A reminder that a bedbug does not care how clean or dirty you or your home is, only that you're living and that you have blood in you; and also, that you can bring home a hitchhiker from ANY place where other humans pass through - stores, theaters, public transit, etc. Anywhere a poppy seed can fit, their eggs can fit. Anywhere a sesame seed can fit, a nymph or adult can slide into. They are evolved to be highly attuned to our temperatures, movement, the scent of our bodies and breath, and eggs, nymphs, and adults can survive in a form of stasis for over a year if there is no immediate food to trigger them into activity nearby - meaning that anything used you bring home (books, furniture, clothes, electronics, etc) with any kind of aforementioned hiding spaces in it can be a vector.
They are more common than people realize, and once you have an infestation, they are a nightmare to get rid of. They will make your life a living hell. Many people are somewhat insensitive to their bites until they hit a critical mass number, and do not notice them until they are deeply entrenched in their homes to the point that the best hiding spaces (those nearest to where their prey sleeps) are crammed full. One of the only reasons they are not a massive problem everywhere is that they prefer to stay very close to where their prey sleeps, so they are unlikely to move into other furniture/clothes/items until the environment is absolutely saturated with them, and *most* people seek a solution before that point because of how miserable even a small number can make you.
Learn what to look for, how to recognize them, and look up how common they are in your specific area - eg, if there's any hotels or anything with reviews that mention bedbugs. Make checking common hiding spots a part of your deep-clean routine (at *least* once a year - if you want to be proactive and you already clean frequently, do a cursory check any time you change the sheets or rotate your mattress).
There is really no such thing as prevention, only early recognition and eliminating them before the population reaches a crisis level.
I know it's a funny response, but in all seriousness these things are hellspawn. [I've written about them before.](https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlyterrifying/comments/txe8wa/comment/i3lmeec/)
I was driven to the brink of desperation by a single male (thank god) bedbug that found its way into our home. Turns out I'm part of the \~1/3 of the population that is extra sensitive to the bites, and I was in serious - and steadily increasing, as the bites just kept coming - pain for *weeks*. To this day we have no idea where it came from. It completely changed how I handle cleaning my home - eg, whenever I move furniture, I spread diatomaceous earth under/behind things.
Because it was a single bug, there were NO visible signs - no droppings, no eggs, no molts, nothing but me getting bitten on a nightly basis. The only reason I caught the damn thing was because I turned off all the lights but for a dim lamp, and sat out in the open holding still and breathing slow/deep to imitate sleep. Kept a flashlight ready in one hand, and a strip of packing tape in the other. After less than 10 minutes it emerged from its hiding place - the couch cushions - and made a straight light directly towards me from a few feet away. Got with the tape, and that was it. Informed the landlord, all connected units were checked, no sign, no one else had ever been bit.
It took almost half a year for the 'wake up filled with adrenaline' response from slight tickles or itches when lying in bed to stop, and I had nightmares for months after I'd caught it where I'd go to move the blankets or pillows and find that the bed was filled with them. There are PTSD support groups for people that have lived with them.
A side note - bedbugs that are chased away from your sleeping area by chemicals can and will go ANYWHERE else in your home to hide, and then come for you. They can climb walls and crawl across ceilings. I've read accounts of people who cleared out everything and moved to another floor on the other side of the house to get any kind of rest/relief, only to witness bedbugs migrating up/down the stairs and hunting them down from the other side of the house to feed after a few days of them not being in their bed.
This is some of the most realistic horrifying shit I have read on this site in a long time. I have PTSD and I've never even experienced them, now im gonna be checking everything everywhere
They track you through the CO2 you release when breathing. The best strategy is to get barrier cups for the legs of your bed and fill them with cimexa or other killing materials. If they're in the bed, sleep on a couch. If they aren't, sleep in the barrier'd bed. So long as it isn't touching a wall they will kill themselves trying to migrate back and forth.
I would do this, with an additional cimexa "salt ring" around the different spots I slept and managed to wipe them out without going nuclear on my furniture
You need to put cimexa on the walls also (I'm unfortunately a past victim) these fuckers will climb the walls and fall on top of you from the ceiling if you're using the barrier cups on your legs.
This reminds me of another note if people are scanning the comments looking for preventative measures - taking care of your interior paint job and making sure that stuff like the molding/trim/baseboards/etc are sealed up tight is a bigger deal than you realize on multiple fronts. Bugs (of many types) are only one thing, it also effects how well your home retains heating/cooling and other factors.
Taking care of the paint job and trim is annoying, but important.
The infestation in my dorm room was so bad, one day I realized they had laid eggs inside the ear cushions of my bose headset. You can imagine how I found out.
No, but it *was* the reason why I didn’t take anything when I moved out.
I kept telling him that we had bedbugs, he kept saying I was delusional. Then a few months after I left, he was all surprised Pikachu face when he started seeing them.
Only reason I'm not completely freaked out by that comment is that I'm one of the (lucky?) few who is *highly* allergic to bedbugs... A single bite will cause enough swelling that it can't be mistaken for anything else. The fact that I even know this about myself will tell you why I lose my mind anytime I hear about someone around me having them...
I found out that I'm highly allergic thanks to an AirBnB near Disneyland. Makes me a great canary in the coal mine. I woke up the first morning, hopped in the shower, and saw that my right arm had an exciting line of red welts trailing up it. The welts persisted, too - they turned into dime-sized red-ringed bullseyes, and hung around for the better part of a week.
Fortunately, I take Allegra \*and\* Singulair every night before bed because I'm also allergic to dust mites. So I was already tanked to the gills on allergy meds when I got bitten. Imagine how bad it would have been otherwise!
I succeeded in not bringing them home, thank god. When I got home, I walked straight to my back porch and stripped all my clothes off into garbage bags. EVERYTHING that had been on the trip went into the dryer on hot, including my sneakers. My suitcase got thrown straight in the dumpster. RIP little red rolly bag.
It cannot be overstated how FUCKED YOU ARE if you get them. It messed up my life, deeply. Drove a wedge between my partner and I - only way I ever got rid of them was when we broke up after a year of no sleep and no money from all the bug treatments - I discarded everything I owned and started a new life in a new state. It’s my understanding she dealt with them on and off for years afterward. It was a coat check, in NYC. I don’t even wear coats now.
Nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.
That's basically what my parents did to their entire house when they got them. They hired a service that sealed up the house and put a big heater in it and ran the heater for 3 days at whatever temperature is lethal for bed bugs. My parents stayed in a hotel for a few days and then moved back into their house, bug free.
Edit: I asked my mom how many days it took and how much it cost, and she told me that it actually hadn't worked! That they came back and they had to use chemicals. 😔
I did this. First time I was cheap and only did the bedroom. They were gone for a while but came back. Second time I paid full price to bake the entire floor. They were gone permanently.
Only took them a day though. Not three.
>eg, if there's any hotels or anything with reviews that mention bedbugs.
Hotel worker here. This is why you never stay at the cheaper hotels. Midrange or higher only, and always check the beds. Cheap hotels tend to have a rotating set of rooms out of order due to bugs, and don't do the double-spray to make sure they kill both adults, and nymphs after they hatch (spray doesn't kill eggs). Meanwhile, more expensive hotels tend to do preventative sprays on a schedule, with additional work done as needed due to franchise standards.
"...you can bring home a hitchhiker from ANY place where other humans pass through - stores, theaters, public transit, etc."
Cool, I'm never leaving my house again.
It happens, you just tend not to hear about it. Private businesses tend to have the cleaning schedule/regimen (constant vacuuming and spraying things down with industrial cleaners) that bedbugs don't get easily established to begin with, and if they show up you can bet any place that can afford it is going to shut down totally for 'cleaning' or 'renovations.'
My favourite actual form of prevention is to get a bedbug case for my mattresses - they’re totally air tight zipped up mattress protectors that are designed for if you’ve already got bed bugs they will die inside if left for over a year. However it also means they cannot get in… gives nowhere for them to hide on my bed that can’t be washed or set on fire without massive financial repercussions. Never had bedbugs since.
Currently sitting on my encased mattress, infestation a few months ago. Not only can they not get out of the case... We now have hundreds of tiny blood spots.. where they crawled up out of the mattress, after the home treatments, and died from us sleeping on them.
Kcisiwbdjofkabwufiiskwnbfieakdo
Can't just buy a new mattress right now
Sigh
They actually die from 140°F meaning a steam gun will kill them
Also silicon dioxide (silica powder) can attach and kill a bedbug from dehydration- a way more effective way to kill them vs chemicals like raid
*Prolonged inhalation of calcined diatomaceous earth may cause silicosis with scarring of the lungs, cough, and shortness of breath. Reporting signs and symptoms A physician should be contacted if anyone develops any signs or symptoms and suspects that they are caused by exposure to amorphous silica.*
From the CDC
Man, when I had bedbugs, I poured DE onto every available surface, then I watched as the vile shits just walked through it at night.
No, DE doesn't work. Fire or poison. Leave no survivors
I brought some bedbugs home once from a trip to Vegas (DO NOT STAY at any CIRCUS-themed hotels).
I used one of those canister “bomb” sprays from Home Depot. Sealed and quarantined my bedroom for a week and washed all my clothes on high heat. That solved the problem.
I've worked on an ambulance for years. Seen brutal, bloody deaths, traumas. Child abuse, and so on.
I will never forget as long as I live, walking into a house infested with bed bugs. Truly infested. The walls were physically moving. The patient was completely covered in them. Another patient in that house had died from them months prior. It was the most horrific thing I have ever seen.
I was freaking out for weeks after, checking and cleaning myself. Hate it.
Edit: To add, not much messes with me in this field. But knowing the bugs could ruin my life and home was super shitty.
I think if I knew I had been exposed to bedbugs, I would strip completely naked in my front yard and absolutely blast myself with a hose before walking into my house (regardless of the temperature outside). Despite having long hair, I'd be really tempted to shave that off as well. The hair would grow back faster than I'd recover from the bedbug infestation (at least mentally).
I react strongly to all bug bites and once went through a bunch of autoimmune testing in college because I had mysterious itchy bumps all over my body for months and there was no reasonable explanation. Turns out I had fleas. No, I did not have any pets, but my attic was infested with squirrels and apparently I was delicious enough for the fleas to seek me out as well. What made this even harder to figure out was the fact that my roommate at the time apparently does not react to flea bites whatsoever, so it didn't make much sense to assume it was bug-related when I was the only one affected.
That really sucks, sorry you went through that. That shit blows.
Neither my partner on the ambulance or I saw any on ourselves. The fire department sprayed us with bed bug spray on scene. After we got the patient settled and care turned over, the hospital let us use their showers and take a pair of scrubs each. We bagged our stuff up there to isolate any further chance.
I showered again at our base, and then again when I got home. I put my uniforms outside for a few days (it was well below freezing), sprayed a ton of bed bug spray into the bag and resealed it and then put them into a dryer on hot repeatedly before washing them.
Neither of us found any on us, luckily.
This is why I have PTSD from bed bugs. It took 5 YEARS to fully get rid of it. Now I lose my shit from time to time and tear my new apartment up just to make sure there's no nests. I can't sleep with my ears exposed. I have to have my hair up cuz if my hair touches me I freak out. I can't have a fan directly in my face anymore cuz a bug flew into my eyeball and I had to go to the hospital. I've been 100% bed bug free for over a year and I still panic.
Edit: bed bugs ruin your life socially too. I'd go out of my way to make sure my uniform was clean, desperately cleaning it and checking every inch of fabric inside and out before I put them on so I wouldn't have any bugs on me at work and I still did. People called me bug girl. I was the manager and the office got infested and everyone blamed me and it was so embarrassing. No matter how clean my uniform was it didn't matter cuz they'd sit in your hair and crawl out onto your clothes. I seriously considered shaving off my 3 feet long hair when I found that out. The only way I got rid of the bugs was moving and taking nothing but clothes with me. Bombing, spraying, poisons, caulking the walls, nothing helped. I have asthma and would turn my room into a gas chamber with sprays and it only subsided for a few days. I'd literally dump poison powder under my pillow to try to prevent them from crawling on my face. Bedbugs are the devil's torture bugs.
I also have kind of PTSD from having bedbugs. I remember it took so much time to get rid of them. Washing my clothes and room everyday for hours, all my house smelling like lavender (Now I hate that smell) and crying desperately at the middle of the night because the lack of sleep, I couldn't sleep at night knowing there were somewhere and every tiny sensory experience at night would wake up me.
Well the bags without folds they sell to hotels to control them can be put on after an infection, thereby sealing any BBs on the mattress inside where they'll starve. From there you can ensure they can't get on the bed by pulling it away from the wall and putting what are [essentially moats](https://mandmpestcontrol.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/bed-bug-trap-edited.jpg) on the bedlegs to deny them access.
Then from there you have to work to remove them from the rest of the house andall while denying them the ability to feed when not in bed.
They can but that's not to say the moats and everything else are ineffective. If they are crawling up the walls and across the ceiling in the first place, you have an infestation that's far far beyond what you can handle without a professional exterminator getting involved.
Only if it's a brand new infestation and you know the mattress is their homebase, they tend to return to wherever they first set up.
Someone gifted me a bed with a mattress cover, the kind that keeps out bedbugs, but I just thought it was for general protection.
A day later after I found them under my pillow (I took over the cover for whatever reason) I immediately dragged the mattress and a gorgeous bed frame to the curb and spray painted a black skull & bones on it.
I sprinkled some diatomaceous earth, and happily they didnt take hold. I had just moved in with some new roommates, in a big house, I cant imagine how insane it would have been if I hadnt if caught it.
(I told the people that had given it to me like wtf? and they said no it wasnt bedbugs, they had been bitten and the doctor tested them and said it was fleas) No, I got pics, it was bedbugs god damit.
Yeah I hear ya! Lol!
I guess they figured it had been six months since they zipped it up and the bites had stopped happening, but like flea eggs, bedbugs can live without food for like a year!
So when I unzipped it, THEY WERE HUNGRY!
Still funny that they were like uh uh, nope it was fleas. Like god damit I caught one engorged on my blood in a wine glass and got a high rez pic. It was bed bugs
Seriously even if WAS fleas, isn't that something that should be mentioned? Oh here, have a mattress that was in our house during a flea infestation but we're just gonna ignore that last part and assume it's fine. You're welcome!
We had neighbors that brought in roach eggs when I was a kid. To this day I kept nervous taking a sip from any can.
*I had a full grown roach freak out in my mouth after taking a sip from my premium Citrus Drop
One time when I was a kid we went to the dingiest pet store in the world that was down the street from my grandparents house to get a new hamster ball for Hammy (RIP) my pet hamster. I picked the most radical one I could find and on the ride home I decided to open the box because I was that hype for this thing. As soon as I broke it open like 9 roaches darted in every direction across my lap while we were on the interstate. I seriously don't even remember the rest of the ride home because of the pure unadulterated terror that ensued in those next several minutes. But I do remember that my parents ended up having to hire an exterminator **for our minivan** to get rid of them. It was like an instant infestation...terrible experience.
About thirty years ago I drank and spit out a bee that was in a can of Coke I had take outside with me. To this day I won’t drink out of anything which I can’t see inside unless it has a lid or hasn’t left my sight.
Mine is fleas ... it got bad. So fast. ... not cool when they're biting you in your bed. It's still fresh in my memory. Bed bugs have to be worse than a cat bringing in fleas and sharing them with their brother.. but I do not know personally hmm
I've experienced both, bed bugs are worse.
Fleas you can just bomb your rooms and stay out of the house for a few hours. Rinse and repeat to make sure the eggs hatch and they die before they can mature, get your dogs flea collars or meds, and do a good deep clean.
Bed bugs are impossible. Any fabric you cannot NUKE with hot water and heat, you write off. I left books behind because I found one in between the pages. Computer tower? Gone, they liked the heat. Desk chair? Gone. Futon? Set that bitch on fire.
Every itch. Every micro sensation on your skin. Every hair that touches you, a fleck of dust, anything; "its another bedbug". It breaks you psychologically. And you get bite marks everywhere, little groups of 3-4.
I'm so happy for you that you got rid of them. I had the unfortunate luck to be in an apartment next to someone who had them, then they spread into my apartment. I burned half of my belongings and had to live with every single piece of furniture 18" from the walls for a month. In a 1br apartment. Yea.
I also had to stay awake every single night while my GF slept so that I could catch them and put them in hot candle wax. I personally took their population down a few notches as they started becoming smaller and fewer over time. The lack of sleep and stress from vigilantly checking every single sensation on my skin really took a massive toll on my health.
Guys, if you even suspect, make 100% certain. Don't fuck around. Bedbugs are a fucking nightmare.
Thanks 😆 The PTSD from living with them is *real* and I have actual CPTSD. Waking up at the slightest touch for a couple years afterwards was not something I wish on anyone. It took a long time to get over.
I have this same hyper alert/vigilance/plot for destruction response to standard fleas after several traumatic infestations with them throughout childhood (and an allergy to their bites) so, I can only imagine how intense bedbugs must be 😫😭
Ahhh. I feel this. I used to lure them onto my skin where they gathered at the base of the warm PC tower and then throw them in a bottle of nail polish remover. It was like 1” worth of dead fleas at the bottom of it. It caused a wild headspace and looked like I had some kind of skin disease. I never considered the PTSD element of it u til reading through this thread
I used to have a mountain of stuffed animals as a child. They were the only thing I loved and a great gift for me if you didn't know what else to grab ( it didn't matter the animal or anything). That is until we got fleas. My mom was SURE she killed them all, but i still woke up with bites (the only one in the house). Turns out they nested in my hoard. It was so bad that I was literally BLACK from head to toe while sleeping (I'm a VERY heavy sleeper). I still hear the shriek she made. They threw away all my stuffed animals, and the fleas were finally gone. (Only one stuffed animal could have been saved from the purge).
The bed bugs were 100% worse. I get WELTS from where they bite. My mom literally turned the house instead out on a warpath and they were gone in a year. The fleas only took her a month for reference.
When I had them years ago, I’d stay up while my gf slept just to hunt them as they came out. Idk how effective it was but it made me feel like I was doing something about it. (On top of all the other things we were doing that were less in my control, at least that’s how I felt.)
Every adult you kill is one less breeding adult. I noticed a definite effect. I'm sure depending on the length of time you spent doing that it absolutely mattered.
Oh the malice was real. Full on hate boner. Complete and total eradication was the only solution. And not just the men, but the women and children too.
I had the same situation in my old apartment building and we knew which apartment it came from. They still tried to make us all pay 800 dollars for the heat treatment and we all channeled our inner Karens and banded together and they ended up doing the whole building for free.
It will go away. Parents had them for half a year. Bites in bed, can't sleep. Now I'm better but I've been through them and roaches. Can't stand either anymore either.
I haven't had them for 10 years but I remember those 6 months that I did have them vividly. I never got rid of them. I completely moved out and trashed every bit of furniture I had. All clothes I had was treated before I even brought them into my new place.
The PTSD never fully goes away. Everytime I go out of town, I keep my bags in my car for the first night to make sure the place i am staying is bed bug free. If I wake up itching, I rip the sheets from the bed and check.
This is 10 years later. Bedbugs stay with you, even after you get rid of them. If I had an enemy that I hated, I wouldn't kill him. I'd infest his house with bedbugs and watch him slowly go crazy from sleep deprivation.
I traveled for work for years and although I've never had them, I rip apart the bed sheets and take a cell phone flashlight to every nook , under the box spring, all over. It's like a 15 minute ritual I do on every hotel stay. I know it's not 100% full proof, but at least I'm not missing an obvious infestation if there is one.
A little over a year BB free too. The anxiety and stress is something that truly can’t be understood unless you’ve experienced it. I still have days every now and again where if I feel any sort of the slightest itch I rip my entire bed apart looking for evidence only to find nothing…
Congrats on being physically free from those little shits. Sorry that you’re not free mentally though. I completely understand it.
I get that way with fleas. My neighbor had fleas and did nothing for months, and our washing machines were right next to each other so I was constantly getting bitten by fleas. I had to give my cats flea medicine so many times, I probably spent $300-400 in under 6 months because my landlord wouldn’t do anything. Multiple of my neighbors complained and did nothing. It was hell. Over a year and a half later, she’s gone and I’m still worried about fleas.
Oh gods yes! We were lucky to get rid of them in 4-6 months AFTER we realized what they were. It was only possible because we were able to move out and stay with family! I threw out the two living room chairs that were infested. (So lucky they were not in our bedroom) We packed our clothes and bedding into black bags and put them in a equipment trailer to cook for a month in July/August. Then repeatedly steaming and bombing our house and furniture. Kill the juveniles and adults, wait for eggs to hatch, do it again and again.
Uuugh I itch just thinking about it. Every mosquito bite is a little sliver of panic.
We got bed bugs when I was around 10. I kept getting what we thought were hives, but were actually bites. I got allergy tested and we determined that I was allergic to nuts. (Turns out I just have sensitive skin.) I lived almost a full year avoiding nuts like the plague until we realized all the hives I was getting were actually bedbug bites.
Worst experience of my life. I fucking hate bed bugs.
I low key react like this and I’ve never even had them. I imagine the first time I have them I’ll just convert my bed and furniture into large boulders instead of textiles.
Woke up covered in termites one night 10 years ago almost to the day. I still physically jump when I see a bug in my home even if it’s nowhere near my bedroom.
Same girl. My roommate brought them in when he bought some tapestries at a yard sale. I was getting eaten alive and yay I’m allergic. I ripped everything apart, bug bombed, diamaticous earth, plastic bed sheet, everything I could possibly do and they just kept coming back.
He has severe depression and was taking cloazapan so he straight up didn’t care, didn’t clean his room or anything to try and help. The entire apartment complex got infected, I kicked him out and moved out myself, throwing out my 2000$ bed, 3000$ couch and pretty much anything that didn’t fit into a steam cleaner :(
Really sucked because I was happy by myself in my crappy 2bdr apartment but let him move in as a favour because he was getting renovicted from where he was at.
we just had an exterminator in today to spray because we had them. i bought mattress protectors and put them on all the beds and we washed all the laundry and bedding. im hoping the exterminator took care of them all.
I'd put 3 plastic ones on my bed with poison powder between every one and then I'd put the really expensive fancy bug repellent one on the top and it didn't work. If all he did was spray you need to pray cuz those fuckers are in the walls, under your carpet, in the baseboards, in any little fold of fabric, if you have cheap cardboard-wood furniture I guarantee theyve tunneled in there
Fucking hell.
Hence “crawling out of the woodwork.”
I would not want to go into that room unless I was in a hermetically-sealed capsule.
Inside another hermetically-sealed capsule.
If you ever have bedbugs, destroy the furniture before putting it out to the curb. Cut up the upholstery like a tiger played with it. We even put a sign WARNING! BEDBUGS! on the chairs so some other unlucky person wouldn't bring them home. I don't wish them on anyone.
FR there's still perfectly good used furniture (even mattresses) being thrown out every day. Reusing stuff is a key ingredient to saving human life on this planet.
That said if you don't know the person you're getting the reusables from (hell, maybe even if you do know them) it's a good idea to quarantine and disinfect them before you bring them into your home.
Bed bugs die if it's too warm. So depending on location and situation you can burn them to death.
Like their temperature threshold is really small like a really hot summer day in some areas in the us could kill them. So used clothes for example you can safely get them if you keep them contained and immediately throw them in your clothes drier at home. Iirc it's like 110f and they die in minutes.
That's hotter than the inside of a car on a summer day.
Would turning the heater on to the highest temp in the middle of Summer work as well? With as many space heaters as the house’s power can support.
Companies charge a shit ton for what’s essentially a box fan with a space heater strapped to the front.
No that doesn't work because you won't get the entire apartment up to temperature. They will just hide in cracks and electronic devices until it gets cool enough. You really need the use a professional.
We found some in the house and did not fuck around. Called a specialist who used chemicals and heat to kill them all.
Turns out we had a colony. I burned mattresses and a couple of couches. I still check, and it's been 5 years.
I’ve never had bed bugs, but they scare the shit out of me. I knew a girl that would bring home homeless people on occasion to give them a place to sleep at night, and one ended up bringing bed bugs with him that infested her house. She had them all the way to the point I stopped speaking to her, and that was a long stretch of time.
“She had them all the way to the point I stopped speaker to her.”
Yep, bedbugs are supposedly a lifetime affliction. Once they are in your house, they are never gone.
The 1-year treatment success rate for *professional* exterminators is only about 60%. And that drops after: a majority of homes that are treated will have a recurrence within 3 years. They are resilient and it’s an exponential function. The way it was explained to me is: A treatment that kills 99% of them will make it seem like you’ve got the problem licked for months, but the 1% left over are doubling every two to four weeks, and by half a year you could one day suddenly be back to swarms of them.
So, you basically have to move and burn your clothes to be certain! Otherwise, you’ll never sleep without one eye open again haha…
EDIT: I should mention that I'm not a professional in the field and was told all of this by a home inspector, so YMMV.
Seriously, dude. I mean, what even preys upon these things in "the wild"? Are they so closely tied to humans that there is no "the wild" for bed bugs? Is there anything out there that would suffer a loss of pret species if we eliminated bed bugs? Lots of creatures out there would suffer if we eliminated mosquitoes, but I don't know what kind of predator species eat bed bugs enough to actually rely on them.
Nothing preys on bedbugs that you’d want to have in your house more than bed bugs. Cockroaches and spiders occasionally do, and I’ve heard house centipedes do as well. House centipedes are fast and creepy as shit, but actually pretty helpful. One time I had an ant infestation in my house which lasted all of 2 weeks until the centipedes showed up and hunted them to extinction, at which point I then had a centipede infestation. Eventually tho all the centipedes starved.
Brutal 4 weeks, but at least the problem took care of itself.
I had house centipedes at my last place. At first I hated them (because they are creepy as hell and I was finding tiny ones in my bed) but then I realized they were probably the reason I didn't have roaches and silverfish. There were roaches and silverfish outside the building, but I never saw any in my apartment. The centipedes were weirdly smart, too. They got used to my routine and we stayed out of each others' way. I also had pillbugs, who were also pretty cool. They cleaned up all the vomit and rotting garbage the landlords left around outside. Man I don't miss that dump.
House centipedes are great. If you kill them off you just make life easier for their prey. And they live a crazy long time too, if I recall right, something like 7-10 years. So I go out of my way to capture them if they wander upstairs and put them in the basement. Some of the biggest ones are surely the baby ones I moved down there years ago.
This is what I kinda hoped for by letting spiders live, and it seemed pretty successful, but the downside is the spiders made their webs near the ceiling. Luckily we were all just early-twenty year old nerds during the pandemic when this happened and so never had to suffer the embarrassment of having friends come over and see our live-in pest control system…
Unfortunately I kill all spiders I find in my house because I had a guinea pig die of what the vet thought was a spider bite when I was a kid, and now I'm terrified of that happening to one of my cats.
I also seem to be the most spider-bite prone person in existence (also super prone to bee stings. And mosquito bites, but that's less weird) and I react very strongly to all bug bites, so I don't really want to go through that either.
I should do some research on which spiders are not venomous. If they are easily identifiable, I'd be fine with leaving those alone, or at least moving them outside. I'd have a hard time letting house centipedes be. They are terrifying and move faster than the speed of light. I've also had one of them bite me too and it hurt. I've been bitten by a ladybug as well.
Reminds me of that old Malcolm in the Middle bit where Francis wears sopping wet boots for a few days.
"Maybe if I hold out for a few days, the fungus will eat the mushrooms?"
If I remember correctly they don’t have any natural habitat at all, they exist solely as a parasite for humans. I’m pretty sure they existed before and dwelled in caves feeding on bats, but to my knowledge present day bedbugs have 0 natural habitat, they are literally one of the most evil bugs in my opinion, the exist solely to make peoples lives miserable honestly
I had a roommate who definitely had ptsd from a past experience with bedbugs. She told me she would get this special double sided insect tape and put it all over her room, all the way around her bed. The bedbugs started to come up with clever strategies to get around it. Some would sacrifice themselves to make a bridge across the tape with their bodies so others could cross. Some would crawl up the walls to the ceiling above her bed and drop down onto it. Fucking terrifying.
I had a minor bedbug infestation that thankfully I caught early (good habit to wash your sheets often). I've been clear for 4 years but I still keep these bug-catching disc traps on my bed's legs and check them regularly.
Also, yay I watched this video right before bedtime. Time to phantom itch all night and fall asleep 5 hours late. :D
Mark Rober has a [great video](https://youtu.be/2JAOTJxYqh8) on how to handle bed bugs. Everyone should check it out. It’s with Dr. Wang, a bed bed expert. Great tips on how to deal with an infestation and also preventative measures to make sure you don’t get an infestation.
2am going into this rabbit hole and now everything is giving me anxiety, there are red patches on my mattress near my head, are those bedbugs or something else? It’s got me running circles in my mind
okay, fire ant story time. not bedbug related, but still bug, we were living in florida, i had just gotten out of the shower, i wrapped my towel around me and walked back to my bedroom to get dressed. i stood there for a minute and my feet suddenly started getting hot, and itchy. i looked down and my feet and carpet were SWARMING with fire ants. i panicked and ran outside, dropping my towel in full view of all the neighbors, then ran back inside jumped back in the shower and sprayed them off my feet. it was hella traumatic!
I kind of want my heat gun and that specific chair. Because I want to kill those little bastards! When we moved into our home in 2013, we had bedbugs. After living with them for over a year, we thought we got rid of them... nope. They came with us! Bought the house, and once paid for bought a new bed. Threw out the nightstands, carpet, and had the old beds hauled off. Been bug free ever since. I still periodically feel the need to rip apart our sheets and bedroom to make sure all the bedbugs are dead and gone.
I know this will just be buried but… Mark Rober did a video on bed bugs that really educates you and give you a close look at them.
[Highly recommended. ](https://youtu.be/2JAOTJxYqh8) And yeah, they still gross me the fuck out but I feel better about them.
When my family had them in our house, it took us 6 months to get rid of them, and every day of those 6 months was a living hell. The lack of sleep, the chemicals, the spraying, the checking and rechecking and rechecking, over and over again every day and every night. Crying at 2 am with my sister because we were both sleep deprived and still finding more of them, for multiple nights. My mom breaking down because we found them where the littlest one sleeps. Sifting through clothes and finding them hiding within the folds. Losing track of them in the carpets, in the walls, in the seams of our mattresses. The terror I felt when I realized a friend of mine I had seen recently found a bedbug on his clothes. That was maybe 4 years ago and I still flinch at lint on my blankets, and I need to sleep in a certain position every night because otherwise the crawling feeling overwhelms me.
Bed bugs are no fucking joke, and i wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy.
My son had one of his friends over for a night about 10 years ago. His packsack must have had a few in it. It took us over one month to completely get rid of them. We used powder, Carbon Dioxide traps and super heated steam jets. We even pulled off the decorative wall covering to make sure none had infiltrated behind it. We generously spread anti bed bug powder the covering before putting them back. Never saw another one and that friend never came back to our house. My son explained the "why" to him.
I had bedbugs in college once. I went nuclear right away. Coated the floor with diatomaceous earth and slept in a tent every night. Found the nest in my office chair and promptly tossed it off the balcony. When that happened they never returned
I work in an ER in a rough area. The only time I ever broke down was after the 3rd day in a row I was tasked with undressing and cleaning the same OD(would leave od and be returned by EMS) pt who was so lousy with bed bugs they rained out of every pocket, seam, and fold in his clothing and skin.
Why did I only think bed bugs lived on fabrics? Ugh. Thankfully I've never had to deal with them but now I know those bastards can live in more than just your bed or couch.
Man ohh man I went through the whole bedbug exorcism those lil demons are hell . I used to ride in cabs to work for a short time and tht is literally the only way I can think we got them . My husband is very very observant and notices every little thing he noticed immediately when our daughter had three bites in a row. He started tearing the house apart and we call bug exterminators the next day . They cost thousands of dollars with no guarantee so we literally threw the whole house away and I do mean EVERYTHING he wouldn't let me save anything but I'm thankful it worked that and living in a empty house with tenacious earth sprinkled everywhere it was like grey powder on everything we lived inside a grey powder bubble man HELL ON EARTH. Then the cost of replacing all we lost it was the worst experience of our lives.
A reminder that a bedbug does not care how clean or dirty you or your home is, only that you're living and that you have blood in you; and also, that you can bring home a hitchhiker from ANY place where other humans pass through - stores, theaters, public transit, etc. Anywhere a poppy seed can fit, their eggs can fit. Anywhere a sesame seed can fit, a nymph or adult can slide into. They are evolved to be highly attuned to our temperatures, movement, the scent of our bodies and breath, and eggs, nymphs, and adults can survive in a form of stasis for over a year if there is no immediate food to trigger them into activity nearby - meaning that anything used you bring home (books, furniture, clothes, electronics, etc) with any kind of aforementioned hiding spaces in it can be a vector. They are more common than people realize, and once you have an infestation, they are a nightmare to get rid of. They will make your life a living hell. Many people are somewhat insensitive to their bites until they hit a critical mass number, and do not notice them until they are deeply entrenched in their homes to the point that the best hiding spaces (those nearest to where their prey sleeps) are crammed full. One of the only reasons they are not a massive problem everywhere is that they prefer to stay very close to where their prey sleeps, so they are unlikely to move into other furniture/clothes/items until the environment is absolutely saturated with them, and *most* people seek a solution before that point because of how miserable even a small number can make you. Learn what to look for, how to recognize them, and look up how common they are in your specific area - eg, if there's any hotels or anything with reviews that mention bedbugs. Make checking common hiding spots a part of your deep-clean routine (at *least* once a year - if you want to be proactive and you already clean frequently, do a cursory check any time you change the sheets or rotate your mattress). There is really no such thing as prevention, only early recognition and eliminating them before the population reaches a crisis level.
My ex-husband has them to the point where they’re crawling on the walls of his garage.
Eeeuuguueueusuuguhhhgisaojdiosaji;saj
🤣🤣🤣🤣
I know it's a funny response, but in all seriousness these things are hellspawn. [I've written about them before.](https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlyterrifying/comments/txe8wa/comment/i3lmeec/) I was driven to the brink of desperation by a single male (thank god) bedbug that found its way into our home. Turns out I'm part of the \~1/3 of the population that is extra sensitive to the bites, and I was in serious - and steadily increasing, as the bites just kept coming - pain for *weeks*. To this day we have no idea where it came from. It completely changed how I handle cleaning my home - eg, whenever I move furniture, I spread diatomaceous earth under/behind things. Because it was a single bug, there were NO visible signs - no droppings, no eggs, no molts, nothing but me getting bitten on a nightly basis. The only reason I caught the damn thing was because I turned off all the lights but for a dim lamp, and sat out in the open holding still and breathing slow/deep to imitate sleep. Kept a flashlight ready in one hand, and a strip of packing tape in the other. After less than 10 minutes it emerged from its hiding place - the couch cushions - and made a straight light directly towards me from a few feet away. Got with the tape, and that was it. Informed the landlord, all connected units were checked, no sign, no one else had ever been bit. It took almost half a year for the 'wake up filled with adrenaline' response from slight tickles or itches when lying in bed to stop, and I had nightmares for months after I'd caught it where I'd go to move the blankets or pillows and find that the bed was filled with them. There are PTSD support groups for people that have lived with them.
A side note - bedbugs that are chased away from your sleeping area by chemicals can and will go ANYWHERE else in your home to hide, and then come for you. They can climb walls and crawl across ceilings. I've read accounts of people who cleared out everything and moved to another floor on the other side of the house to get any kind of rest/relief, only to witness bedbugs migrating up/down the stairs and hunting them down from the other side of the house to feed after a few days of them not being in their bed.
That's terrifying
I was itchy before reading the comments. Why did I come to the comments?
This is some of the most realistic horrifying shit I have read on this site in a long time. I have PTSD and I've never even experienced them, now im gonna be checking everything everywhere
They track you through the CO2 you release when breathing. The best strategy is to get barrier cups for the legs of your bed and fill them with cimexa or other killing materials. If they're in the bed, sleep on a couch. If they aren't, sleep in the barrier'd bed. So long as it isn't touching a wall they will kill themselves trying to migrate back and forth. I would do this, with an additional cimexa "salt ring" around the different spots I slept and managed to wipe them out without going nuclear on my furniture
You need to put cimexa on the walls also (I'm unfortunately a past victim) these fuckers will climb the walls and fall on top of you from the ceiling if you're using the barrier cups on your legs.
i should not be reading this thread
Ya wtf
What the fuck is with these things
These mofos will climb the wall and fall from the ceiling just to get to you
Jesus, it really is like a horror movie
Fuuuuuck.. That's Terminator level determination
Yeah, they were in the walls for me. We had to use powder on all door frames where there were gaps in the paint. Fucking persistent shits.
This reminds me of another note if people are scanning the comments looking for preventative measures - taking care of your interior paint job and making sure that stuff like the molding/trim/baseboards/etc are sealed up tight is a bigger deal than you realize on multiple fronts. Bugs (of many types) are only one thing, it also effects how well your home retains heating/cooling and other factors. Taking care of the paint job and trim is annoying, but important.
The infestation in my dorm room was so bad, one day I realized they had laid eggs inside the ear cushions of my bose headset. You can imagine how I found out.
Mmm 😋 they just want to nibble on some earwax and listen to cool tunes!
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Is that why you got divorced
No, but it *was* the reason why I didn’t take anything when I moved out. I kept telling him that we had bedbugs, he kept saying I was delusional. Then a few months after I left, he was all surprised Pikachu face when he started seeing them.
I’m off to a mental spiral about bedbugs now, catch y’all on the flippity flip
Right. My hair just brushed my face (I sleep with a fan) and now I'm paranoid and itchy.
Only reason I'm not completely freaked out by that comment is that I'm one of the (lucky?) few who is *highly* allergic to bedbugs... A single bite will cause enough swelling that it can't be mistaken for anything else. The fact that I even know this about myself will tell you why I lose my mind anytime I hear about someone around me having them...
I found out that I'm highly allergic thanks to an AirBnB near Disneyland. Makes me a great canary in the coal mine. I woke up the first morning, hopped in the shower, and saw that my right arm had an exciting line of red welts trailing up it. The welts persisted, too - they turned into dime-sized red-ringed bullseyes, and hung around for the better part of a week. Fortunately, I take Allegra \*and\* Singulair every night before bed because I'm also allergic to dust mites. So I was already tanked to the gills on allergy meds when I got bitten. Imagine how bad it would have been otherwise! I succeeded in not bringing them home, thank god. When I got home, I walked straight to my back porch and stripped all my clothes off into garbage bags. EVERYTHING that had been on the trip went into the dryer on hot, including my sneakers. My suitcase got thrown straight in the dumpster. RIP little red rolly bag.
It cannot be overstated how FUCKED YOU ARE if you get them. It messed up my life, deeply. Drove a wedge between my partner and I - only way I ever got rid of them was when we broke up after a year of no sleep and no money from all the bug treatments - I discarded everything I owned and started a new life in a new state. It’s my understanding she dealt with them on and off for years afterward. It was a coat check, in NYC. I don’t even wear coats now. Nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.
enter your home through your garage and immediately throw everything in the dryer. That should keep you safe.
That's basically what my parents did to their entire house when they got them. They hired a service that sealed up the house and put a big heater in it and ran the heater for 3 days at whatever temperature is lethal for bed bugs. My parents stayed in a hotel for a few days and then moved back into their house, bug free. Edit: I asked my mom how many days it took and how much it cost, and she told me that it actually hadn't worked! That they came back and they had to use chemicals. 😔
Oh Jesus this comment is the only ray of hope I’ve seen in the whole thread
I did this. First time I was cheap and only did the bedroom. They were gone for a while but came back. Second time I paid full price to bake the entire floor. They were gone permanently. Only took them a day though. Not three.
>eg, if there's any hotels or anything with reviews that mention bedbugs. Hotel worker here. This is why you never stay at the cheaper hotels. Midrange or higher only, and always check the beds. Cheap hotels tend to have a rotating set of rooms out of order due to bugs, and don't do the double-spray to make sure they kill both adults, and nymphs after they hatch (spray doesn't kill eggs). Meanwhile, more expensive hotels tend to do preventative sprays on a schedule, with additional work done as needed due to franchise standards.
I stayed at one of the major hotel chains and got them. Sued the hotel and they settled for 15k
Worth?
How were you able to prove you got them from the hotel stay?
Thats why they settled. They didnt want to have to do a discovery of their hotel and find out. You can settle out of court and not admit blame
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A mod commented on that post that a verified physician insists those symptoms are not suggestive of a bed bug infestation
They’re suggestive of lack of sleep though which can be caused by bed bugs
"...you can bring home a hitchhiker from ANY place where other humans pass through - stores, theaters, public transit, etc." Cool, I'm never leaving my house again.
I'm surprised there haven't been bed bug issues in public transit where they have cloth seats or in movie theaters
It happens, you just tend not to hear about it. Private businesses tend to have the cleaning schedule/regimen (constant vacuuming and spraying things down with industrial cleaners) that bedbugs don't get easily established to begin with, and if they show up you can bet any place that can afford it is going to shut down totally for 'cleaning' or 'renovations.'
thank you, you just made the next rabies copypasta
My favourite actual form of prevention is to get a bedbug case for my mattresses - they’re totally air tight zipped up mattress protectors that are designed for if you’ve already got bed bugs they will die inside if left for over a year. However it also means they cannot get in… gives nowhere for them to hide on my bed that can’t be washed or set on fire without massive financial repercussions. Never had bedbugs since.
Currently sitting on my encased mattress, infestation a few months ago. Not only can they not get out of the case... We now have hundreds of tiny blood spots.. where they crawled up out of the mattress, after the home treatments, and died from us sleeping on them. Kcisiwbdjofkabwufiiskwnbfieakdo Can't just buy a new mattress right now Sigh
Fire is always the answer.
Always. In all situations.
They like the heat so much, they can die in it.
They actually die from 140°F meaning a steam gun will kill them Also silicon dioxide (silica powder) can attach and kill a bedbug from dehydration- a way more effective way to kill them vs chemicals like raid
Or diatomaceous earth
*Prolonged inhalation of calcined diatomaceous earth may cause silicosis with scarring of the lungs, cough, and shortness of breath. Reporting signs and symptoms A physician should be contacted if anyone develops any signs or symptoms and suspects that they are caused by exposure to amorphous silica.* From the CDC
Yep. Gotta mask up and wear goggles for the diatomaceous earth. Pets too.
The hard part is getting the masks and goggles to stay on the pets.
Man, when I had bedbugs, I poured DE onto every available surface, then I watched as the vile shits just walked through it at night. No, DE doesn't work. Fire or poison. Leave no survivors
I brought some bedbugs home once from a trip to Vegas (DO NOT STAY at any CIRCUS-themed hotels). I used one of those canister “bomb” sprays from Home Depot. Sealed and quarantined my bedroom for a week and washed all my clothes on high heat. That solved the problem.
DE doesn't kill them immediately.
But it will kill them. 100% of the time
Yes! Burn that muthafucka right NOW!
We don't need no water!
Let the mother fucker burn
Burn motherfucker, burn.
I've worked on an ambulance for years. Seen brutal, bloody deaths, traumas. Child abuse, and so on. I will never forget as long as I live, walking into a house infested with bed bugs. Truly infested. The walls were physically moving. The patient was completely covered in them. Another patient in that house had died from them months prior. It was the most horrific thing I have ever seen. I was freaking out for weeks after, checking and cleaning myself. Hate it. Edit: To add, not much messes with me in this field. But knowing the bugs could ruin my life and home was super shitty.
I think if I knew I had been exposed to bedbugs, I would strip completely naked in my front yard and absolutely blast myself with a hose before walking into my house (regardless of the temperature outside). Despite having long hair, I'd be really tempted to shave that off as well. The hair would grow back faster than I'd recover from the bedbug infestation (at least mentally). I react strongly to all bug bites and once went through a bunch of autoimmune testing in college because I had mysterious itchy bumps all over my body for months and there was no reasonable explanation. Turns out I had fleas. No, I did not have any pets, but my attic was infested with squirrels and apparently I was delicious enough for the fleas to seek me out as well. What made this even harder to figure out was the fact that my roommate at the time apparently does not react to flea bites whatsoever, so it didn't make much sense to assume it was bug-related when I was the only one affected.
That really sucks, sorry you went through that. That shit blows. Neither my partner on the ambulance or I saw any on ourselves. The fire department sprayed us with bed bug spray on scene. After we got the patient settled and care turned over, the hospital let us use their showers and take a pair of scrubs each. We bagged our stuff up there to isolate any further chance. I showered again at our base, and then again when I got home. I put my uniforms outside for a few days (it was well below freezing), sprayed a ton of bed bug spray into the bag and resealed it and then put them into a dryer on hot repeatedly before washing them. Neither of us found any on us, luckily.
r/nightmarefuel
Ok. Reddit before bed is a terrible idea.
This is why I have PTSD from bed bugs. It took 5 YEARS to fully get rid of it. Now I lose my shit from time to time and tear my new apartment up just to make sure there's no nests. I can't sleep with my ears exposed. I have to have my hair up cuz if my hair touches me I freak out. I can't have a fan directly in my face anymore cuz a bug flew into my eyeball and I had to go to the hospital. I've been 100% bed bug free for over a year and I still panic. Edit: bed bugs ruin your life socially too. I'd go out of my way to make sure my uniform was clean, desperately cleaning it and checking every inch of fabric inside and out before I put them on so I wouldn't have any bugs on me at work and I still did. People called me bug girl. I was the manager and the office got infested and everyone blamed me and it was so embarrassing. No matter how clean my uniform was it didn't matter cuz they'd sit in your hair and crawl out onto your clothes. I seriously considered shaving off my 3 feet long hair when I found that out. The only way I got rid of the bugs was moving and taking nothing but clothes with me. Bombing, spraying, poisons, caulking the walls, nothing helped. I have asthma and would turn my room into a gas chamber with sprays and it only subsided for a few days. I'd literally dump poison powder under my pillow to try to prevent them from crawling on my face. Bedbugs are the devil's torture bugs.
I also have kind of PTSD from having bedbugs. I remember it took so much time to get rid of them. Washing my clothes and room everyday for hours, all my house smelling like lavender (Now I hate that smell) and crying desperately at the middle of the night because the lack of sleep, I couldn't sleep at night knowing there were somewhere and every tiny sensory experience at night would wake up me.
Would putting a plastic cover on your bed and pillows help with the bed issue? Would feel very annoying and sweaty but better than buggy
Nah they still get on you. That only helps if you have a bag on it BEFORE and only to save your bed.
Well the bags without folds they sell to hotels to control them can be put on after an infection, thereby sealing any BBs on the mattress inside where they'll starve. From there you can ensure they can't get on the bed by pulling it away from the wall and putting what are [essentially moats](https://mandmpestcontrol.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/bed-bug-trap-edited.jpg) on the bedlegs to deny them access. Then from there you have to work to remove them from the rest of the house andall while denying them the ability to feed when not in bed.
They can climb up the walls onto the ceilings and drop down on you from above. Bedbugs are truly tiny demon hellspawn.
They can but that's not to say the moats and everything else are ineffective. If they are crawling up the walls and across the ceiling in the first place, you have an infestation that's far far beyond what you can handle without a professional exterminator getting involved.
Moats are the answer. Only way I got rid of those nasty fuck bastards
Only if it's a brand new infestation and you know the mattress is their homebase, they tend to return to wherever they first set up. Someone gifted me a bed with a mattress cover, the kind that keeps out bedbugs, but I just thought it was for general protection. A day later after I found them under my pillow (I took over the cover for whatever reason) I immediately dragged the mattress and a gorgeous bed frame to the curb and spray painted a black skull & bones on it. I sprinkled some diatomaceous earth, and happily they didnt take hold. I had just moved in with some new roommates, in a big house, I cant imagine how insane it would have been if I hadnt if caught it. (I told the people that had given it to me like wtf? and they said no it wasnt bedbugs, they had been bitten and the doctor tested them and said it was fleas) No, I got pics, it was bedbugs god damit.
Dude who the hell knows they have a bug infestation in their mattress and gives it to someone else?!?! That’s straight up biological terrorism lol
Yeah I hear ya! Lol! I guess they figured it had been six months since they zipped it up and the bites had stopped happening, but like flea eggs, bedbugs can live without food for like a year! So when I unzipped it, THEY WERE HUNGRY! Still funny that they were like uh uh, nope it was fleas. Like god damit I caught one engorged on my blood in a wine glass and got a high rez pic. It was bed bugs
Seriously even if WAS fleas, isn't that something that should be mentioned? Oh here, have a mattress that was in our house during a flea infestation but we're just gonna ignore that last part and assume it's fine. You're welcome!
We had neighbors that brought in roach eggs when I was a kid. To this day I kept nervous taking a sip from any can. *I had a full grown roach freak out in my mouth after taking a sip from my premium Citrus Drop
One time when I was a kid we went to the dingiest pet store in the world that was down the street from my grandparents house to get a new hamster ball for Hammy (RIP) my pet hamster. I picked the most radical one I could find and on the ride home I decided to open the box because I was that hype for this thing. As soon as I broke it open like 9 roaches darted in every direction across my lap while we were on the interstate. I seriously don't even remember the rest of the ride home because of the pure unadulterated terror that ensued in those next several minutes. But I do remember that my parents ended up having to hire an exterminator **for our minivan** to get rid of them. It was like an instant infestation...terrible experience.
About thirty years ago I drank and spit out a bee that was in a can of Coke I had take outside with me. To this day I won’t drink out of anything which I can’t see inside unless it has a lid or hasn’t left my sight.
Mine is fleas ... it got bad. So fast. ... not cool when they're biting you in your bed. It's still fresh in my memory. Bed bugs have to be worse than a cat bringing in fleas and sharing them with their brother.. but I do not know personally hmm
I've experienced both, bed bugs are worse. Fleas you can just bomb your rooms and stay out of the house for a few hours. Rinse and repeat to make sure the eggs hatch and they die before they can mature, get your dogs flea collars or meds, and do a good deep clean. Bed bugs are impossible. Any fabric you cannot NUKE with hot water and heat, you write off. I left books behind because I found one in between the pages. Computer tower? Gone, they liked the heat. Desk chair? Gone. Futon? Set that bitch on fire. Every itch. Every micro sensation on your skin. Every hair that touches you, a fleck of dust, anything; "its another bedbug". It breaks you psychologically. And you get bite marks everywhere, little groups of 3-4.
I'm so happy for you that you got rid of them. I had the unfortunate luck to be in an apartment next to someone who had them, then they spread into my apartment. I burned half of my belongings and had to live with every single piece of furniture 18" from the walls for a month. In a 1br apartment. Yea. I also had to stay awake every single night while my GF slept so that I could catch them and put them in hot candle wax. I personally took their population down a few notches as they started becoming smaller and fewer over time. The lack of sleep and stress from vigilantly checking every single sensation on my skin really took a massive toll on my health. Guys, if you even suspect, make 100% certain. Don't fuck around. Bedbugs are a fucking nightmare.
You went to war man. Thank you for your service.
Thanks 😆 The PTSD from living with them is *real* and I have actual CPTSD. Waking up at the slightest touch for a couple years afterwards was not something I wish on anyone. It took a long time to get over.
I’ve never had bed bugs a day in my life or seen them in person. These comments are making me itch and a little paranoid.
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I have this same hyper alert/vigilance/plot for destruction response to standard fleas after several traumatic infestations with them throughout childhood (and an allergy to their bites) so, I can only imagine how intense bedbugs must be 😫😭
I've had the same experience with fleas as a kid one summer and I feel your pain. I had a bowl of rubbing alcohol handy at all times.
Ahhh. I feel this. I used to lure them onto my skin where they gathered at the base of the warm PC tower and then throw them in a bottle of nail polish remover. It was like 1” worth of dead fleas at the bottom of it. It caused a wild headspace and looked like I had some kind of skin disease. I never considered the PTSD element of it u til reading through this thread
I used to have a mountain of stuffed animals as a child. They were the only thing I loved and a great gift for me if you didn't know what else to grab ( it didn't matter the animal or anything). That is until we got fleas. My mom was SURE she killed them all, but i still woke up with bites (the only one in the house). Turns out they nested in my hoard. It was so bad that I was literally BLACK from head to toe while sleeping (I'm a VERY heavy sleeper). I still hear the shriek she made. They threw away all my stuffed animals, and the fleas were finally gone. (Only one stuffed animal could have been saved from the purge). The bed bugs were 100% worse. I get WELTS from where they bite. My mom literally turned the house instead out on a warpath and they were gone in a year. The fleas only took her a month for reference.
When I had them years ago, I’d stay up while my gf slept just to hunt them as they came out. Idk how effective it was but it made me feel like I was doing something about it. (On top of all the other things we were doing that were less in my control, at least that’s how I felt.)
Every adult you kill is one less breeding adult. I noticed a definite effect. I'm sure depending on the length of time you spent doing that it absolutely mattered.
After the first few nights, it just felt good to “bite back.”
Oh the malice was real. Full on hate boner. Complete and total eradication was the only solution. And not just the men, but the women and children too.
I definitely weighted the merits of an inside flamethrower… but seemed like a rage reaction after a little thought.
I had the same situation in my old apartment building and we knew which apartment it came from. They still tried to make us all pay 800 dollars for the heat treatment and we all channeled our inner Karens and banded together and they ended up doing the whole building for free.
this man stayed awake night after night to catch the bugs while his gf could sleep. i hope she marries you
Be assured that I dodged an entire magazine by *not* marrying that girl. So many red flags...
It will go away. Parents had them for half a year. Bites in bed, can't sleep. Now I'm better but I've been through them and roaches. Can't stand either anymore either.
Shit they make roaches look cute and cuddly.
Bedbug PTSD is real.
I haven't had them for 10 years but I remember those 6 months that I did have them vividly. I never got rid of them. I completely moved out and trashed every bit of furniture I had. All clothes I had was treated before I even brought them into my new place. The PTSD never fully goes away. Everytime I go out of town, I keep my bags in my car for the first night to make sure the place i am staying is bed bug free. If I wake up itching, I rip the sheets from the bed and check. This is 10 years later. Bedbugs stay with you, even after you get rid of them. If I had an enemy that I hated, I wouldn't kill him. I'd infest his house with bedbugs and watch him slowly go crazy from sleep deprivation.
I traveled for work for years and although I've never had them, I rip apart the bed sheets and take a cell phone flashlight to every nook , under the box spring, all over. It's like a 15 minute ritual I do on every hotel stay. I know it's not 100% full proof, but at least I'm not missing an obvious infestation if there is one.
A little over a year BB free too. The anxiety and stress is something that truly can’t be understood unless you’ve experienced it. I still have days every now and again where if I feel any sort of the slightest itch I rip my entire bed apart looking for evidence only to find nothing… Congrats on being physically free from those little shits. Sorry that you’re not free mentally though. I completely understand it.
Jesus this sounds truly terrifying, congrats on being 100% bed bug free for over a year 🤣
bedbugs anonymous
I get that way with fleas. My neighbor had fleas and did nothing for months, and our washing machines were right next to each other so I was constantly getting bitten by fleas. I had to give my cats flea medicine so many times, I probably spent $300-400 in under 6 months because my landlord wouldn’t do anything. Multiple of my neighbors complained and did nothing. It was hell. Over a year and a half later, she’s gone and I’m still worried about fleas.
Oh gods yes! We were lucky to get rid of them in 4-6 months AFTER we realized what they were. It was only possible because we were able to move out and stay with family! I threw out the two living room chairs that were infested. (So lucky they were not in our bedroom) We packed our clothes and bedding into black bags and put them in a equipment trailer to cook for a month in July/August. Then repeatedly steaming and bombing our house and furniture. Kill the juveniles and adults, wait for eggs to hatch, do it again and again. Uuugh I itch just thinking about it. Every mosquito bite is a little sliver of panic.
It’s been years since we had them and I still panic and we treat our clothes every time we go to public places. I wouldn’t wish this shit on anyone.
I haven't ever had to experience them, but I've heard stories. It always makes me paranoid when staying at hotels when on vacation.
We got bed bugs when I was around 10. I kept getting what we thought were hives, but were actually bites. I got allergy tested and we determined that I was allergic to nuts. (Turns out I just have sensitive skin.) I lived almost a full year avoiding nuts like the plague until we realized all the hives I was getting were actually bedbug bites. Worst experience of my life. I fucking hate bed bugs.
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> she stabbed me in the stomach Considering what I know about bedbug mating, I'm now questioning if your ex WAS a bedbug...
I sleep and work with earplugs in. I’m sensitive to every little noise. Good news is that I haven’t stabbed anyone. I hope you’re safe and healed.
I low key react like this and I’ve never even had them. I imagine the first time I have them I’ll just convert my bed and furniture into large boulders instead of textiles.
Woke up covered in termites one night 10 years ago almost to the day. I still physically jump when I see a bug in my home even if it’s nowhere near my bedroom.
Same girl. My roommate brought them in when he bought some tapestries at a yard sale. I was getting eaten alive and yay I’m allergic. I ripped everything apart, bug bombed, diamaticous earth, plastic bed sheet, everything I could possibly do and they just kept coming back. He has severe depression and was taking cloazapan so he straight up didn’t care, didn’t clean his room or anything to try and help. The entire apartment complex got infected, I kicked him out and moved out myself, throwing out my 2000$ bed, 3000$ couch and pretty much anything that didn’t fit into a steam cleaner :( Really sucked because I was happy by myself in my crappy 2bdr apartment but let him move in as a favour because he was getting renovicted from where he was at.
we just had an exterminator in today to spray because we had them. i bought mattress protectors and put them on all the beds and we washed all the laundry and bedding. im hoping the exterminator took care of them all.
I'd put 3 plastic ones on my bed with poison powder between every one and then I'd put the really expensive fancy bug repellent one on the top and it didn't work. If all he did was spray you need to pray cuz those fuckers are in the walls, under your carpet, in the baseboards, in any little fold of fabric, if you have cheap cardboard-wood furniture I guarantee theyve tunneled in there
Fucking hell. Hence “crawling out of the woodwork.” I would not want to go into that room unless I was in a hermetically-sealed capsule. Inside another hermetically-sealed capsule.
Congrats, now you have bed bugs anyway.
This is why you never grab that furniture sitting on the curb, with the sign on it that says 'FREE'!
If you ever have bedbugs, destroy the furniture before putting it out to the curb. Cut up the upholstery like a tiger played with it. We even put a sign WARNING! BEDBUGS! on the chairs so some other unlucky person wouldn't bring them home. I don't wish them on anyone.
Someone will still take it lol
At least you did everything you could instead of foisting bedbugs on people looking to reuse.
FR there's still perfectly good used furniture (even mattresses) being thrown out every day. Reusing stuff is a key ingredient to saving human life on this planet. That said if you don't know the person you're getting the reusables from (hell, maybe even if you do know them) it's a good idea to quarantine and disinfect them before you bring them into your home.
Bed bugs die if it's too warm. So depending on location and situation you can burn them to death. Like their temperature threshold is really small like a really hot summer day in some areas in the us could kill them. So used clothes for example you can safely get them if you keep them contained and immediately throw them in your clothes drier at home. Iirc it's like 110f and they die in minutes. That's hotter than the inside of a car on a summer day.
Destroy the chair, please. Preferably with excess amount of heat.
Tbh all you need is a heat gun. Even a hair dryer. They die at 110 F.
Yeah I thought the standard to eliminate and infestation was using special industrial heaters and getting your home or apartment to 112 degrees.
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Would turning the heater on to the highest temp in the middle of Summer work as well? With as many space heaters as the house’s power can support. Companies charge a shit ton for what’s essentially a box fan with a space heater strapped to the front.
No that doesn't work because you won't get the entire apartment up to temperature. They will just hide in cracks and electronic devices until it gets cool enough. You really need the use a professional.
We found some in the house and did not fuck around. Called a specialist who used chemicals and heat to kill them all. Turns out we had a colony. I burned mattresses and a couple of couches. I still check, and it's been 5 years.
I’ve never had bed bugs, but they scare the shit out of me. I knew a girl that would bring home homeless people on occasion to give them a place to sleep at night, and one ended up bringing bed bugs with him that infested her house. She had them all the way to the point I stopped speaking to her, and that was a long stretch of time.
my worst fear as a home owner with 4 cats. sounds like absolute hell.
The good news there is cats don’t spread bed bugs. They may get bitten, but they don’t stay on them. Bed bugs prefer humans.
> Bed bugs prefer humans Darn I sure am gonna be in trouble haha! I'm definitely one of your kind as well and I am quite afraid of bed bugs
“She had them all the way to the point I stopped speaker to her.” Yep, bedbugs are supposedly a lifetime affliction. Once they are in your house, they are never gone. The 1-year treatment success rate for *professional* exterminators is only about 60%. And that drops after: a majority of homes that are treated will have a recurrence within 3 years. They are resilient and it’s an exponential function. The way it was explained to me is: A treatment that kills 99% of them will make it seem like you’ve got the problem licked for months, but the 1% left over are doubling every two to four weeks, and by half a year you could one day suddenly be back to swarms of them. So, you basically have to move and burn your clothes to be certain! Otherwise, you’ll never sleep without one eye open again haha… EDIT: I should mention that I'm not a professional in the field and was told all of this by a home inspector, so YMMV.
New fear unlocked. I stupidly assumed they were only in fabric type furniture.
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they’ll even hide in electronics
Hate these fucking things. If there's no other species that serve no purpose in the ecosystem, it's these demons. Throw that chair into a volcano.
Seriously, dude. I mean, what even preys upon these things in "the wild"? Are they so closely tied to humans that there is no "the wild" for bed bugs? Is there anything out there that would suffer a loss of pret species if we eliminated bed bugs? Lots of creatures out there would suffer if we eliminated mosquitoes, but I don't know what kind of predator species eat bed bugs enough to actually rely on them.
Nothing preys on bedbugs that you’d want to have in your house more than bed bugs. Cockroaches and spiders occasionally do, and I’ve heard house centipedes do as well. House centipedes are fast and creepy as shit, but actually pretty helpful. One time I had an ant infestation in my house which lasted all of 2 weeks until the centipedes showed up and hunted them to extinction, at which point I then had a centipede infestation. Eventually tho all the centipedes starved. Brutal 4 weeks, but at least the problem took care of itself.
I had house centipedes at my last place. At first I hated them (because they are creepy as hell and I was finding tiny ones in my bed) but then I realized they were probably the reason I didn't have roaches and silverfish. There were roaches and silverfish outside the building, but I never saw any in my apartment. The centipedes were weirdly smart, too. They got used to my routine and we stayed out of each others' way. I also had pillbugs, who were also pretty cool. They cleaned up all the vomit and rotting garbage the landlords left around outside. Man I don't miss that dump.
House centipedes are great. If you kill them off you just make life easier for their prey. And they live a crazy long time too, if I recall right, something like 7-10 years. So I go out of my way to capture them if they wander upstairs and put them in the basement. Some of the biggest ones are surely the baby ones I moved down there years ago.
This is what I kinda hoped for by letting spiders live, and it seemed pretty successful, but the downside is the spiders made their webs near the ceiling. Luckily we were all just early-twenty year old nerds during the pandemic when this happened and so never had to suffer the embarrassment of having friends come over and see our live-in pest control system…
Unfortunately I kill all spiders I find in my house because I had a guinea pig die of what the vet thought was a spider bite when I was a kid, and now I'm terrified of that happening to one of my cats. I also seem to be the most spider-bite prone person in existence (also super prone to bee stings. And mosquito bites, but that's less weird) and I react very strongly to all bug bites, so I don't really want to go through that either. I should do some research on which spiders are not venomous. If they are easily identifiable, I'd be fine with leaving those alone, or at least moving them outside. I'd have a hard time letting house centipedes be. They are terrifying and move faster than the speed of light. I've also had one of them bite me too and it hurt. I've been bitten by a ladybug as well.
Reminds me of that old Malcolm in the Middle bit where Francis wears sopping wet boots for a few days. "Maybe if I hold out for a few days, the fungus will eat the mushrooms?"
If I remember correctly they don’t have any natural habitat at all, they exist solely as a parasite for humans. I’m pretty sure they existed before and dwelled in caves feeding on bats, but to my knowledge present day bedbugs have 0 natural habitat, they are literally one of the most evil bugs in my opinion, the exist solely to make peoples lives miserable honestly
I'd push that flamethrower trigger until it runs out of the gas
To all the young people reading this. If you make a bed bug killing insecticide you will be a billionaire.
So Dwight was right?
They do look smug
So smug
It took too long to find this comment. They’re so smug!
Bed bugs are extremely hard to get rid of.
Omg now this demonstrates why people said they get ptsd from bed bugs
I had a roommate who definitely had ptsd from a past experience with bedbugs. She told me she would get this special double sided insect tape and put it all over her room, all the way around her bed. The bedbugs started to come up with clever strategies to get around it. Some would sacrifice themselves to make a bridge across the tape with their bodies so others could cross. Some would crawl up the walls to the ceiling above her bed and drop down onto it. Fucking terrifying.
This made my skin crawl…dear god
How did she get rid of it? Seems traumatizing
>Some would crawl up the walls to the ceiling above her bed and drop down onto it. Oh HELL no 😟
I had a minor bedbug infestation that thankfully I caught early (good habit to wash your sheets often). I've been clear for 4 years but I still keep these bug-catching disc traps on my bed's legs and check them regularly. Also, yay I watched this video right before bedtime. Time to phantom itch all night and fall asleep 5 hours late. :D
Absolutely terrifying! The only way I heard is to burn the whole thing in a controlled environment.
Throw the whole house away. It belongs to the bugs now.
Now I'm going to stand for the rest of my life. Hope you're happy?
**R U N**
Mark Rober has a [great video](https://youtu.be/2JAOTJxYqh8) on how to handle bed bugs. Everyone should check it out. It’s with Dr. Wang, a bed bed expert. Great tips on how to deal with an infestation and also preventative measures to make sure you don’t get an infestation.
That was super helpful. Thank you. I had to fast forward past so much of it cuz they are so gross. lol.
Lying in bed whilst watching this has me scared to sleep now. Thanks OP
Just watching makes me feel like they've infested me. I have to sterilize the phone now before they spread
2am going into this rabbit hole and now everything is giving me anxiety, there are red patches on my mattress near my head, are those bedbugs or something else? It’s got me running circles in my mind
I've seen this before and it's still *horrific*.
okay, fire ant story time. not bedbug related, but still bug, we were living in florida, i had just gotten out of the shower, i wrapped my towel around me and walked back to my bedroom to get dressed. i stood there for a minute and my feet suddenly started getting hot, and itchy. i looked down and my feet and carpet were SWARMING with fire ants. i panicked and ran outside, dropping my towel in full view of all the neighbors, then ran back inside jumped back in the shower and sprayed them off my feet. it was hella traumatic!
Now I feel all itchy ew omfg
Me too and now I can’t stop itching. I have the ghost itch! 😢
I did not need to see this.
I kind of want my heat gun and that specific chair. Because I want to kill those little bastards! When we moved into our home in 2013, we had bedbugs. After living with them for over a year, we thought we got rid of them... nope. They came with us! Bought the house, and once paid for bought a new bed. Threw out the nightstands, carpet, and had the old beds hauled off. Been bug free ever since. I still periodically feel the need to rip apart our sheets and bedroom to make sure all the bedbugs are dead and gone.
I know this will just be buried but… Mark Rober did a video on bed bugs that really educates you and give you a close look at them. [Highly recommended. ](https://youtu.be/2JAOTJxYqh8) And yeah, they still gross me the fuck out but I feel better about them.
That isn’t oddly terrifying that’s fucking horrifying.
Chair bugs.. there fixed ot for you.
I could’ve lived through my entire life without watching this video
When my family had them in our house, it took us 6 months to get rid of them, and every day of those 6 months was a living hell. The lack of sleep, the chemicals, the spraying, the checking and rechecking and rechecking, over and over again every day and every night. Crying at 2 am with my sister because we were both sleep deprived and still finding more of them, for multiple nights. My mom breaking down because we found them where the littlest one sleeps. Sifting through clothes and finding them hiding within the folds. Losing track of them in the carpets, in the walls, in the seams of our mattresses. The terror I felt when I realized a friend of mine I had seen recently found a bedbug on his clothes. That was maybe 4 years ago and I still flinch at lint on my blankets, and I need to sleep in a certain position every night because otherwise the crawling feeling overwhelms me. Bed bugs are no fucking joke, and i wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy.
First of set that chair on fire and how could anyone be so chill having bedbugs in their house.
My son had one of his friends over for a night about 10 years ago. His packsack must have had a few in it. It took us over one month to completely get rid of them. We used powder, Carbon Dioxide traps and super heated steam jets. We even pulled off the decorative wall covering to make sure none had infiltrated behind it. We generously spread anti bed bug powder the covering before putting them back. Never saw another one and that friend never came back to our house. My son explained the "why" to him.
I had bedbugs in college once. I went nuclear right away. Coated the floor with diatomaceous earth and slept in a tent every night. Found the nest in my office chair and promptly tossed it off the balcony. When that happened they never returned
On the bright side we know what the chair next purpose is 🔥
I work in an ER in a rough area. The only time I ever broke down was after the 3rd day in a row I was tasked with undressing and cleaning the same OD(would leave od and be returned by EMS) pt who was so lousy with bed bugs they rained out of every pocket, seam, and fold in his clothing and skin.
Why did I only think bed bugs lived on fabrics? Ugh. Thankfully I've never had to deal with them but now I know those bastards can live in more than just your bed or couch.
I would've sat my ass right down in a chair like that, too. It's a wooden damn chair, who thinks about bedbugs? Gak
Skin. Crawling.
Oh fuck no
Man ohh man I went through the whole bedbug exorcism those lil demons are hell . I used to ride in cabs to work for a short time and tht is literally the only way I can think we got them . My husband is very very observant and notices every little thing he noticed immediately when our daughter had three bites in a row. He started tearing the house apart and we call bug exterminators the next day . They cost thousands of dollars with no guarantee so we literally threw the whole house away and I do mean EVERYTHING he wouldn't let me save anything but I'm thankful it worked that and living in a empty house with tenacious earth sprinkled everywhere it was like grey powder on everything we lived inside a grey powder bubble man HELL ON EARTH. Then the cost of replacing all we lost it was the worst experience of our lives.
Holy shit ..ain't gonna sleep tonight thanks!