Bed Bugs

[frig deuce]

Im tripping the fuck out. I moved into a new place this month and I started noticing bites a week ago. I thought it was just mosquitos or something but a few days ago I found a few critters and have been tripping since. I'm considering going back to my parents place for a month or something until I find a new place but fuck that would suck, living outside of the city an hour away from work is shit, especially when you end work late and night busses takes fucking hours. Fuck.

I've counted at least 30 bites so far, there are surely more since they only begin to appear around a week later. FUUUUUUCK. I'm so pissed right now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfKCcSPCOQo
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I couldn't even go through with this video, I'd never sleep again. Maybe once I move out (bug free) I'll watch it.

Anyone else have such an issue?

[H8R part 4]

either you got to hunt down every last one down by checking every seam, crack and crevice in every piece of furniture and every article of clothing you own or you gotta throw out everything you own and i mean everything.
don't even think about moving back into your parents house, you'll end up spreading them to your parents house too and they'll have to throw all their clothing and furniture out as well. 

i was getting bit at night and couldn't figure out what it was.  i thought it was spiders for minute but then i remember hearing about bedbugs on the news so i started checking my furniture.  first thing i did was tear apart the couch because thats where i kept getting bit.  after 4 hours i found one!  yes i got that little fucker....or so i thought. 
that night i purposely went to sleep on the couch to see if i'd get bit again and nothing bit me, awesome!  so i go to my bedroom to sleep and i wake up to find i got bit again, fuck!  now they're in my room.  so i start tearing apart my bed and surrounding furniture since thats where they're probably hiding.  after 6 hours i find another one, little bastard!         

i continued my hunt everyday for the next month or so and hadn't found another one since.  truth be told, i was lucky.  i knew what was biting me within the first couple of days and i hunted them down before they could multiply and these little fucker multiply like roaches.  i don't know where they came from but my guess is one of the dirty ass skaters kids brought them into my home.
i ended up purchasing riddex plus thing on TV just as a precaution and so far so good.  no more bedbugs, no more anything for that matter.   

bedbugs were nonexistent in the US for many years but with everyone traveling the globe these days, they jump on board your luggage/clothing and started spreading like wildfire through the US again.

 

[Inbred Jed]

You need to kill them with heat

There is considerable documentation citing the temperature and time correlations necessary to kill bedbugs and their eggs. Several sources (Usinger 1966, Gulmahamad 2002, Quarles 2007) report that adults and nymphs die within 15 minutes at temperatures greater than 113ºF and 60 minutes to kill eggs. Raising room temperatures above the thermal death point and maintaining that temperature for several hours should eliminate a bedbug infestation.

http://www.thermapure.com/bedbugs.php

[H8R part 4]

^every commercial i've seen about bedbugs talks about freezing them to death.
i guess really high heat or really cold temperatures can do the job but its still doesn't mean that they would be able to kill them all.  if 2 survive, they can multiply.   

[skateboardnorth]

When I was staying at hostels they were very strict about people using their own bedding.  Sleeping bags especially.  The hide in the zippers and spread quickly.  I feel bad for you man!  Gotta get rid of those little bastards.

[Chris Hansen is back]

You need to throw your couch out. As for your bed, get a cotton, or plastic bed cover, a zip up one, that covers the whole mattress and box- spring. They'll be trapped in there. It sucks to know they're in there, but if they can't get out to feed, they die in 6 months to a year. Any clothes you have that you want to keep. Freeze them for a few hours, or put them in a black garbage bag and leave them in direct sun for an afternoon, then wash them. If your place is carpeted, just kill yourself.

-Helping Hanz

[Bobbito]

My friend was living in NY for a while and the second place he moved to, at which lucky for him he only lived in for the planned 2-3 months, had a pretty gnar case of the bed bugs. He said he had to toss like 75% of his clothes, books, sheets, fucking everything.

[jack burton]

never had a problem with bed bugs but at one point in my life i got scabies. they itched so bad i had to drink myself to sleep. fuckin sucked.

[mock nugget]

If you just moved in then they probably were in the apartment so I would definitely look for a new place or get your landlord to pay for extermination. If you end up moving throw anything out that isn't important, wash and dry all your clothing/bedding on high heat, and either throw away your mattress/boxspring or get good vinyl casing for them. Sorry to hear about your bad luck, what city are you living in?

[nocomply]

couldn't you just hire an exterminator? I would think that would be cheaper/easier than moving.

[Commercial D]

Enzyme spray:

http://www.kleen-free.com/

[WWD4D?]

I've heard that putting boric acid powder on your bed and around your house might work in killing them off, just don't overdo it with how much you put around your house.
It is generally considered to be almost the same in toxicity levels as table salt, and is a pretty safe insecticide. Just make sure not to accidentally ingest or inhale too much, it probably won't kill you, but it will still make you nauseous and give you some unpleasant symptoms.

[sweets]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Slg59ufLKXk
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[H8R part 4]

I've heard that putting boric acid powder on your bed and around your house might work in killing them off, just don't overdo it with how much you put around your house.
It is generally considered to be almost the same in toxicity levels as table salt, and is a pretty safe insecticide. Just make sure not to accidentally ingest or inhale too much, it probably won't kill you, but it will still make you nauseous and give you some unpleasant symptoms.

boric acid is for roaches.  but really the best way not to have roaches is to keep your place clean.
theres no such thing as dirty apartments, only dirty tenants. 

[Beeda Weeda]

this thread is making me feel like I have bugs on my body and one crawled up my pee hole, and laid eggs

[WWD4D?]

boric acid is for roaches.  but really the best way not to have roaches is to keep your place clean.
theres no such thing as dirty apartments, only dirty tenants.

Boric acid can be used to kill bed bugs too, at least from what I have heard. I'm not sure how effect it is, but I know it helps. Like I said, just don't accidentally ingest or inhale too much or use it too freely and you should be fine. It is considered one of the safer insecticides.

[324]

Dealt with this for 2 months, felt like hell. Slept every other day, grades slipped, records and books all packed up. Paranoid mess. Just when I thought it was safe I see one crawling by, crush it and my own blood spurts out.

Things you can do: hunt them down with a flashlight and a spray bottle of alcohol, maybe a lighter if you're feeling dicey. Until you get an exterminator, invest in a good mattress cover and make sure to duct tape the zipper. Move your bed away from the wall, if possible put your bed posts in coffee cans filled with water and lined with vaseline.
Put all clothes in the dryer on high heat for at least 30 minutes. It's the dryer that kills them. Check all book pages, I've found them in there.
Don't use a bug bomb unless there's a special one for BBs, they get a whiff and book it to the rest of your stuff. Bag everything and tie em up.
At one point I thought I had it contained to a single dresser. I wrapped duct tape, sticky side out, around the bottom and the bites stopped.

[frig deuce]

Dealt with this for 2 months, felt like hell. Slept every other day, grades slipped, records and books all packed up. Paranoid mess. Just when I thought it was safe I see one crawling by, crush it and my own blood spurts out.

Things you can do: hunt them down with a flashlight and a spray bottle of alcohol, maybe a lighter if you're feeling dicey. Until you get an exterminator, invest in a good mattress cover and make sure to duct tape the zipper. Move your bed away from the wall, if possible put your bed posts in coffee cans filled with water and lined with vaseline.
Put all clothes in the dryer on high heat for at least 30 minutes. It's the dryer that kills them. Check all book pages, I've found them in there.
Don't use a bug bomb unless there's a special one for BBs, they get a whiff and book it to the rest of your stuff. Bag everything and tie em up.
At one point I thought I had it contained to a single dresser. I wrapped duct tape, sticky side out, around the bottom and the bites stopped.

Thats insane.

I've moved out of my place now. Its been a week I've been living at home. I've yet to bring everything back though. I washed and double dried everything then sealed it in plastic bags. The stuff I couldn't dry has been sitting in the freezer for about a week.

I put my suitcase in the sun for a few days. I suppose I'll be checking all my books now.

I still have two plastic bags of crap to bring home along with my books and some random junk. Moving it all out tonight.

[Archers of Chaka]

About a few weeks ago I started noticing that I was waking up with random bug bites. I didn't wake up with bug bites every morning though, Usually I'll wake up with one or two new bites, then I won't have any new bites at all for a day or two, then another one or two new ones show up after a couple days, then another day or two without any new ones, and so on.
At first I didn't really know what it could be. I thought maybe it was spiders. But then, I started to think maybe it was bed bugs. I remembered a while back one of my friends was complaining about having bed bugs, and I had to sit next to him for a long car ride, and then I started to think that when we were next to each other in that car maybe one might have hopped from him on to me and traveled home with me. All signs pointed to it. I tore off my bed sheets and searched the seams of my mattress for any bed bugs last night, but didn't find one. Then I searched my box spring for any, didn't find any either. Earlier today I decided to check the box spring one more time just on a hunch, and I found what looks like couple bug sheddings on the outside of the box spring that looked real similar to the shape of a bed bug. I looked up what bed bug sheddings look like on google and they look identical to the ones I found. Im 99 percent certain that I do indeed have bed bugs. I haven't found much signs yet other than the bites and the sheddings though, so I'm guessing I don't have too many yet, maybe just a couple, or hopefully just one. I've been looking around my room and I have yet to find any, but I know they're around hiding somewhere. I have to find them and kill them before they start multiplying, because if I allow them to multiply I'm pretty much fucked.
From what I've read in this thread and around the web so far, if an infestation becomes bad enough, you either have to hunt every last one down, or throw away all your shit and move.
Does anyone who has had to deal with bed bugs on here have any advice? The comments that have been said in this thread so far have been pretty helpful, but any more advice and insight would be greatly appreciated.

[Beeda Weeda]

my dog bought some ticks into my house in april or may, i fucking freaked the fuck out, too care of it imeadiattly, got he ron medication and got rid of them, seriously disgusting.
apparently the lack of pesticides being used in canada now has increased the population massivly.

[Shlomo]

I had bed bugs at an apartment I moved into a few years ago. We caught them early and found the source of the infestation and threw it out immediately. My best recommendation is thoroughly clean everything, absolutely everything. Launder all your clothes/linens on as high temps as you can and keep everything in plastic bags. Bag your mattress and vacuum a lot. Getting an exterminator in there is key also.

The whole thing lasted about a month, was pretty stressful.

[Archers of Chaka]

Talk about ironic, just five minutes after I made that post I found one!
 It was really really small, looked like a baby bed bug. It was a darkish brown color. I was sitting on my bed typing on my laptop when I saw it crawling across the bed. I gotta say, it was pretty damn unsettling to actually finally see one. I just got off work about two hours ago, and it's about 8:30 AM here, I'm tired as hell but I really doubt I'm gonna have an easy time falling asleep now that I've seen it. And just the fact that it was probably a baby one means that they've probably already reproduced. Fuck this sucks....
I've already talked to my mom about this and she says if it gets bad enough that I can move back in with her for a while. But then there's the problem of what if I spread them to her. Fuck, not sure what I should do...

[jack burton]

Been getting random small little bumps. Maybe 7 or 8 in total and just thought it was nothing. Woke up this morning with another random bump on my hand and now I'm paranoid I have bed bugs.

[ttching!]

If you are living in NYC, call Bell Environmental. They have trained dogs who can find where all those little fuckers are hiding and a freeze spray to get them on the spot. ? IDK how much it will run you, but you should only need one visit.

[Archers of Chaka]

Been getting random small little bumps. Maybe 7 or 8 in total and just thought it was nothing. Woke up this morning with another random bump on my hand and now I'm paranoid I have bed bugs.

Do you usually notice them after a nights sleep?
usually bed bug bites appear really close to each other, sometimes even in a line. That's a good way of telling that it's a bed bug bite.

If you are living in NYC, call Bell Environmental. They have trained dogs who can find where all those little fuckers are hiding and a freeze spray to get them on the spot. ? IDK how much it will run you, but you should only need one visit.

Unfortunately I do not live in NY, I live out on the west coast.
I'm not sure what to do really. Like i said, ive been getting bites for a few weeks but I've only actually seen the first bug today. I'm hoping it's a small infestation and not a big one. I've heard that if it's a big one you will find multiple bug sightings a day, but so far i've only found one. Nonetheless, if it gets too bad I'll probably have to move back in with my mom. I've read all of the bed bug horror stories on the web and there's no way I wanna deal with that shit. I'd probably go insane.

[jack burton]

I would notice them randomly before and hadn't had any in a couple days but notice one red bump this morning on my hand. I might just being paranoid cause I have no idea how I would get them or if mine are even large enough to qualify as bed bug bites. As I said earlier in the thread I had scabies a couple years ago and it really fucking sucked so I'm just super paranoid of this shit. Also I'm moving into a new place in august and would hate to bring them.

[Archers of Chaka]

Well, if the bites are real close to each other or in a line then it would be a cause for concern. I would keep my eyes out just to be safe. The earlier you spot them the better.

[Bobby Peru]

I've heard the proper treatment is you have to hire a service that does heat treatment, where they bring a generator in that heats the house to a few hundred degrees and kills them. I've also heard fumigation doesn't work because it just moves them to a different room/house.

[Archers of Chaka]

I've heard the proper treatment is you have to hire a service that does heat treatment, where they bring a generator in that heats the house to a few hundred degrees and kills them. I've also heard fumigation doesn't work because it just moves them to a different room/house.

Yeah, ive heard that too. Which sucks, because that shit costs at least a good 5,000 bucks.
I tried to sleep earlier, and right as I was about to fall asleep I start itching, I pull back my sheets and see two new bites. Got so freaked out I haven't been able to sleep and have been up since. Fuck that shit.
I just called my mom and told her I'm coming to stay with her for a couple of weeks until I can figure out what to do with this situation. My roommate doesn't seem to bothered by it, but I'm guessing when I leave they'll migrate to his room and start feeding on him.

The only thing I'm scared of is accidentally bringing them over to my moms place. I'm only going to bring a little bit of clothes, and it's all going to be in plastic bags.

[Nosferatu]

where on the west coast are you? the farther from california the better...