Bedbugs, Anyone?
 

Have read that they are getting to be a problem. Anyone have any experience? what do they look like?

I was visiting NYC when I saw this in the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/re...qgPsvRRLF6j09g

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww....... :P

Many years ago we were staying in a nice hotel, one of the best brands. Something woke me up in the night so I turned on the light. There was a big blood-filled bug on the pillow so I smashed it. I was young and had no idea at the time what it was. I do now - a bedbug. After seeing a special on 20/20, or one of those shows, that showed what to look for, I check each and every hotel bed upon entering the room. I've yet to find anything, but I'm not going to stop checking.

you don't see them, that's the problem

these are terribly annoying little creatures...and you can check and check the bed and then..poof...they don't come out until you are sleeping...you will know if you sleep in a bed with bed bugs...you will have lots of tiny bites or a rash -

be careful if you ever buy used furniture - couches/chairs/etc - they can come in them too ! that's how my friend got them in her house once - eeewwwww

No, you dont' see the bedbugs in the daylight, but they leave little "clues" behind. :&

Ok, so you see a bedbug. Yuk.
You leave ASAP, assuming that is an option.
What the frick do you do to guarantee you do not bring them home?????

This site, and the news program I saw, said characteristic dark brown or reddish fecal spots of bed bugs are sometimes apparent on the bed linens, mattress or walls near the bed. http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/bedbugs/#invade

My good friend had a bedbug infestation in her apartment over the summer. She woke up one morning and her entire arm was covered in bumps the size of mosquito bites. We looked on the internet and thought it might be bedbugs. The following night, while she was sleeping, she felt an itchy sensation and flipped open her cell phone. In the glow of the light, she could see several bugs run across the sheet.

Her apartment was infested from another tenants apartment. She ended up breaking her lease and moving out, it was so bad. She had to burn pretty much all of her bedding and linens, and some of her clothing.

Why would you BURN your belongings?
She actually BURNED her stuff? Where the heck do you do that?
When I worked in an elementary school we would have to educate people on methods to get rid of head lice.
While it may be easier to toss your belongings, it was possible to store pillows and linens in a sealed bag for a while to kill the bugs. You could wash items in extremely hot water and then dry in a hot dryer to kill 'em. You could spray surfaces with insecticide.
What is the recommended method to exterminate?

My parents discovered bed bugs in a hotel in Pigeon Forge. My Dad had fallen asleep and my Mom was reading (in bed) when she noticed something on her chest. I think she said she was wearing a dark gown and the bug was a light color, but very tiny. Anyway, they freaked out and went to another hotel that night. I think she washed all of her clothes in very hot water and she threw away their luggage. Supposedly they are easy to carry home with you and almost impossible to get rid of.

When I was little my mother used to say "Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite," but I never actually saw or heard anything about bedbugs for real until about 3, 4 years ago. Still haven't actually seen one, but I know someone in the office who has a very bad bedbug infestation at home (and for some reason likes to talk about it). I'm terrified of them. I always stay at least 10 feet away and never sit on their furniture or borrow anything from their desk. What's going on? Where are all these bedbugs coming from? Are bedbugs what used to be called "cooties"?

She gave her bedding and pillows to the super in her building. They asked her not to put it in the public washer dryer because they could possibly get into someone's laundry basket. It wasn't feasible for her to store her belongings, so that was the course of action. I'm not sure if this is what the experts recommend, but just what her super told her to do.

This is scary! How do you know if a hotel room has them?

Makes travel everlasting fun, isn't it? :&

I thought you could only catch cooties in elementary school on the playground :) - i remember us all giving each other 'cootie shots' -

bed bugs aren't just in beds.. they can be in furniture, in wall to wall carpeting along where it meets the wall, in crevices of old furniture.....eeks they can be everywhere -...and they can hide for a looong time "between meals" -

as someone once said to me, if you could see what lives on most people's eyelashes you'd cringe....or in most wall to wall carpets.....

but that's another thread another time....
this thread is making me SO itchy !!

Oh, you know I just recalled that the apartment building in I Love Lucy had an incinerator.
Do buildings in NYC still have incinerators?

Good night nurse!
BayouGal, thanks for the description of evidence "the day after".. seems I've been wrongly blaming my husband for these issues and I sure owe him an apology;)

My building does, but it's an enormous complex. I believe the buildings on Roosevelt Island have them as well.

I first started hearing about bedbugs only a couple of years ago - and just the thought of them makes me itch.

I watched a couple of Dateline videos that I found on msnbc.com where they did an undercover investigation at a hotel suspected of having bedbugs. They brought a pest control expert in to show what signs to look for.

Interesting video, and as paranoid as it seems, I do the "bedbug inspection" each time I check into a hotel.

Since seeing the shows on TV about them, I have a new rule -- suitcases NEVER go on the beds or floors. I put them on the luggage racks/stands and unpack stuff to hang in closet or put in dressers. And when I get home, suitcases get unpacked in garage --dirty clothes go directly to laundry room and clean clothes get carried to dresser/closet.

I figure that one less thing I need to bring home as a souvenir!

Debi

Excellent suggestion Debit.
It's funny that I almost always just put my bag on the floor and only use the closet to hang clothes. I can count the times I have used the stand... even though I can't think of one reason why I would not use it.
From this day forward I plan to do it just as you :)

TTP -- I have noticed of late luggage stands are often not in a room or there is only one in room. I will actually put my suitcase on desk or dresser or what ever to keep it off floor and bed. DH thought I was crazy the first time I chided him "NO bags on the bed" but he has finally gotten the hang of it.
Debi

So. how do we kill them? Anyone?

My husband worked in a cockroach infested town once, and when he came home, he left the luggage outdoors overnight in freezing temps to make sure they were gone..

thankfully, he never had another job project there, but at least the weather took care of any paranoia.

Apparently, dresser drawers are subject to the buggers as well! Now I am really freaking out! So much for my plan!

http://www.bugclinic.com/bedbug.htm

Debi

How to kill --

Wash infested sheets and bedding in hot water. Infested furniture can be set outside during cold weather to kill all stages of bed bugs. At 0° F, two days is sufficient to kill bed bugs while four to five days is required when the temperature is about 20° F.

Seal cracks and crevices where bed bugs may hide. Repair or remove loose wallpaper. Remove pictures, posters, or other objects that may act as hiding places.

Debi

Oh, I missed your dresser comment. I don't like the way they smell, so I would keep everything but hanging stuff in the suitcase.

DebitNM, I don't think that cold treatment will work unless you're a Polar Bear.
To those who asked, bedbugs are not what was referred to as cooties when we were in elementary school. Cooties are head lice. They are endemic in just about every elementary school in the US. We almost made it through elementary school without our daughter getting them...

Check this out...

http://lancaster.unl.edu/enviro/pest...ets/263-95.htm

you can use the cold/ or hot system, but still have to reach specific temperatures and be in sealed plastic bags - and you have to have your mattress and boxpring steam cleaned and spray everywhere - you can google 'how to kill bed bugs" and find it all there !! more , much more, than any of us want to know --:)--ick!

I just ate dinner and think I'm going to puke.

I'm paranoid! I don't know if we have bedbugs or not. I've looked, but haven't seen anything. We have a dog who sometimes has fleas (hard to keep fleas at bay in Southern California).

Does anyone have pics that they themselves took of the bugs, the stains, the <i>fecal material</i>? Ewwww! Calm me down please!

lynnejoel...click on the link I posted...pictures of all things related to bedbugs there for you to see

ICK!!!!

Debi

Lynnjoel, boy do I feel your pain. I was trying to tell my DH about this thread and he got up and left the room! Was it something I said :-D.? I think I would rather have &quot;cooties&quot; than bedbugs...or not.

another new bed bug story and info:
http://tinyurl.com/ybqmd7

Ewwww... I am SO FREAKIN LUCKY that I have not brought home these nasty critters. I have stayed at so many hotels... I have learned a huge lesson here.
-Inspect for bugs upon check in
-Use the luggage rack or table top for suitcase
-Don't use drawers (I never have)
-Unpack in garage, leaving suitcase out of the house

I really wonder about people. You can get malaria, typhoid, AIDS, etc. You can get run over by a bus, be accosted on the street, get in a car accident, contract E COLI, etc. Why have so many responses to bed bugs?

There IS a way to rid a room or house of bedbugs. You will not like it, but I know from personal experience that it works.

A good long time ago, I was a poor college student doing chemistry during the summer at a small Ivy League University in New Jersey. I stayed in a small room in the basement of a &quot;club&quot; (frat house). The club's kitchen had roaches, which was not so much of a problem, but my room was another story: Bedbugs. I was not amused.

Now, as a biochemistry major with an extensive mental collection of useless scientific trivia, I searched my memory and recalled an interesting fact: Cockroaches drive out bedbugs and eat their eggs. Natural exterminators were readily avaialble at no cost in the kitchen. I hired a jar full and brought them to my bed(bug)room.

Within a few days the bedbugs were no more. This victory was a bit Phyrric, as you can guess, as now I had a beroom infested with roaches. I was not amused, although I was no longer bitten.

I returned to the memory vault. Suddenly useful fact number 2: Roaches cannot recognize boric acid as poison, think it's sugar, eat it and die.

I sprinkled boric acid under furniture and in corners. Within a short time the roaches were gone.

Which leads to my theory of why bedbugs are appearing in hotels after decades of absence: Modern advances in roach control are now so good that hotels have been rendered roach free, eliminating the natural control of the bedbugs.

Or, in other words: The Roach Motel has brought us the Bedbug Bedroom!

Moral of AJ's story? Roaches in hotels are good things. :D :D

I never knew that roaches and bedbugs had that habitat relationship. Thanks.

No wonder they are making such a comeback.

In talking, someone just told me that Maya Rudolph from Saturday Night Live bought a very expensive place in NYC and can't live in it becase of the bedbug infestation problem. You would think that the roach poison would kill the bedbugs too! Well, maybe they are better hiders and don't ingest anything but blood.

I've worked in pharmaceutical pkg. plants and distribution points where I've picked up boxes and then dropped them down, and when I did roaches ran out of the box in all directions. Cured me of staying or doing any favors in carrying supplies back to the offices from/ by the receiving docks.

I never wore cuffs on pants or took my coat into my house when I worked out of the plants in pharmacy. I left all in the garage. Also never put my purse down on surfaces, but in a big shopping bag inside my drawer.