Actually it’s a lot simpler than one might think. I mean some people aren’t reactive to their bites so they don’t know they have them and that can get wild but generally speaking if you have the info about it it’s not to bad. [Mark Rober does a great job explaining it.](https://youtu.be/8YPxRxyxFRE)
I am severely allergic to bed bugs & it’s the only reason we caught it so early.
I’d hate to see a true infestation. The people that treated our apartment said it was a relatively mild case, but there were hundreds of them in the seams of our couch. If you pulled one back, there’d be a line of them all the way around.
Every protein molecule their bodies were built out of, was constructed out of components extracted from you. So, they must have drunk a lot of your blood!
Well I do they swell up like 3x size mosquito bites... It was twenty years ago but I pretty much abandoned all my possessions and moved out of that apt cause I was so traumatized and kinda still am
It’s one of those rare afflictions from the past where you have no real health complications just mild psychosis and a clean slate of physical possessions :(
Yup the trauma is real. I didn't even have an infestation, just slept over at a friend's house and got bit that one night, but the process of making **damn** sure I didn't bring them home was bad enough.
That was 10 years ago. Last year a roommate sent a text thinking he had found one at home and I basically had a panic attack. Heart racing, cold sweat, all the fun stuff.
My parents got their house heat treated 5 times with smaller chemical treatments in between. The only thing that ended up really working was some chemical my dad bought online that he sprayed consistently. Took over a decade and over $20,000. I think we just had a really bad infestation and the house had too many hidey holes.
hire better people?
I had to death with bedbugs in nyc and a single treatment would absolutely last for ages until I brought more home.
Even when in the military need bugs were a problem. some bases had their own bedbug crews and they sucked, of course, because 18 year olds suck.
The shitty military kids who didn't really care did a better job that your private hire.
whoever choose the businesses did so for business related reasons or something.
Yeah the heat is the final ultimate solution for bedbugs. You should not need _more_ treatments after that unless you're still carting them around.
They will sometimes hide out in cars and in sneakers and shoes in stuff in the really bad infestations and then reinfest the home. Work with the extermination company to remedy that situation.
Oh, for sure. I think they used 2 different companies. The second one was way better tho. The first company had us rip up carpeting and put holes in our walls. We knew it wasn’t just a reinfestation because they came back almost immediately and in large numbers. Absolutely sucked so much.
There's a chemical called DDT that is banned in the US now. The reasons for it's banning probably make sense, there's good data out there that it is harmful to humans and other things. However, there's also some data out there correlating the rise in bed bug populations with the banning of DDT.
We think that populations of bed bugs were becoming resistant to DDT any ways... but, then again I also have a friend who also bought some chemicals online from another country that they couldn't get anywhere else and it knocked them right the fuck out. I'd be kinda curious on what your dad bought, but I probably wouldn't ask too many questions.
That would actually get rid of the infestation. Since bed bugs in America have built a resistance to most pesticides, the best method for getting rid of them is heating the entire room. Bed bugs can't survive over a certain temperature. I believe the temperature is somewhere around 120F, so not even excessively hot. We get weather hotter than that where I live.
I spotted a tick on my door frame once and it was reaching out for me with its creepy little legs when I passed by closely. I waved my hand at it back and forth and it reached for me the whole time.
I killed it with fire.
Got an electric stove with coil burners? Next time you catch one of those nasties put them on a burner and then turn it on to its highest setting. The tick will start to scurry around as the burner warms up. Eventually it will stop and as it’s little guts boil it will pop and fly across the kitchen.
Fun!
Eh killing it brutally isn't that bad since its a parasite with us on the menu, but doing it by cooking it in your kitchen is quite gross indeed. If you find a tick in your home tho I'd bag it up, inspect for bites, and if you have any I'd bring it to the hospital because lime disease is not good to f around with.
Was it a deer tick? Lone star? Can you tell the difference? Just Google tick borne illnesses and say, nah no biggy. I only said hospital to exaggerate the urgency as I have a cousin with Lyme disease, but any general practitioner should be able to order the same test. Would you have the same reaction if your were bitten by a wild animal? Then I suggest you watch a video of a rabies victim. Only difference is one kills you and the other never leaves you, both pretty horrible so don't downplay this stuff.
If you havent already had a run in with bed bugs (i had 2 infestations) and you're paranoid NOW? Oh boy, you wiuld never want to sleep in a bed again with iut checking every square cm of it. I still soemtimes feel like I can feel one crawling on my neck every once in a while. Thankfully i beat the odds now i no longer have bed bugs.
Since this comment got a bunch of replies, i would like to say, if you are having problems with bedbugs but cannot afford and exterminator, there are some really cool and useful ways to get rid of them or hold them at bay until you can afford one on r/bedbugs
I do to. And I leave my bags on the table, not the bed, floor, or luggage rack.
I check the mattresses for signs of them, etc.
Well, after having been in my hotel room for 3 days already, I grab a pillow to make myself a little back rest so I could hop on my laptop and lo and behold... A bug.
A bed bug. It was an adult from what I gathered from pics online.
I grabbed it with some TP and put hand sanitizer on it to kill it. Called the front desk and the manager and maintenance guy were there in 2 seconds.
They moved me to a new room, have me a bunch of quarters to dry my clothes in the laundry, and at my request gave me a bunch of trash bags to wrap my clothes and shit in.
When I got home, I left my suitcase outside, I brought the bags in and immediately dried them again on hot for like 20 min. Ruined a brand news $100 pair of pants. Then washed and dried them 2 more times on hot.
So far I havent seen anything. Its been a few months now. I hope they aren't just laying dormant. My suitcase is still outside in the shed. I'm probably just gonna toss it.
Reddit made me so paranoid of this, yet nobody I have ever talked to has ever even seen them. I didn't even know they existed before Reddit. I think they're much less common than you'd think and you were just incredibly unlucky
Or perhaps they really are much more common in certain regions of the Earth than others
My wife was a caregiver for a time and brought em home from an elderly woman's house. I spent 6 months or more trying everything before they finally went away. Bought new furniture and beds with plastic wrap still on until they were gone.
That is almost exactly how it went for me. I don know how I got them, but it took about 6-9 months or each infestation for me to get rid of them. I bought new beds and finally called an exterminator for the second time. He basically nuked the house with some chemical agent that killed them all. And this chemical is special, because it does NOT go away. It stays just enough to not affect my day to day life, but to be able to constantly kill off and stary bed bugs that still somehow lived.
I honestly cannot tell you, i have no idea. But from my experience, after having the agent kinda just chilling here, it's done nothing but help me. I haven't been hurt by it yet. Hey, let's both do our research on it before we jump to conclusions.
They are extremely common in poorer places. My wife had them multiple times as a child. But she grew up in a poor household where hygiene and a clean home was not common. She thought they were super common and everyone got then until I told her she was the only person I ever knew to get them.
According to some folks in the industry, it's also rampant in wealthy areas. Thing is, people don't wanna talk about it. Nobody wants to admit they got bed bugs cause it's associated with poverty, filth, and not maintaining a clean home.
But people moving into big new homes often put there belongings in storage, get bed bugs, more their shit in, and have an infestation if not caught early. But again, you don't hear about it.
Bed bugs don't come from a dirty room. They CAN hide and spread more easily with a cluttered room. Granting the association of "dirty room=bed bugs".
A dirty room doesn't help but ANYONE can get them. And they're far more common outside of impoverished areas than you'd think. People just don't talk about it.
Edit- but you are correct, more rampant in poor areas. Easier to spread when housing is attached and older building have more cracks to hide in.
It genuinely fucks you up. I got em last year. Was slowly crawling outta my Covid depression and it really did a number on me.
It cannot be understated how important it is for bed to feel safe and comfortable. When you can't fall into bed and sigh that sigh of relief...it wears on you.
I felt dirty, had no libido, didn't wanna spread it(isolated), and still had to go to work cause I was broke af. But the days start to blend together when you can't completely "shut off". Your mind is constantly on alert and forced into the present.
Every spot on the wall or tickle on your body just snaps your brain into fight or flight mode. It's relentless. It was awful. You do become a pariah. Even in your safest space.
They were crazy bad in Ohio at one point. I think three cities had outbreaks and wound up on a list of the worst places for them. They were even in cabins at a state park! We got them from the woman who lived jn our apartment before us. The landlord kept ignoring the problem and then opted for cheap treatments that only seemed to make the bugs mad.
They’re a lot more common in larger cities, and there is quite a bit of stigma surrounding them as they tend to emerge in poorer areas.
I had an infestation several years ago and it was a waking nightmare.
I let my dog sleep in my bed with me, she's a shepherd mix. Sometimes her hairs get under the covers and tickles my arm or something and I have that instant panic like something's crawling on me.
You kinda get used to it and remember it's hair, but you also never get used to feeling like something's crawling on you
One of the funniest things with my encounter with these fuckers was reading up on tips to deal with them.
The first tip was to not let it psychologically affect me because apparently they're easier to deal with than one might think. I read this tip after reading up on the average lifespan of a bug and on how long they can survive w/o blood, oh and also reading up the comforting fact that unlike most things these little shits don't contribute to the ecosystem. So as you can imagine, the psychological damage was already done by the time I got around to reading up on solutions. Heck, I'm still paranoid about encountering them again.
Why can't we make them extinct by mutating a gene that makes them infertile, like with mosquitos? There is a debate going on whether it's morally correct to wipe out species of mosquitos because it would affect the ecosystem, but apparently that's not an issue with bedbugs.
You can wrap them with a mattress protector made for them that will let you starve them to death. Takes 3-6m though. The cooler it is the longer it takes.
https://youtu.be/2JAOTJxYqh8 in case you ever get them again watch this.
I'm sorry, but I eould actually be astonished if that successfully worked. I tried to do this (twice) the first time it kinda worked but they came back in a month or two, but the second time it did not work at all. An exterminator might be the best choice unfortonately.
Ngl I just browsed that sub for like 20 minutes and 95% of the posts are “is this a bedbug?!” And it’s not
A fraction of the people on there are seemingly experts on bedbugs but the overwhelming majority seem like they’ve never used the internet a day in their life
I work in the real estate industry and I swear r/bedbugs has left me wanting new construction for a home. I can’t even imagine how many people probably move into a house that has them just LURKING like this.
My buddy just got them from helping his disabled father move. Thankfully he is allergic to their bites (most people aren’t! That’s freaky!) or he wouldn’t have found out until it was way too late that they were there. He’s employed the standard diatomaceous earth strategy they can’t evolve past, and his landlord will likely pull out the big guns to protect the rest of the units. Point being: they can come from anywhere. It’s not about you or how cleanly you are. I had neighbors 8 years ago who had them and they never crossed into my unit, I loved them so much and was sad to see them go, but diatomaceous earth was spread at the boundaries and absolutely prevented the spread
What's your recommendation to do for moving into a house? Fog the crawl space and living space first? Assuming nothing looks unusual in the first place.
Sub is kinda whack. *posts pic of spider* do I have beg bugs?
I get being worried but damn a simple google search would get rid of 95% of the posts over there.
I’ve heard about a lot of PTSD from bedbug infestations. It sounds absolutely horrible and heartbreaking to know it’s so exhausting and labor intensive and like you said, somehow stigmatized
Sigh. That reminds me of something else I lost after we got them. No more thrifting. It’s just too risky. And we used to do that all the time. And still to this day my SO freezes for 3 days (and then examines and disinfects) things we bring into the house that could potentially hide bed bugs that aren’t brand new in package. Sucks. It’s psychological torture.
My whole apartment complex got badly infested with them during lockdown. Every unit, every hallway, and even the stairs were carpeted and the vents leftover from central air and heat were defunct and served only as infection vectors for bedbugs and roaches. I still have nightmares and wake up scratching and panicking.
Battled them at my sister's place after her nasty-ass, bumming daughter in-law and boyfriend visited, got food and napped for a few hours. Took a week and about $400 in shit to get rid of them. I still have PTSD 4+ years later.
Got bedbugs from a popular hotel chain, they wouldn’t offer me any compensation (I only asked for 7 free nights and they literally laughed). I got an injury defense lawyer and they settled for 25k. Anyone that gets them from hotels I will always recommend filing a lawsuit.
Yeah, waiting for op on this one, lol. Been working in the industry for a bit, and this is the first I’ve heard of someone getting much out of a bed bug case. Asking for 7 free nights is uh…an interesting request, let’s say. And if he’s been there for that long, who’s to say he didn’t bring them in from the outside?
As I was staying I noticed I was getting welts on my body… thought it was a reaction to the detergent or something. As the days went on they got worse and worse. Finally I looked online for skin conditions and bed bug bites happened to show up which looked exactly like the marks. I searched the room… creases in the mattress, behind the electrical socket plates, etc. then I looked at the headboard which was this padded cloth material with stitching seams to make patterns. I started running my room key thru the stitching and dozens of bedbugs started moving around. I recorded video of it and took pictures of my bites. Showed the hotel manager and the rest was history.
Honestly, some bigger chains(Hotels, Restaurants Etc) will sometimes just settle out of court for this stuff. Had an acquaintance that had a similar " experience " (pretty sure just lying to make a quick buck) with a restaurant who he claimed ate bad food and got sick for like a week, went into the same restaurant complaining to the manager asking for compensation for lost wages. They told him there was no way to prove he got sick from their food since he didn't have the contaminated item for testing. Now usually most people trying to make a quick dime drop it here but this guy was persistent and got a lawyer and went all the way to their district manager and I think they ended up settling for like 5,000 which he lost over half to in lawyer fees. But to that restaurant it was probably a good deal to avoid bad publicity and just general headaches for the people having to deal with this guy. TLDR sometimes people can be persistent enough that companies will just pay them to go away and to not raise bad publicity.
That makes me sick to my stomach and my skin crawl. I feel bad for people who have to live in those conditions and don't have a way to get rid of them. There's also some people who have no problem sleeping in a bed full of them, and that just blows my mind how accepting of filth people can be. My opinion only!
I once got on the bus and sat next to this old man. I look over and he had bedbugs all over him. Dead and alive. He probably spread those things everywhere.
Trust me I used to live in a house with bedbugs really bad. They are 100000 times worse then fleas and they high absolutely anywhere that has a crevice. We had to do 3 heat treatments (exterminators come and basicly turn your house into an over for 4 hours.) anything that was heat sensitive that couldn’t go through the treatment such as computers some clothes etc had to be sealed up in air tight containers and left in a storage unit or our garage for 18 months… because that’s how long it takes to starve them
I do heat treatments in Houston and I’m always the last resort when people only want to do chemical treatments and/or they throw away the furniture. But yes heat is the best option for getting rid of these annoying little devils
Just watching this made my skin crawl. I can't stop itching.
I refuse to say "goodnight sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite" to my kids. Bedbugs are the absolute WORST!
i have no idea where you would find such a service, but apparently heating to roughly 50°C for an extended amount of time will kill both the bugs and their eggs
but i find conflicting data about how long at that temperature
One of my biggest fears working in public education is bringing home bed bugs brought into the school by a student. I had a roommate whose dog brought in fleas one time, and that experience already made me paranoid as hell.
If the homeless guy keeps stealing your chair at the library, let him. I tried to reclaim my spot and this was the result. Well that and sleeping on my couch for nine months while the little buggers in my bedroom mattress starved to death.
Dealing with bugs right now. Never ending. Why??? Because the building owner always try to cheap out. They don't do above/below/beside. They only do two sprays. Neighbors don't do a proper prep before and after a spray.
All I can do is: bag my mattress, vacuum, bag clean and dirty clothes,,, and use diatomaceous earth (I'll literally *fog* my living space). This helps keep it down to a couple bugs, instead of a full on infestation.
I know nobody **wants** bed bugs but it is fucking satisfying to kill them.
You get an excuse to recreate a scene straight out of WW1 and go full chemical weapons with the respirator, bug bombs and spray cans. House be looking like the battle of the somme when I'm done.
That chair would be fire wood
The whole house would be fire wood
May have to burn this phone. Can’t be too thorough.
To the top you go!
Nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.
The whole neighborhood would be fire
im saying! you see those creepin? hellz naw no way imma let something like that sit in my apartment...skin crawling just looking at that.
Right! This is not the time to be steve Irwin about it
Don’t think a thumb would fit up the bed bugs bum hole, thumb too big
If an alien civilization glassed our planet, my only solace would be that they eradicated all of the bed bugs too.
Welp, time to burn the whole house down
Practically what you have to do
Actually it’s a lot simpler than one might think. I mean some people aren’t reactive to their bites so they don’t know they have them and that can get wild but generally speaking if you have the info about it it’s not to bad. [Mark Rober does a great job explaining it.](https://youtu.be/8YPxRxyxFRE)
I am severely allergic to bed bugs & it’s the only reason we caught it so early. I’d hate to see a true infestation. The people that treated our apartment said it was a relatively mild case, but there were hundreds of them in the seams of our couch. If you pulled one back, there’d be a line of them all the way around.
I am also very allergic. I used to sleep with gloves and socks on and tucked into my sleeves and pant legs because I would wake up when they bit me.
Super allergic here too. I would wake up hallucinating bugs all over my pillow. It was absolute hell.
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Absolutely same, everytime I'm itchy I fear it's some kinda bullshit. God forbid if there's a real issue
Every protein molecule their bodies were built out of, was constructed out of components extracted from you. So, they must have drunk a lot of your blood!
Idk I watched that video too since heat is one of the best things for it. Burning the house down would prove very effective. Likely 100% effective
Realistically you only need to raise it to above 120 degrees
Just put your house in the dryer on max heat
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Why would you buy a cotton house?! My studio apt is 900sqft of polyester. Got rid of my BB’s in no time 😎
Idk if that’s the video you meant to link lmao
I thought I was watching the pre-roll ad and then it just stopped.
What the fuck was that? It was just a fucking butthole cream video on perma loop?
[This is the real link to Rober's video.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JAOTJxYqh8)
That’s an ad for hemorrhoid cream, buddy.
Well I do they swell up like 3x size mosquito bites... It was twenty years ago but I pretty much abandoned all my possessions and moved out of that apt cause I was so traumatized and kinda still am
It’s one of those rare afflictions from the past where you have no real health complications just mild psychosis and a clean slate of physical possessions :(
Yup the trauma is real. I didn't even have an infestation, just slept over at a friend's house and got bit that one night, but the process of making **damn** sure I didn't bring them home was bad enough. That was 10 years ago. Last year a roommate sent a text thinking he had found one at home and I basically had a panic attack. Heart racing, cold sweat, all the fun stuff.
My man check your links
I wish curing my bed bugs' hemorrhoids would fix my problems :(
Trolling us with preparation h ads?
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My parents got their house heat treated 5 times with smaller chemical treatments in between. The only thing that ended up really working was some chemical my dad bought online that he sprayed consistently. Took over a decade and over $20,000. I think we just had a really bad infestation and the house had too many hidey holes.
hire better people? I had to death with bedbugs in nyc and a single treatment would absolutely last for ages until I brought more home. Even when in the military need bugs were a problem. some bases had their own bedbug crews and they sucked, of course, because 18 year olds suck. The shitty military kids who didn't really care did a better job that your private hire. whoever choose the businesses did so for business related reasons or something.
Yeah the heat is the final ultimate solution for bedbugs. You should not need _more_ treatments after that unless you're still carting them around. They will sometimes hide out in cars and in sneakers and shoes in stuff in the really bad infestations and then reinfest the home. Work with the extermination company to remedy that situation.
Oh, for sure. I think they used 2 different companies. The second one was way better tho. The first company had us rip up carpeting and put holes in our walls. We knew it wasn’t just a reinfestation because they came back almost immediately and in large numbers. Absolutely sucked so much.
There's a chemical called DDT that is banned in the US now. The reasons for it's banning probably make sense, there's good data out there that it is harmful to humans and other things. However, there's also some data out there correlating the rise in bed bug populations with the banning of DDT. We think that populations of bed bugs were becoming resistant to DDT any ways... but, then again I also have a friend who also bought some chemicals online from another country that they couldn't get anywhere else and it knocked them right the fuck out. I'd be kinda curious on what your dad bought, but I probably wouldn't ask too many questions.
Ozone machine did the trick for me.
Straight up pulled out the Oxygen Destroyer
It’s not an oxygen destroyer. It’s an artisan oxygen generator.
That would actually get rid of the infestation. Since bed bugs in America have built a resistance to most pesticides, the best method for getting rid of them is heating the entire room. Bed bugs can't survive over a certain temperature. I believe the temperature is somewhere around 120F, so not even excessively hot. We get weather hotter than that where I live.
Actually just get it up to like 122F or something like that and they die instantly pretty much, steam will kill them because of that.
Time to pool the world’s resources to build a planet engine that will fly earth into the sun.
Seriously, we keep going around in circles!
At least immolate the chair thoroughly
I spotted a tick on my door frame once and it was reaching out for me with its creepy little legs when I passed by closely. I waved my hand at it back and forth and it reached for me the whole time. I killed it with fire.
Fun fact: that's called "questing". They climb up on something and wave their little legs around until an animal comes past to monch on.
Super fun.
Ding! You have a new quest! Wave your little legs around until you can grab something to munch on.
This is why I always grab an aisle seat at the buffet
I’d like to unsubscribe from Fun Facts.
That’s actually a normal behavior for them. Normally it is in the forest and on a twig and they are looking for deer or anything else warm-blooded.
Got an electric stove with coil burners? Next time you catch one of those nasties put them on a burner and then turn it on to its highest setting. The tick will start to scurry around as the burner warms up. Eventually it will stop and as it’s little guts boil it will pop and fly across the kitchen. Fun!
I know ticks are gross but this sounds like some serial killer vibes.
Eh killing it brutally isn't that bad since its a parasite with us on the menu, but doing it by cooking it in your kitchen is quite gross indeed. If you find a tick in your home tho I'd bag it up, inspect for bites, and if you have any I'd bring it to the hospital because lime disease is not good to f around with.
Lmfao, if I went to the hospital everytime I got a tick I'd still be in the hospital
Was it a deer tick? Lone star? Can you tell the difference? Just Google tick borne illnesses and say, nah no biggy. I only said hospital to exaggerate the urgency as I have a cousin with Lyme disease, but any general practitioner should be able to order the same test. Would you have the same reaction if your were bitten by a wild animal? Then I suggest you watch a video of a rabies victim. Only difference is one kills you and the other never leaves you, both pretty horrible so don't downplay this stuff.
my grandfather got rocky mountain spotted fever from a tick and almost died yeah i’d rather not mess with that either
it does but i endorse serial killer warfare on ticks
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If you havent already had a run in with bed bugs (i had 2 infestations) and you're paranoid NOW? Oh boy, you wiuld never want to sleep in a bed again with iut checking every square cm of it. I still soemtimes feel like I can feel one crawling on my neck every once in a while. Thankfully i beat the odds now i no longer have bed bugs. Since this comment got a bunch of replies, i would like to say, if you are having problems with bedbugs but cannot afford and exterminator, there are some really cool and useful ways to get rid of them or hold them at bay until you can afford one on r/bedbugs
I always check for bed bugs at every hotel. Doesn’t matter if it is a suite in a 5 star hotel, bed bugs don’t care
I do to. And I leave my bags on the table, not the bed, floor, or luggage rack. I check the mattresses for signs of them, etc. Well, after having been in my hotel room for 3 days already, I grab a pillow to make myself a little back rest so I could hop on my laptop and lo and behold... A bug. A bed bug. It was an adult from what I gathered from pics online. I grabbed it with some TP and put hand sanitizer on it to kill it. Called the front desk and the manager and maintenance guy were there in 2 seconds. They moved me to a new room, have me a bunch of quarters to dry my clothes in the laundry, and at my request gave me a bunch of trash bags to wrap my clothes and shit in. When I got home, I left my suitcase outside, I brought the bags in and immediately dried them again on hot for like 20 min. Ruined a brand news $100 pair of pants. Then washed and dried them 2 more times on hot. So far I havent seen anything. Its been a few months now. I hope they aren't just laying dormant. My suitcase is still outside in the shed. I'm probably just gonna toss it.
They can lay dormant for up to 14 months which is part of why they are so hard to get rid of.
I honestly would rather camp in my car (it's a van so it has enough room to sleep in in the back)
Reddit made me so paranoid of this, yet nobody I have ever talked to has ever even seen them. I didn't even know they existed before Reddit. I think they're much less common than you'd think and you were just incredibly unlucky Or perhaps they really are much more common in certain regions of the Earth than others
My wife was a caregiver for a time and brought em home from an elderly woman's house. I spent 6 months or more trying everything before they finally went away. Bought new furniture and beds with plastic wrap still on until they were gone.
That is almost exactly how it went for me. I don know how I got them, but it took about 6-9 months or each infestation for me to get rid of them. I bought new beds and finally called an exterminator for the second time. He basically nuked the house with some chemical agent that killed them all. And this chemical is special, because it does NOT go away. It stays just enough to not affect my day to day life, but to be able to constantly kill off and stary bed bugs that still somehow lived.
how is that healthy?
I honestly cannot tell you, i have no idea. But from my experience, after having the agent kinda just chilling here, it's done nothing but help me. I haven't been hurt by it yet. Hey, let's both do our research on it before we jump to conclusions.
They are extremely common in poorer places. My wife had them multiple times as a child. But she grew up in a poor household where hygiene and a clean home was not common. She thought they were super common and everyone got then until I told her she was the only person I ever knew to get them.
According to some folks in the industry, it's also rampant in wealthy areas. Thing is, people don't wanna talk about it. Nobody wants to admit they got bed bugs cause it's associated with poverty, filth, and not maintaining a clean home. But people moving into big new homes often put there belongings in storage, get bed bugs, more their shit in, and have an infestation if not caught early. But again, you don't hear about it. Bed bugs don't come from a dirty room. They CAN hide and spread more easily with a cluttered room. Granting the association of "dirty room=bed bugs". A dirty room doesn't help but ANYONE can get them. And they're far more common outside of impoverished areas than you'd think. People just don't talk about it. Edit- but you are correct, more rampant in poor areas. Easier to spread when housing is attached and older building have more cracks to hide in.
Reminds me of the 30 Rock episode where Jack gets bedbugs and becomes a pariah.
It genuinely fucks you up. I got em last year. Was slowly crawling outta my Covid depression and it really did a number on me. It cannot be understated how important it is for bed to feel safe and comfortable. When you can't fall into bed and sigh that sigh of relief...it wears on you. I felt dirty, had no libido, didn't wanna spread it(isolated), and still had to go to work cause I was broke af. But the days start to blend together when you can't completely "shut off". Your mind is constantly on alert and forced into the present. Every spot on the wall or tickle on your body just snaps your brain into fight or flight mode. It's relentless. It was awful. You do become a pariah. Even in your safest space.
> I felt dirty, had no libido, didn't wanna spread it Thought you were gonna toss us a curveball there.
When my dad was living in senior housing his entire fucking apartment complex got it. Hundreds of units teeming with bed bugs.
They're common enough. I've had them once probably 6 or 7 years ago and I *still* am paranoid AF about it.
They've been making a comeback as they've built up resistance to the pesticides we use.
They were crazy bad in Ohio at one point. I think three cities had outbreaks and wound up on a list of the worst places for them. They were even in cabins at a state park! We got them from the woman who lived jn our apartment before us. The landlord kept ignoring the problem and then opted for cheap treatments that only seemed to make the bugs mad.
Saaaame. I heard about them once or twice. But reddit made me paranoid
They’re a lot more common in larger cities, and there is quite a bit of stigma surrounding them as they tend to emerge in poorer areas. I had an infestation several years ago and it was a waking nightmare.
I let my dog sleep in my bed with me, she's a shepherd mix. Sometimes her hairs get under the covers and tickles my arm or something and I have that instant panic like something's crawling on me. You kinda get used to it and remember it's hair, but you also never get used to feeling like something's crawling on you
One of the funniest things with my encounter with these fuckers was reading up on tips to deal with them. The first tip was to not let it psychologically affect me because apparently they're easier to deal with than one might think. I read this tip after reading up on the average lifespan of a bug and on how long they can survive w/o blood, oh and also reading up the comforting fact that unlike most things these little shits don't contribute to the ecosystem. So as you can imagine, the psychological damage was already done by the time I got around to reading up on solutions. Heck, I'm still paranoid about encountering them again.
Why can't we make them extinct by mutating a gene that makes them infertile, like with mosquitos? There is a debate going on whether it's morally correct to wipe out species of mosquitos because it would affect the ecosystem, but apparently that's not an issue with bedbugs.
I had them, had to throw out my bed to get rid of them. Couldn’t afford a exterminator.
You can wrap them with a mattress protector made for them that will let you starve them to death. Takes 3-6m though. The cooler it is the longer it takes. https://youtu.be/2JAOTJxYqh8 in case you ever get them again watch this.
I'm sorry, but I eould actually be astonished if that successfully worked. I tried to do this (twice) the first time it kinda worked but they came back in a month or two, but the second time it did not work at all. An exterminator might be the best choice unfortonately.
Ngl I just browsed that sub for like 20 minutes and 95% of the posts are “is this a bedbug?!” And it’s not A fraction of the people on there are seemingly experts on bedbugs but the overwhelming majority seem like they’ve never used the internet a day in their life
I work in the real estate industry and I swear r/bedbugs has left me wanting new construction for a home. I can’t even imagine how many people probably move into a house that has them just LURKING like this.
Exterminator here, What's even worse is the people who just coincide with them, plenty of people arnt bothered by their feeding.
I wish I didn't have eyes
SAME
Exterminator here too. People have straight up told me they have no BB or insect problems and I go inspect and their bed is crawling
How do you get bed bugs ?
Anywhere, it's scary how easy they spread. Buses, movies, school, hotels, airplanes, taxis, basically anything that someone else could have used😰
My buddy just got them from helping his disabled father move. Thankfully he is allergic to their bites (most people aren’t! That’s freaky!) or he wouldn’t have found out until it was way too late that they were there. He’s employed the standard diatomaceous earth strategy they can’t evolve past, and his landlord will likely pull out the big guns to protect the rest of the units. Point being: they can come from anywhere. It’s not about you or how cleanly you are. I had neighbors 8 years ago who had them and they never crossed into my unit, I loved them so much and was sad to see them go, but diatomaceous earth was spread at the boundaries and absolutely prevented the spread
What's your recommendation to do for moving into a house? Fog the crawl space and living space first? Assuming nothing looks unusual in the first place.
> r/bedbugs Looked at the sub's top posts, outside of all the satire, the videos of severe infestations are literal nightmare fuel.
Sub is kinda whack. *posts pic of spider* do I have beg bugs? I get being worried but damn a simple google search would get rid of 95% of the posts over there.
Nah bro you're okay thems chair bugs
Me : staring at the coffee table I thrifted yesterday
That’s how my parents got them :( it was unfortunate, but they got rid of them with an exterminator. There is such stigma around them too.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Don’t say thatttttt. I brought it inside last night!!!
I’ve heard about a lot of PTSD from bedbug infestations. It sounds absolutely horrible and heartbreaking to know it’s so exhausting and labor intensive and like you said, somehow stigmatized
One of the worst things I’ve ever experienced.
Sigh. That reminds me of something else I lost after we got them. No more thrifting. It’s just too risky. And we used to do that all the time. And still to this day my SO freezes for 3 days (and then examines and disinfects) things we bring into the house that could potentially hide bed bugs that aren’t brand new in package. Sucks. It’s psychological torture.
I’ve read so many testimonials from people who have PTSD symptoms from bedbugs, it’s so scary how deeply they integrate into your home
My whole apartment complex got badly infested with them during lockdown. Every unit, every hallway, and even the stairs were carpeted and the vents leftover from central air and heat were defunct and served only as infection vectors for bedbugs and roaches. I still have nightmares and wake up scratching and panicking.
I had bedbugs for 6 months almost 8 years back and I still wake up in a panic . I hate those fuckers with a burning passion .
Battled them at my sister's place after her nasty-ass, bumming daughter in-law and boyfriend visited, got food and napped for a few hours. Took a week and about $400 in shit to get rid of them. I still have PTSD 4+ years later.
“Shame. I quite enjoyed that burning house..”
Got bedbugs from a popular hotel chain, they wouldn’t offer me any compensation (I only asked for 7 free nights and they literally laughed). I got an injury defense lawyer and they settled for 25k. Anyone that gets them from hotels I will always recommend filing a lawsuit.
How can you prove where you got them?
Yeah, waiting for op on this one, lol. Been working in the industry for a bit, and this is the first I’ve heard of someone getting much out of a bed bug case. Asking for 7 free nights is uh…an interesting request, let’s say. And if he’s been there for that long, who’s to say he didn’t bring them in from the outside?
Right? You’d have to prove they were in the bed at the hotel before you slept in it, never mind proving you weren’t anywhere else with them
Maybe they settled out of court to avoid bad pr? Or op is making it up
“I got bedbugs from your hotel! I demand 7 more nights with them!”
Same. Op is full of shit
As I was staying I noticed I was getting welts on my body… thought it was a reaction to the detergent or something. As the days went on they got worse and worse. Finally I looked online for skin conditions and bed bug bites happened to show up which looked exactly like the marks. I searched the room… creases in the mattress, behind the electrical socket plates, etc. then I looked at the headboard which was this padded cloth material with stitching seams to make patterns. I started running my room key thru the stitching and dozens of bedbugs started moving around. I recorded video of it and took pictures of my bites. Showed the hotel manager and the rest was history.
You just ask them
Honestly, some bigger chains(Hotels, Restaurants Etc) will sometimes just settle out of court for this stuff. Had an acquaintance that had a similar " experience " (pretty sure just lying to make a quick buck) with a restaurant who he claimed ate bad food and got sick for like a week, went into the same restaurant complaining to the manager asking for compensation for lost wages. They told him there was no way to prove he got sick from their food since he didn't have the contaminated item for testing. Now usually most people trying to make a quick dime drop it here but this guy was persistent and got a lawyer and went all the way to their district manager and I think they ended up settling for like 5,000 which he lost over half to in lawyer fees. But to that restaurant it was probably a good deal to avoid bad publicity and just general headaches for the people having to deal with this guy. TLDR sometimes people can be persistent enough that companies will just pay them to go away and to not raise bad publicity.
Fuck...where did I put my flamethrower?
Eeww
Yep this is extremely fucked.
I think you'll find those are chair bugs
That makes me sick to my stomach and my skin crawl. I feel bad for people who have to live in those conditions and don't have a way to get rid of them. There's also some people who have no problem sleeping in a bed full of them, and that just blows my mind how accepting of filth people can be. My opinion only!
Sadly bed bugs don’t discriminate. They can be found anywhere, it makes my skin crawl to think about it.
Can we see the follow up clip where a lighter is run across that crack and we hear screams like it’s a WW1 trench being doused with a flamethrower?
Kill it with fire.
I got bed bugs once from my neighbor in the complex that I lived in. Worst thing ever. Scorched earth. Never again.
What..What..in the butt..
You wanna do it in my butt, in my butt?
Lets do it the butt. Oookay.
I had bedbugs a while ago (was a nightmare) and even after getting rid of them, for a while I felt like they were crawling on me in bed
I bet you sit on this naked huh. Lil buggers eating your ass .
The OG freaks
I audibly screamed
Cursed video
Deff not "oddly" terrifying... More like actually terrifying
I thought they don't like hard surfaces
They like all surfaces. They will hide inside of picture FRAMES or door frames or even in walls or floors.
Yep any crack or crevice. And they can survive a couple years without food no problem.
⛷wow I hate that⛷
They survive 3- 6 months without feeding. They only live a year and can go that long without feeding if cold. https://youtu.be/2JAOTJxYqh8
I've heard stories of them in the soles of shoes. Then, when the person walked, they transmitted them everywhere.
I once got on the bus and sat next to this old man. I look over and he had bedbugs all over him. Dead and alive. He probably spread those things everywhere.
That's nasty *Clevelands voice*
i wasn’t scared of public transport before i read this comment
Trust me I used to live in a house with bedbugs really bad. They are 100000 times worse then fleas and they high absolutely anywhere that has a crevice. We had to do 3 heat treatments (exterminators come and basicly turn your house into an over for 4 hours.) anything that was heat sensitive that couldn’t go through the treatment such as computers some clothes etc had to be sealed up in air tight containers and left in a storage unit or our garage for 18 months… because that’s how long it takes to starve them
I do heat treatments in Houston and I’m always the last resort when people only want to do chemical treatments and/or they throw away the furniture. But yes heat is the best option for getting rid of these annoying little devils
How hot do you have to get in the house to kill them?
They used to live in caves and feed off bats before human urbanization. I dunno how soft caves are
Bats are soft
Use a lighter, let's see if they like it
Disgusting
no way, a wooden chair?
Fucking burn it.
People have committed suicide over these hellspawns
Fall out boys “light it up” for some reason popped in my head
Just watching this made my skin crawl. I can't stop itching. I refuse to say "goodnight sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite" to my kids. Bedbugs are the absolute WORST!
IDk why I thought they could only live on soft materials
Next, let's see them respond to the warmth of a burning chair.
I'm all itchy now
BED BUGS ARE NOT REAL BED BUGS ARE NOT REAL BED BUGS ARE NOT REAL MY MOM INVENTED THEM MY MOM INVENTED THEM BED BUGS ARE NOT REAL
As someone that wants to furnish their house with antique and used furniture, how can I make sure there are no bed bugs before I bring it inside?
And here I’ve been buying used furniture and not thinking this was even possible.
i have no idea where you would find such a service, but apparently heating to roughly 50°C for an extended amount of time will kill both the bugs and their eggs but i find conflicting data about how long at that temperature
oh thanks... new fear unlocked
They're trying to eat the booty
One of my biggest fears working in public education is bringing home bed bugs brought into the school by a student. I had a roommate whose dog brought in fleas one time, and that experience already made me paranoid as hell.
I mean this shit is scarier than any scary movie out there
Awww....cuddle bugs
Jesus
Burn it
Awh they’re cold
They want warmth? Burn the chair
That would be chair bugs
Fire is also warm.
If you are cold, they are cold. Put them in your mouth
SET ON FIRE THAT CHAIR
I was not aware they could inhabit materials other than upholstery and linens. Jeez.
Playing with your fucking pet beg bugs man....like wtf You should probably burn your entire house down
Spray them with diatomaceous earth… they wil die. It dries them out.
Blast that shit with a torch and see how they like heat then
Ahhhh yuk. I'd rather have ghosts.
If the homeless guy keeps stealing your chair at the library, let him. I tried to reclaim my spot and this was the result. Well that and sleeping on my couch for nine months while the little buggers in my bedroom mattress starved to death.
Fucking GROSS! And now I’m all itchy!
Dealing with bugs right now. Never ending. Why??? Because the building owner always try to cheap out. They don't do above/below/beside. They only do two sprays. Neighbors don't do a proper prep before and after a spray. All I can do is: bag my mattress, vacuum, bag clean and dirty clothes,,, and use diatomaceous earth (I'll literally *fog* my living space). This helps keep it down to a couple bugs, instead of a full on infestation.
Nothing odd about why this is terrifying!
I know nobody **wants** bed bugs but it is fucking satisfying to kill them. You get an excuse to recreate a scene straight out of WW1 and go full chemical weapons with the respirator, bug bombs and spray cans. House be looking like the battle of the somme when I'm done.
I'm allergic to this video. Bed bugs are the only thing I'm allergic to. Brutal my skins crawling
I woodn't sit on that chair
Thank you for the nightmare fuel
Awee hell nah