Bed Bugs - What are my options?

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joe2187

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Last week I discovered I had beg-bugs. A surprise to me considering I believe myself to be a clean and neat person despite the circumstances I used to be surrounded with. I wash my bed linens once a week and never once saw any signs of the buggers whenever I did so.

However the summer heat has apparently brought them out to the surface and after so long of wondering why I was seemingly breaking out in hives on a daily basis, finally caught sight of the bloodsuckers and immediately dsimantled and moved the bed frame, mattress and boxspring out of my room along with discarding all sheets, and linens and pillows.

I never would have thought that my own bed would be infested with bed-bugs, but I feel like I know where they came from...seeing as I saw remenants of their dead bodies piled up in the room where The most disgusting person on earth lived. Somehow someway made their way to my room (which is just a foot away from...THAT room)

Anyway. I need some help. I vaccumed, laid down some poison in all the cracks where the bed was, shampooed the carpet, but every once in a while I will still see some of the critters in my room across the floors.

What are some permanant solutions? are my clothes safe? Help me out GAF!
 
Get rid of you old bed and sheets.

Cross your fingers.

There's not really a permanent solution.

My roommate brought in old bed he bought on Craigslist and they got to me and ruined my life for about a month.

Luckily he got rid of the bed and they eventually went away. I'd never been so relived in my life.
 
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For real though, I would see and get a quote on how much it would be to bomb your house of any bugs by a professional exterminator. If it turns out that that's too expensive, keep laying down poison, I guess.

This is coming from someone whose house is filled to the brim with fleas. It's so bad, every summer my dog scratches himself to the point where his fur falls off. We would really like to do something, but we simply do not have the money. As a result, we just have to learn to live with our parasitic overlords.
 
disaster-girl.jpg



coming from someone who had bed bugs, who threw away sheets and all, who called multiple exterminators, and who still occasionally has nightmares about them

burn it all
 
Take your bed frame, mattress, box spring, sheets, clothes, children, and throw them outside. Go to the store and fill up a few 3 gallon jugs with gasoline. Apply the gasoline liberally to the inside of your house, and to yourself. Light a match.
 
Do you live in a apartment complex or a house? Once they have nested, they are very difficult to get rid off. You can use diatomaceous earth to help kill them. The problem is, once they are inside, they will move around so if you clean your bedding completely, they will move to the couch, etc. The best sure way to get rid of them is to tent up your residence and use high heat to kill ALL of them.

BTW if you get rid of your mattress, spray paint "bed bugs" on it because they can latch on to passers by and start anew in someone else's home.
 
I've heard that removing the bed is actually a bad idea, since it can spread the bugs throughout the house. You might need to call an exterminator.
 
Hey OP, my roommate and I are dealing with this now too actually.

We discovered 4 bugs in my roommates bedroom and 2 in our family room. We were planning to move out in 2 months. As a precaution we threw out both couches as we were going to anyway. We threw out every rug and a lot of stuff in the apartment as we just didn't need it. We bought these: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01413355S/?tag=neogaf0e-20 for our mattresses and box springs, do this ASAP. It will keep any and all bed bugs inside and kill them within a year and not let any new ones get out. Bag ALL clothing. Literally everything. Take it to a laundry mat. Wash it if you want but you need to wash all clothes on the HIGHEST heat possible for at least 30 minutes. You need your clothes to beat at the highest heat for 30 minutes continuous to kill the bugs. If you're in an apartment building, tell your maintenace asap. I recommend heat treatment but they'll probably spray pesticides.

We think we got the problem early before they started to lay eggs as we haven't seen any since we literally threw everything out. Vacuum CONSTANTLY and throw that bag or empty that bin asap!

Any other questions?
 
A friend of mine is an exterminator.
The dude loves bedbugs specifically because he makes so much off them, but most times he says if they have to quarantine more than a room or two then the family will likely lose a ton of furniture just due to how fucking difficult they are to manage.

It's easier to just clean out a room, toss the mattress and start fresh in his opinion.
Call an exterminator though, they can easily infest a whole home and it's game over.

Heat treating can kill them, but the eggs can also survive and fuck your day up anyway iirc.
 
If money isn't an issue you could hire an exterminator to burn them to death.

Otherwise, you could buy protective covers and try to find out where they are. Leave double-sided tape everywhere.
 
Just to make sure I'm understanding the situation correctly, the room where you saw the bed bugs was in your same house, right? Did you ever hire an exterminator when you saw the bugs in the other room? If not, they 100% migrated. If the other person no longer works with you, they just migrated to where they could find the next breathing person.

Honestly, having lived with multiple infestations due to an apartment complex not properly taking care of the problem, I would just shell out the dough for an exterminator to thoroughly either douse the place wit hthe spray stuff they have, or do a heat treatment. It's the best case scenario.

In the mean time, take all of your bedding/linens/curtains/clothing, anything cloth, and put them in plastic bags. You can wash them all right now, but if your house is still infested, there's not really a point unless you put them back into (new) bags afterwards until the exterminator has been there.

Bed bugs are a horrific nuisance to deal with and I am truly sorry for the battle you are about to begin.

Edited to add: you did a seriously fantastic job updating the house. It looks lovely, and I am sincerely sorry you've had to deal with so much hardship the past few years and this shit on top of it.
 
A bedbug infestation sounds like something that would make me give up on life, or at least fake my own death and leave all of my possessions behind.
 
I've already taken the bed, frame, and boxspring out of the house along with tossing out all the sheets and pillows.

Wont the high heat shrink my clothes if I wash them on such an intense heat? do I have to do it for all my clothes?

I've just been using a Raid MAX spray against all the nook and crannies of my room. I have literally no disposable income right now and have just been sleeping on my living room couch since last sunday.
 
Don't try and treat yourself. You will end up with a bigger mess on your hands.

We used a professional service and it saved our couch (even though it still gives me the creeps to sit on it).

We found a few on the couch, and basically quarantined that room. I went in and put EVERYTHING in plastic garbage bags, checking all the stuff as I put it in. I sealed the bags and had them far away from everything else in the house.

We slept as far away from the room as possible, until they were taken care of. We were told that they can sense heartbeats/carbon dioxide and they are drawn to it.

Our situation wasn't that bad, we only had like 6-8 lives bugs, but I think we caught it early enough and handled it the best we could.

Good luck man, I wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy.
 
joe2187 said:
I've already taken the bed, frame, and boxspring out of the house along with tossing out all the sheets and pillows.

Wont the high heat shrink my clothes if I wash them on such an intense heat? do I have to do it for all my clothes?

I've just been using a Raid MAX spray against all the nook and crannies of my room. I have literally no disposable income right now and have just been sleeping on my living room couch since last sunday.
Click to expand...

Bedbugs follow the food, so if you didn't get them all, it probably means they've moved to the couch to feed on you.
 
studyguy said:
A friend of mine is an exterminator.
The dude loves bedbugs specifically because he makes so much off them, but most times he says if they have to quarantine more than a room or two then the family will likely lose a ton of furniture just due to how fucking difficult they are to manage.

It's easier to just clean out a room, toss the mattress and start fresh in his opinion.
Call an exterminator though, they can easily infest a whole home and it's game over.

Heat treating can kill them, but the eggs can also survive and fuck your day up anyway iirc.
Click to expand...

Correct heat treatment should kill them from what I've read and discussed with people.
 
Call a bug place. Orkin, Terminix, etc. They'll have to continually recheck/respray periodically. Bed bugs are considered a big deal.
 
joe2187 said:
I've already taken the bed, frame, and boxspring out of the house along with tossing out all the sheets and pillows.

Wont the high heat shrink my clothes if I wash them on such an intense heat? do I have to do it for all my clothes?

I've just been using a Raid MAX spray against all the nook and crannies of my room. I have literally no disposable income right now and have just been sleeping on my living room couch since last sunday.
Click to expand...

It depends how bad the infestation is. They can get in clothes though, it's not a chance I'd be willing to take. I've washed and dried everything. If you wash -> dry high heat yes you will shrink. If you just put it in the dryer it shouldn't shrink too much but I'm not an expert. It's the only for sure way to be sure.

edit: Pretty sure RaidMax doesn't do shit.
 
NESpowerhouse said:
http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/483/928/fb0.jpg[/i1mg]


For real though, I would see and get a quote on how much it would be to bomb your house of any bugs by a professional exterminator. If it turns out that that's too expensive, keep laying down poison, I guess.

This is coming from someone whose house is filled to the brim with fleas. It's so bad, every summer my dog scratches himself to the point where his fur falls off. We would really like to do something, but we simply do not have the money. As a result, we just have to learn to live with our parasitic overlords.[/QUOTE]

i know this is off topic, but you have the best killer of fleas in your house with your dog. Get some good dog flea treatment and he should do a pretty good job of clearing them out over time.
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You need to call an exterminator. The layout of the apartment and how bad an infestation determine if your clothes are safe. Bed bugs are VERY lazy, so they won't hang out in your closet unless it's between where they have been coming from and your bed.

Get a professional treatment done with the right chemicals, then wash your clothes and get a zip-shut mattress cover. Treat again two weeks later and you SHOULD be OK. They are not this invisible menace that many people make them out to be.... they are actual bugs that lay actual eggs and they can be killed like any other pest as long as you're handling it properly.

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO NOTE that this must be done as a concerted effort with neighbors and / or roommates. I had bed bugs and treated alone, only to find out they were coming from this fucking old lady downstairs, who had a terrible infestation. Once we figured that out, the treatments were done in a concerted fashion and it the whole ordeal was never spoken of again.

Also, if you have a landlord they should be the ones paying for this. Double check laws in your state but that is typically the case. Make them pony and up and find a PCO you are comfortable with who seems experienced.

And yeah, lastly, don't move around to sleep. I know it seems counter intuitive sleeping in the same bed but the bugs are actually not a considerable health risk. If you go to the couch they're just going to follow you there, necessitating a more complicated treatment. So don't do that.
 
SkyOdin said:
I've heard that removing the bed is actually a bad idea, since it can spread the bugs throughout the house. You might need to call an exterminator.
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This.

The first step is to call an exterminator. If you're a renter, your landlord should do this. They will investigate the severity of the infestation and depending on how bad it is, they may recommend throwing out furniture. Until then, move nothing.

In the mean time, here's what you do:

1) DO NOT move to another room or relocate furniture from your bed room to another room. They will follow and spread the infestation.

2) DO put all of your clothes, linens, sheets, pillow-cases and blankets into the dryer on HIGH heat. Wash them after. Bed Bugs are stupidly resilient and extreme temperatures are needed to reliably kill them.

3) Take a vacuum cleaner and extensively vacuum your mattress - including and especially the nooks. Do this every few days. Also, vacuum the area by the floor boards.

4) DO NOT spray Raid or other local pesticides around in the hopes that you'll kill them. None of those are powerful enough to deal with bed bugs and the only thing you're doing is scaring them back into hiding. They can survive for over 6 months without eating and their eggs can survive longer. You want them complacent because it's easier for exterminators to fog them out.

There's a good chance that an exterminator will want to spray your place up to three times. They'll ask you to bag clothes, move furniture away from the walls and not have food exposed. If your place is a mess, be prepared for a lot of work.
 
gcubed said:
i know this is off topic, but you have the best killer of fleas in your house with your dog. Get some good dog flea treatment and he should do a pretty good job of clearing them out over time.
Click to expand...

We actually did do this one year when my dog was having some severe back issues, and we brought him to the vet, who prescribed him some meds to not only get rid of the back pain, but kill the fleas for 6 months as well - and it worked like a charm. However, that was a few years ago, and the fleas have since come back in full force, and we couldn't do it again because the medication was too expensive.
 
joe2187 said:
I've already taken the bed, frame, and boxspring out of the house along with tossing out all the sheets and pillows.

Wont the high heat shrink my clothes if I wash them on such an intense heat? do I have to do it for all my clothes?

I've just been using a Raid MAX spray against all the nook and crannies of my room. I have literally no disposable income right now and have just been sleeping on my living room couch since last sunday.
Click to expand...

First thing's first. Are you absolutely certain they are bed bug bites and not flea bites?

How you tell is put on white socks are walk around the infested area. If it's fleas, you will be able to see the fleas on your socks if you look very closely.
 
I remember reading that thread. If you survived dealing with that mess you can deal with this. I'd suggest hiring someone to treat every room that someone sleeps in. Also do the dryer on high heat to all your clothes and then bag them and store them. You might need to store the majority of your clothes for up to a year unfortunately.

It's a nightmare scenario. About 5 years ago some friends and I went to Vegas for a weekend and stayed at the Trump. We got into an argument over who got which bed and the couple that got the big suite ended up getting bed bugs that trip! They started sleeping on the couch as well but the exterminator said not to because they would just spread there. They had to store their clothes for months as well and basically buy all new clothes for a season.
 
NESpowerhouse said:
We actually did do this one year when my dog was having some severe back issues, and we brought him to the vet, who prescribed him some meds to not only get rid of the back pain, but kill the fleas for 6 months as well - and it worked like a charm. However, that was a few years ago, and the fleas have since come back in full force, and we couldn't do it again because the medication was too expensive.
Click to expand...

yeah, sounds like you have a bad one, so you probably need it through a winter (if you live somewhere that gets a cold winter).

Unfortunately the cheaper flea ones work like shit, but the better ones do work, sucks to live with them and not be able to do it. Does your vet have any kind of assistance for some of the medicines? Things like revolution that work well are still 15 or so a month
 
Tagyhag said:
Jesus Christ, what kind of abomination created these infernal beings?
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Yeah... I thought the same thing. I still am paranoid I'm going to pick them up in public again. My wife is a nurse and likely picked them up there. Seriously every hotel I go to, I check EVERYTHING closely. Movie theaters are hard to enjoy because I feel like bedbugs are crawling into my pockets. Even certain restaurants make me shifty.
 
zewone said:
Get rid of you old bed and sheets.

Cross your fingers.

There's not really a permanent solution.

My roommate brought in old bed he bought on Craigslist and they got to me and ruined my life for about a month.

Luckily he got rid of the bed and they eventually went away. I'd never been so relived in my life.
Click to expand...

+ throw your other shit in a drying machine.
 
Grimalkin said:
First thing's first. Are you absolutely certain they are bed bug bites and not flea bites?

How you tell is put on white socks are walk around the infested area. If it's fleas, you will be able to see the fleas on your socks if you look very closely.
Click to expand...

Yes, Im sure they were bed bugs as I have dealt with fleas before. Im also sure since The only time I would start itching the worst is when I was sleeping at night with the AC off.

When I tossed the bed out I saw at least 10-15 live bugs crawling over the box spring, so yeah it seemed pretty bad. I've been itching for the last three months now and never saw any signs of bugs whenever I washed by beddings. I guess the high heat of the summer made them come out of hiding. Also they erupted into little bright red blood spats when I smashed one...so yeah, they've been eating me for the last couple months.

I dont really know what to do right now, all the remedies seem expensive and I have no money to pay for anything right now. Just trying to surivive paycheck to paycheck at the moment.
 
joe2187 said:
Yes, Im sure they were bed bugs as I have dealt with fleas before. Im also sure since The only time I would start itching the worst is when I was sleeping at night with the AC off.

When I tossed the bed out I saw at least 10-15 live bugs crawling over the box spring, so yeah it seemed pretty bad. I've been itching for the last three months now and never saw any signs of bugs whenever I washed by beddings. I guess the high heat of the summer made them come out of hiding. Also they erupted into little bright red blood spats when I smashed one...so yeah, they've been eating me for the last couple months.

I dont really know what to do right now, all the remedies seem expensive and I have no money to pay for anything right now. Just trying to surivive paycheck to paycheck at the moment.
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Jesus christ.
http://www.pest-advice.com/2011/06/how-fast-do-bed-bugs-breed.html

Month 3 - Now things start to 'hot up' with as many as 100 adults and 1,000 nymphs and eggs.

Month 4 - By day 120 the bed bug population is into exponential growth phase with up to 200 adults, 5,000 nymphs and 2,000 eggs
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Stop what you're doing and call a god damn exterminator.

And yes, heat draws them out. When you're trying to inspect items that can have crevices, use a hair dryer.
 
zewone said:
Get rid of you old bed and sheets.

Cross your fingers.

There's not really a permanent solution.

My roommate brought in old bed he bought on Craigslist and they got to me and ruined my life for about a month.

Luckily he got rid of the bed and they eventually went away. I'd never been so relived in my life.
Click to expand...

I don't believe this was bed bugs. Bed bugs literally don't just go away.
 
joe2187 said:
When I tossed the bed out I saw at least 10-15 live bugs crawling over the box spring, so yeah it seemed pretty bad. I've been itching for the last three months now and never saw any signs of bugs whenever I washed by beddings. I guess the high heat of the summer made them come out of hiding. Also they erupted into little bright red blood spats when I smashed one...so yeah, they've been eating me for the last couple months.

I dont really know what to do right now, all the remedies seem expensive and I have no money to pay for anything right now. Just trying to surivive paycheck to paycheck at the moment.
Click to expand...

The infestation in my bed was similar to yours and we were also on a budget. What my mother did was spray the mattress with its three nests of thousands of bugs with Clorox and allowed it to air out. The bugs pretty much died in that spot.

As for any of them that tried to live in the clothes or couches, she ran a hot iron or steamer over both the clothes and the couch. They came out and we just stomped on them. Luckily for us they only had one home base which was my bed. But if they're all over you will need a good quality heat treatment. They are now resistant to freezing.
 
NESpowerhouse said:
We actually did do this one year when my dog was having some severe back issues, and we brought him to the vet, who prescribed him some meds to not only get rid of the back pain, but kill the fleas for 6 months as well - and it worked like a charm. However, that was a few years ago, and the fleas have since come back in full force, and we couldn't do it again because the medication was too expensive.
Click to expand...

Pain medicine may be expensive, but flea medicine is very cheap. I would look into it again.
 
i heard bean leaves stab right through and then kill them.


so put bean leaves on your bed when you get up and they will all eventually be impaled on them.
 
You being a clean and neat person has nothing to do with bed bugs. They aren't roaches. You can go to work...have one on your shoe and develop a infestation. You need to get your house treated....and it will not be cheap.
 
joe2187 said:
I dont really know what to do right now, all the remedies seem expensive and I have no money to pay for anything right now. Just trying to surivive paycheck to paycheck at the moment.
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Well, you have already (or are going to) washed everything you can wash in your washer and dryer. Anything you cannot wash in hot water that way you need to treat with some kind of spray.

I would recommend checking out one of these products:

Bedlam Plus

Steri-Fab Mixed Insecticide

Follow the directions since this is the professional grade stuff and you don't want to accidentally poison yourself or any pets/other people in the house.

You are also going to want to get a mattress/box spring/pillow encasement, depending on what you can't afford to replace.

But the most important thing, once you have used a spray and encased your mattress, box spring and then either replaced or encased your pillows is to vacuum and then throw away the bag or wash it out if you can't throw it out. You do this every other day for 2 weeks an then once a week for another month or two. This is what any professional exterminator will tell you to do. Most people get re-infestations because they get lazy with the vacuuming and disposal or their exterminator doesn't tell them to do this.

I got these hot tips from a professional exterminator in California who said he wouldn't take our money when we could do it ourselves. We followed these directions and have never had another bug problem.

Diatomaceous earth does work eventually but I wanted the bugs gone pronto.

Edit: I see some people in this thread have flea issues, for fleas the steps are the same you would just use Precor 2000 as the spray and you don't need the encasements.
 
NESpowerhouse said:
fb0.jpg



For real though, I would see and get a quote on how much it would be to bomb your house of any bugs by a professional exterminator. If it turns out that that's too expensive, keep laying down poison, I guess.

This is coming from someone whose house is filled to the brim with fleas. It's so bad, every summer my dog scratches himself to the point where his fur falls off. We would really like to do something, but we simply do not have the money. As a result, we just have to learn to live with our parasitic overlords.
Click to expand...

Bombing usually does not work. He will need a heat treatment, which can cost $1k or more.
 
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