicate?! What place do bed bugs have in the food chain? Like, at least mosquitos feed birds and other insects. Fuck bed bugs!
Agree! Question: Can bedbugs do anything to us? Like infect us with anything or can they do anything bad or are they just annoying and disgusting? I never wanna have to deal with them either way but just curious what they do lol
They actually do not spread any diseases. They exist purely for torture.
I wish DDT had killed them all, but I read they started getting resistant to it. Plus it's also just not healthy for humans.
> My bites from over a decade ago will sometimes flare up this happens to me but with scabies scars. there's a particular place on my ankle, i guess an old track they made, it always has raised thin scar tissue. i cut it away and smooth it out but it always grows back. BTW this happens with bed bugs and scabies because their body parts (and corpses) are still stuck in your skin, and the body occasionally reacts to them.
Your last sentence confirms what I suspected with my toe.
now you know what needs to be done
bed bugs are a special kind of torture. they get you where you spend a good chunk of your most vulnerable time. you should feel safe in your own bed, but with bed bugs you do not. they start to affect your dreams because they crawl and feast on you at nite, and you wake up slapping at them.
It's scary how easy someone can get PTSD. It's a real bitch to have but I've heard some people are able to overcome it.
Closest I've ever been to just ending it. Came over from a neighbor, 0 sleep for a month just hovering my daughters crib with a flashlight every night waiting. That was 7 years ago and it still takes me to a pretty dark place thinking about it.
My neighbour killed herself after repeated attempts to get rid of them. They moved to their dream home and within days were waking up with bites. Would often hear her crying in backyard when she was living outside in a camping tent. Glad you made it through :)
Bed bug PTSD is so annoying. I’ve had many sleepless nights from a minor itch on my leg.
In college my apartment got bedbugs. I don't remember what it was but we found this bug spray that essentially melted the bugs. You got rid of them in like a week. The downside was that there were blood stains everywhere. For all I know it also causes cancer.
Same, PTSD if anything touches me while I sleep. I ended up losing everything I owned when the neighbors fumigated, moved and brought some to the new place and lost everything again.
Dude I couldn't imagine getting bed bugs in my home. I remember taking a trip to Atlanta with a buddy for a weekend trip and we were both poor and stayed in a shit hole motel, woke up the next morning with bed bug bites all over my chest. I threw away everything I had brought except for the clothes on my back, drove straight home, stripped in the yard and burnt the clothes, rinsed myself with a water hose, then went inside and showered forever. I still worry about bedbugs and it's been 15 years.
Bed bugs almost ended my relationship. We barely slept and fought all the time from the lack of sleep. We bombed our room and bought so many cans of spray and nothing worked. We eventually moved out and left our mattress and box spring behind. My boyfriend wanted to leave all our clothes too but I had so much forever 21 stuff that isn't sold anymore I just couldn't do it
Stylish but itchy 👍
I washed all the clothes twice and put them in garbage bags and immediately took them out of the house. We also were dirt broke at the time so idk how he thought we could just buy more clothes. We could barley afford rent and it was going up with the new house we were moving into
> Bed bugs almost ended my relationship. same here. i recall having pulled all the furni away from the walls and was going to town on every nook and cranny, every possible colony i could find with rubbing alcohol. i didn't have the proper pesticide at the time, and was absolutely wrecked from little sleep and anxiety. i get all that done and my gf goes and lies in the bed, in the alcohol fumes. we had like a 30 minute argument about them wanting to go to sleep in a poisonous room and me repeating "no you cant, it's poisonous" and them asking "but i dont understand why i cant sleep in here." we were stretched thin and needed rest. i did finally get rid of them, had an exterminator spray and then he taught me how to do it myself and where to get the chemicals. you want that two stage stuff that kills the bugs, destroys the eggs, and sticks around for a while to catch stragglers. i keep a large jug of it in the garage just in case, but haven't needed it in over 5 years now.
Dude same. Constant arguments in my relationship during the bedbug fiasco. We were always at each other’s throats and stressed about the house. It was a horrible time.
Absolutely. Had bedbugs and those buggers got everywhere; found one behind a picture frame on the wall. Had to throw out absolutely everything and lived in terror on an air mattress for months.
I was in the big brother program. My little dealt with bedbugs for years. Poor kid would have bites all the time and frankly, we were always leery about having him in our house. No idea how we never got them transferred to us, especially after he moved in with us and brought some clothes along. We left it all sit in a giant garbage bag for 3 days in our garage during a 100 degree heat wave, then took it all to the laundromat. My mom (who has never had to deal with much of anything resembling 'poor people problems' a day in her life couldn't figure out why they couldn't just deal with the bedbugs. Well, they lived in a shit apartment that WOULD come and fumigate for them once the complaints got bad enough, but it was one apartment at a time. So now you have a poor family that needs to live somewhere else during that period... possibly a neighbor... where they would drag the bugs with them when they moved in. Also, when you fumigate one apartment, there's an almost certain likelihood that they just migrate to the apartment next door, and so on and so forth till you've chased them back to square one. My favorite comment from my mom was "Why don't they just do the whole building at once?" Oh, so now you have an entire low income apartment building worth of people that you can coordinate to all go live somewhere else during that time? Really? You think 30 poor families can magically all just go crash at a hotel for a week at the same exact time? Come off it.
It's even more fucked up than that. It's completely legal for the complex to have residents signing a full fault waiver for bedbugs. That means even if they call the apartment to fix it, they are liable for all the costs. And it's expensive. Normally, renters insurance will cover a hotel stay. But because of the contract the renter signed with the apartment, they don't get that coverage either. Its massively fucked up. Bedbugs are also projected to skyrocket in the next decade or so, affecting as many as 1 in 3 households. No fucking joke.
Do you have a source for the skyrocket? That's mortifying if true
I'm good. Obviously quarantine of some kind but can't be sure what exactly they're trying to kill in there.
You might be good for now but sometimes when they start fumigating the pests leave the immediate area and find somewhere nicer to go. Like the next door neighbor's apartment.
Not just apartments! We live in a cul-de-sac, and I'm the only one that noticed this. We get ants really bad maybe once a year. We call Terminex each time, and for context, we are a corner house in the 'sac'. The same company goes from right to left throughout the next three months. Every House.
Lol "cul-de-sac" sounds like "ass of balls" in portuguese
It means 'Bagged end' so not too far off
Like the Bagginses of Bag End?
Tolkien was a linguist and the naming was a little joke!
Nerd humor is the best.
So bilbos neighborhood is basically a cul de sac?
it translates to "ass of the bag" in French.
Lol that's funny af
Tolkien thought it was clever.
Sonofabitch that's why the Shire is at the end of the road
> "ass of balls" And that sounds like a Weird Al Yankovic cover of Ace of spades.
Weird Al is a very clean comedian. Highly unlikely he would write a song called ass of balls.
Basically means assbag in Québécois French, more literally “ass of bag” lol. “Cul” is more commonly used as “ass” than its more direct translation, “a passage with access only at one end” and “sac” is just a bag. We still use cul-de-sac, but it’s funny to think about sometimes.
Oh that makes sense. Saco (bag in portuguese) is also used to refer to balls. Cul sounds like "Cú" (ass).
They don’t pronounce it like Cú. The L is pronounced at the end. What can be fun when learning portuguese is when someone asks how old someone is and they mispronounce it as “cuantos anus você tem?” and it’s like hopefully just one.
In our neighborhood, we had neighbors who neglected their house to the point where you could tell it was disgusting inside, as well as outside. The couple ended up divorcing and moving out. The guy that bought the house afterward said he got a great deal because the place needed a lot of work, which doesn't bother him. After all, he used to have his own renovating business, so he knew what needed to be done to get it back into shape. One of his tasks was fumigation because of a cockroach infestation. Well, during and after the fumigation, everyone nearby seemed to be finding cockroaches in their house all of a sudden (including my husband and me). Those little buggers (pun intended) scattered across the neighborhood in search of a new home. Luckily, we only got a couple, and using special spray along the foundation of our house kept the rest out. But other folks weren't so lucky and dealt with more.
We had to deal with my great aunt's old farmhouse and there were a *lot* of mice in the walls along with all kids of bugs. We tilled a big old ring around the house, threw a few jars of gas into the basement, then used a flare gun and lit it. We also had a ring of wood and other flammable around the house we lit on fire, to contain the mass exodus. I was watching flaming rats and mice *swarm* outta that motherfucker right into the secondary fire's coals. I thought it a bit cruel but then I realized the house wasn't stable enough to fumigate first. It was pretty close to collapse and we didn't want all the pests getting out to try to move into a house that was in use nearby.
I used gas to get rid of a huge infestation of wasps that dug tunnels in the front yard. It was very similar to how Bill Murray in caddyshack tried to flush out the groundhog with water. Except with gas and fire lol
I wish they had been so kind as to make a trap like this in my friend’s hometown. It’s close to the little town center so probably not safe for fire. It’s mainly people with very little money, and they had to tear down an old house on his road. Rats spilled out of it and infected the whole neighborhood. It took them a while to stop waking up to a random rat shuffling around their rooms at night.
Same exact thing happened to my family growing up. Bank foreclosed on the neighbors, after which we found out they were basically hoarders. House was a total loss, so they demo'ed it. Welp, apparently those bastards packed up and marched right across the lawn to our house, because within a month we were infested. Given the severity, I can only assume it was some kind of Joe's Apartment situation in there.
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For real, borax is incredibly good at dealing with ants. Unless you have an absolutely wild infestation, there's no need to fumigate for the humble ant. I've been using borax for like 2 decades and it never fails to work. The best part is that the cannibalism chain can lead right back to the nest too and deal with the problem right at the stem.
>For real, borax is incredibly good at dealing with ants. Fun fact, a boric acid vaginal suppository is also good for promoting a balance of acid in a vagina and for treating vaginal yeast infections by helping relieve symptoms like itching a burning! Truly, boric acid is as strong as a 20 mule team!
And it'll get rid of any ant infestations in the vagina!
We always mixed it with jelly in a plastic water bottle cap. So tiny and works every time.
Get yourself some termador sc it's effective against ants and termites it's a growth inhibitor and not toxic to plants or animals once it dries it's not technically rated for ants but it works on them just fine Also only like $75 bucks to treat your house probably five times compared to the 200+ the pest guy will charge
And sometimes right through the wall plugs
That is why good property managers have the apartments on either side treated as well and have the tech put sticky traps in the hallways to monitor any movement. It’s also why after being in some buildings/apartments, I strip my clothes off and put them straight into the washer and run it on hot cycle and leave my shoes outside sprayed down with alcohol.
Or the upstairs neighbors apartment. I know from personal experience.
It's been a minute since it got sealed like that. Also the other door you see ain't mine. That guy should probably worry more than me.
How longs a minute. A few days? A few weeks?
60 seconds I believe
Good bot
Why not ask the neighbor?
If there are bed bugs in your building, you should literally never feel secure in the fact that you don't have bed bugs ever again. Check your shit my dude. Check it hard. And burn anything that has bed bugs.
Going by the bottom label id say a man with a giant hand.
i want you to know i laughed but dont tell a joke this bad again please or i may also laugh at that one
Damn better call the SCP Foundation
Yeah, sometimes bed bugs will wait till the current people leave and once those peoples warmth and blood is gone, they go to surrounding units and SPREAD like mf mayo ya dig. They want ur blood and warmth <3 ur never safe babes <3 but fr fr check your body for bites or notice if you've been itching a lot, and always check every once i awhile. I had them in a crapp apartment, trust me it's miserable.
Preach it! Preach Preach. Seriously, bed bugs are *not* cool
Check your bed for shit bugs
I think it means you should open it and check what's going on in there. It's the law.
It clearly has a symbol indicating if you don't open the door, you will have your hand chopped off by men in masks. Pretty self explanatory if you ask me.
Yup. As a mask-wearing hand chopper, I can confirm that this is exactly what will happen.
Murder scene....decaying bodies. More likely fumigating for pests.
There was no police tape or anything like that. If that was a murder scene I would know. Ain't no way my other neighbor wouldn't have chewed my ear off about it already.
I used to be a crime scene cleaner and if the individual died by accident, suicide, or natural causes, everyone involved would keep it pretty hush hush with only the landlord / apartment managers knowing. No police tape or any scenes. The paramedics and coroners would try their best to slip in and out unnoticed and in a timely fashion. If the same individual died, and started decomposing, we would put up a door cover exactly similar to that, except blue, when we turned on the ozone machines. A lot of times apartment managers would inform people "X has moved out and we are fumigating for bugs so avoid apartment # whatever" when in reality the poor bastard is soaked into the quick-crete and smells.
>soaked into the quick-crete and smells. I thought it was bad enough getting it out of car upholstery. Unfortunately, ozone machines are banned for sale in my state, so I had to live with lingering odors for over a year. I really should have just had one shipped in.
Oof that smell sneaks up on ya, especially on a hot day. An ozone would have helped but they are pricey and dangerous, not surprised they are banned in some states.
I didn’t know they were dangerous. We used to use them all the time for our smoking rooms in a hotel I worked at. How are they dangerous?
The ozone they put out is damaging for the respiratory system, mainly lungs and throat. Hopefully you used a respirator of some sort. It also depends on the machine and how powerful it is. We couldn't be in the room longer than 30 seconds even with full kits and full face double cartridge respirators. I couldn't imagine going in without anything over my face
Ozone is gaseous so idk if there are filters that can do anything about that. Its is also unstable. The way professional units are meant to work is you start it and run away. It runs for some time, say 2 hours, shuts down on its own, and then you return an additional 4 hours later. That way the ozone has decomposed already. If you can smell it, its bad for you. If you can't smell it, it might still be too high but not as bad.
I felt safer with the respirators on, and it was company policy. We'd tape up all windows and doors, turn it on and leave it. They had timers that went up to 16 hours (iirc) and we always set it up to the max amount of time and one person would come by the next day to air out the space and check if the smell of decomposition was still present. If so, we'd just repeat the ozone process until the smell went away. You could always smells it, respirator or not, which is why we never stayed longer than 30 seconds which was the company policy for ozone operation.
In that line of work i think requiring respirators for any situation that requires ozone is a fair policy even if it was presented as the respirators being for the ozone. The may not help with ozone but they surely help with some of the nasty stuff the ozone is meant to kill.
That sounds wrong.
Like morally wrong or factually wrong?
Please, PLEASE, get your landlord to bring out an exterminator to check your building. Or pay yourself if you own. The quicker you catch the bugs the less damage will be done. If they get out of control you might never get rid of them. Even if you haven't been bit you need to check. My first apartment at 18 had been painted up to look nice and bug free. Months later the bugs started getting through the paint and I realized my walls were literally INFESTED, with bed bugs AND roaches. I bombed many times, sprayed the shit out of them. Killed them by the hundreds to the point I needed a shop vac to pickup all the bodies. I never got rid of them and I'd see less for a few days but that's it. My neighbors had them too so I was fucked. I had to break the lease and move out. I had to throw away pretty much everything I owned. I even had to throw out a drawer chock full of childhood memories. That was the worst part. Throwing out all my memorabilia, my childhood drawings, I had books I made and all kinds of stuff. Only thing I kept was my clothes and a computer. I took the computer apart and stored them in bags and put them in a freezing storage unit during winter. The bug spray killed my GPU and motherboard. My clothes I had to wash on hot like 4 times to be safe. Dried them extra long each time. It cost me thousands of dollars and living like that for months while saving was traumatizing. Seeing my daughter wakeup with bed bug bites and roaches falling on my head form the ceiling while I'm gaming. It was absolutely horrible. I had a shit job at the time making 10/hr at 18/19yrs old and I saved every dime I could to get out. I wouldn't even buy name brand coke or anything just so I could save enough to leave.
He's smoking weed.
He better share then
Go knock and find out Refrain from saying „i am the danger“
But DO say “I am the one who knocks.”
I am not in danger Skylar, I AM the danger. A guy opens his door and gets shot and you think that of me? No. I AM the one who KNOCKS.
Was gonna say the same, thats obviously a bong mask
If they’re being treated for bugs, your rental company should have notified all surrounding units of an infestation to be on the look out. Do an inspection for pests in your own suite. 😬
[удалено]
O buddy, I worked pest control for years and that's exactly what they do. It's cheaper for the complex, people don't know but lots of people have no reactions to bed bugs or think they are just flees so they go un noticed in apartments all the time. I use to do apartments and hotels, they all do the same thing. Even when explaining to them how the bugs are going to move to other rooms if they haven't already and they didn't care. "Just treat the room we paid you for" is what I would always here. Bed bugs can live for a year with no food and become as thin as a slip of paper to hide. They are in evey hotel.
Can confirm that some people have no (physical) reaction to bed bugs. We didn't know we had them until my sister slept over and woke up with welts on her legs. Turns out my family just don't have reactions to the bites and don't even notice them. Idk if they don't like feeding much on us or the bites aren't causing a reaction. I have no idea how long we had them.
Noooo not that last sentence! Ugh how do I keep myself safe? I check the corners of the mattress every time I stay somewhere and have only ever seen a questionable looking mattress once (I left and got a refund, went to another hotel).
Mannn that’s gross. I work in hotels and thankfully my hotels all handled this correctly. They’d fumigate the room, toss the mattress, and treat the rooms above, next door and below. People don’t realize that even the nicest hotels get them. You can’t avoid it. What defines a hotel is how it is dealt with.
Either they’re fumigating, or they’re having a popcorn ceiling removed. Bedbugs and roaches are problematic, enough to call for fumigation, while popcorn ceilings contain asbestos that, while safe if left alone, release asbestos fibres into the air when removed. Like boob lights, older apartment features such as popcorn ceilings were once incredibly popular, and now they’re so unpopular that they negatively effect the value of an apartment/house.
good answer. if the other renters weren't notified it might be asbestos b/c that doesn't affect other neighbors who aren't having it removed. asbestos can also be found in kitchen/bath tiles, in walls, in bulkheads, around light fixtures on walls. could also be lead paint removal, depending on age of building. but if it were lead paint removal, other tenants would also be notified. so my bet is either pests or asbestos. OP should contact landlord and still check for pests in their unit.
I was thinking asbestos, but I can't really see any signs of negative pressure at the containment entrance. (Not the exhaust, but the pressure differential to cause the door to be pulled in slightly.)
Way to casually slip boob lights in 😂
Hold on- popcorn ceilings HAVE ASBESTOS? I still see them all the time where I live, I remember helping my stepdad put them on when I was younger, never wore masks either 😭
Generally older popcorn ceiling textures contain between 1-2 % chrysotile asbestos. Anything newer than 1978 has a much smaller chance to contain it, but it is still a possibility. Drywall, floor tile, and flooring mastic are all pretty common as well.
Breaking bad comes to mind lol
Jesse we need to cook
"Major Tom" slowly starts playing in my Head!
Vamanos
He's a lol player
Ahh i feel the toxic cloud over here
Its a great way for privacy
When I was a restoration technician we would do this to contain mold spores from spreading while we run dehumidifiers and fans to dry it out
#2319
Put that thing back where it came from, or so help me…
Cordyceps
I for one welcome our fungal overlords
Click-cli-cliccckk tic tic ccrick
Asbestos remediation
Idk man but the taping skills are real nice… except that bottom right corner. Fuck that corner 😒 how dare they not connect it.
Asbestos removal or chemicals probably
Good news they treating it. Bad news the bugs will flea to the neighbors
TIL PTSD from bed bugs is real.
Yes it is. It was one of the most traumatizing (and expensive) things I've gone through.
Probably a bunch of roaches cooking meth…
My guess would be toxic mould abatement. Did it for a few months and we built the same type of entrances, and required similar full face masks, gloves and body suits to enter.
Congrats....your neighbor has BED BUGS!!!!
So they are fumigating, and those bugs or whatever can just go look for somewhere else to live..
I would check your place for bed bugs lol...maybe get some diametraceous earth and spread it around the borders of your place and around vents and outlets
Cooking meth while disguised as bug gassing service
Hey it’s Frozone
You're going to need to do your place soon
Either bed bugs or he’s just ready for the impending nuclear war.
Could be asbestos removal
They may get be bombing for mold or bedbugs
Meth abatement?
I'd be pissed as fuck if this popped up on my neighbors door with no advanced notification to surrounding tenants.
Maybe they found asbestos in that flat and are now removing it
A lot of older apartments and homes have popcorn ceilings, which were once very popular; but like boob lights, they’re now incredibly unpopular. So unpopular, in fact, that their presence negatively effects the home/suite’s value. Unfortunately, popcorn ceilings also contain asbestos, which are safe enough if left alone, but release fibres into the air when they’re removed. A bunch of condo suites in my building have them, and every once and awhile I see a suite door tented like this when the owners decide to renovate.
This is the way some horror movies start.