My son had a horrible experience with bed bugs while participating in a study abroad progam in London. He kept finding red bumps all over his body, went to several doctors who thought it might be chicken pox, etc. Finally two of his flat mates noticed they had similiar bumps and another doctor figured it out. My son who by this time was in bed feeling horrible when he awoke to an exterminator with gas mask telling him to get up. The boys were moved out, put up in a hotel. All their clothes were cleaned and moved back in to the flat. Back came the bed bugs. They are apparently very difficult to erradicate can hide behind switch plates, in seams, etc. And after checking on the internet there is an area in London that is terribly infested. Can't remember where his flat was; this was about 4 years ago.

Honest this thread brings back memories. My grandmother used to tell me not to sit on concrete or stones...
(piles..she said it took me years to remember to ask what they were...), and all sorts of weird things to do
One of the things she suggested was when going to a new bed (hotels, friends house, whatever) was have the lights on and rip the bedclothes right down to the bottom sheet. She said I'd see bedbugs and whether or not to sleep there.

According to this article in the Charleston (West Virginia) Daily Mail, http://www.dailymail.com/news/News/2004122716 - - bedbugs are resurging, and worst of all - - <i><b>Nostra culpa!</b></i>... one likely explanation is <i><b>us</b></i>, <i>who like to travel</i>!

Best wishes (or is that &quot;best itches&quot;?)

Rex

cigalechanta, did you already write the bed bug screenplay? I saw the bar of soap thing in a movie several decades ago. It was hilarious. But the guy in the movie didn't throw the bed out on the sidewalk, or sleep in the tub. Are you making up this part of the story? It wasn't in the movie, but should have been.

I swear this is my story. I left out going to a loan shark to get money to buy the new bed.

Skip this post if you don't like insects.

Bedbug folklore holds that roaches eat bedbug eggs and drive out or eat the adults. Back in my college days I spent a summer at school in a less than pristine basement room in a clubh0ouse, and discoved bedbugs were in the bed. My clean linens meant nothing to them. I remembered the folklore, and went to the less than pristine kitchen, caught a few roaches, and took them to my room. Within a few days there were no bedbugs. Of course there were more and more roaches, some of which were almost as annoying as the bedbugs.

Roach folklore holds that boric acid powder will kill off roaches, so I sprinkled it under the bed and dresser, and soon there were no more roaches.

I conclude that the success of modern roach extermination has allowed the resurgence of bedbugs.

No, No. I sprinkled the powder there, that later I found out had roaches, It did not work. I have read that they are now immune to that They will return if everyone in the apartment building does not exterminate as well. they move back in after the smell is gone

I thought about mentioning the cockroaches we found in our Nice hotel room in my last post, but then I figured, nah, I don't want to gross out this group. Now that the subject has come up here goes. The critters woke me up in the middle of the night crawling over my face. I turned on the light and they were running all over the walls.

BTW, a house I rented years ago was infested. I used the boric acid method and the roaches were gone in a week. It's not the smell that gets rid of them. It's the acid. It sticks to their hairy legs and then their friends down below try to lick it off. The boric acid kills their buddies and then the rest of them as they eat their buddies.

Everybody certainly knows about the other common traveler's bug problem -- crabs. Do we want to get on that subject?

I would much prefer a few roaches to a bedbug infestation.

Gregor Samsa