Oh Jenny, Jenny, Jenny. That comment about my writing style was not very nice. But the comments implying people with bed bugs are responsible for their problems is just plain ignorant.

I really hope you don’t get bed bugs, because then you might discover they have nothing to do with cleanliness.

They are an easily transmitted pest, and the nymphs are 1 mm long. Do you know how small that is? Would you know if one crawled up your leg while you were standing in a dumpster?

And you’re right–you don’t need to dumpster dive to get bed bugs. You can simply live in a multi-unit building and they can walk over from your neighbors. But you won’t believe me until it happens to someone you know. Someone who washes their sheets and mattresses. Someone “clean.”

I think it is possible to try and defend freeganism, but you’re actually showing your lack of knowledge about bed bugs. And that’s why the site exists, after all, to share knowledge about bed bugs.

They are easily spread. NYU is in an area with many reports of bed bugs. Lots of people who get bed bugs don’t realize that tossing out everything they own isn’t necessary.

And the bottom line is, one way to really waste a lot of your money, and mess up the environment, is to fight a prolonged battle with bed bugs.

Unless you are VERY young, you grew up in a time and place where bed bugs were almost unheard of. I grew up with secondhand stuff and thrift stores too, but bed bugs were not the danger then that they are now.

Believe me, bed bugs are circulating via freecycle and Craigslist, as well as other secondhand sources. Entomologist Michael Potter tells us up to 50% of people don’t react to bed bug bites and so may have no idea they are infested. Still more will be infested for a time and passing things on long before they notice the problem.

Yes, keeping stuff isolated then washing / drying on hot is fine, but you should realize MOST people do not know to do this. That’s what we’re up against.

Climbing in a dumpster, well, that’s another thing entirely…

Also, if you aren’t literally dumpster diving but are instead using a service such as Freecycle, you can hope that people who know that they have infestations aren’t passing on their stuff.

I may be biased because I grew up in an extremely poor family and almost everything I owned growing up was picked out of the dumpster or bought at a thrift store. If you clean things when you bring them into the house it is usually fine.

“Use it up,
wear it out,
make it do,
or do without!”

And I am all for less consumerism.

But those who’ve encountered bed bugs know how much money, energy, pesticides and (dare I say it) WASTE is involved in treating bed bugs, and this is something freegans need to be warned about.