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Maud Newton on John Cheever’s bed bugs

nobugsonme — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 21:06:30 +0000

Blogger Maud Newton notes that writer John Cheever was no stranger to Sneaky Simes, the bed bug. She directs our attention to this biography of Cheever, and notes that

At the end of 1939, Cheever returned from a summer job to the “‘grey light of New York apartments.’” Soon he was living on Bank Street “despite having to sleep in the bathtub to avoid bedbugs.”

When not in the tub, he passed the time “lying in bed between stories, smoking and scratching his bedbug bites,” and indulging “in idle reveries about the kind of bon vivant he saw himself becoming.” By September 1940, “the bedbugs had become ‘ravening’ and carpenters descended on the place and began ‘pulling things apart.’” So he set off to join his wife-to-be in New Hampshire.

Nor was this Cheever’s last experience with the plague, which was prevalent in Manhattan even after the war.

Read the rest at Maud Newton: Blog.Similar Posts:

Megan McArdle on Atlantic.com: bed bugs and Craigslist

nobugsonme — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:30:29 +0000

There’s a little bed bug consciousness-raising going on in this post from Megan McArdle on her Atlantic.com blog, and even more in the active discussion which follows.

MacArdle writes:

Craigslist springs up to facilitate low cost transactions between individuals: good!

The market for used furniture booms, allowing people to furnish their houses more nicely/cheaply, while giving a little extra cash to those parting with unwanted furnishings: good!

The boom in used furnitures spreads bedbugs, leading to a quasi-epidemic in some areas: eeeeeeeeeeeeeek!

McArdle suggests that due to used furniture alone, the more the economy bites, the more the bed bugs bite.

Well, bed bugs were doing just fine spreading before the recent market plunges. After all, they also get to spread nicely when we spend lots of money to travel and stay in hotels, hostels, and rental houses, ride on planes, trains and buses, or go to college and home again.

Still, I don’t doubt for a minute that the recession can indeed help bed bugs in so many ways (we go for secondhand furniture and other items, we can’t afford treatment or encasements, and so on). We have commented on the potential (and reported) spread of bed bugs via Craigslist, freecycle, and other methods before.

The comments thread is even more interesting than the post itself, IMHO. I was glad to see all of this happening in the mainstream blogosphere.

I encourage you to check it out!Similar Posts:

Zen and the Art of Bed Bug Prep? And positive thinking and bed bugs.

nobugsonme — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 07:04:24 +0000

Well, okay, not Zen exactly.

I enjoyed reading some of New 2 The City’s blog entries about bed bugs. In this post, she describes going through her books over the bathtub, before bagging them and placing them in sealed containers:

Upon confirming that my apartment was infested with BBs, I was instructed to put everything in my apartment into heavy-duty, black contractor bags. Currently I am fanning books over the white tub to determine whether or not the book hosts a fat bedbug. After fanning, I put the book stacks into plastic bags, suck out the air, repeat the process with a second bag–first spaying pesticide– then putting the bags into plastic containers.

Warning: Since people often rush to “do something” when they notice bed bugs, I want to note, for other readers’ benefit, that no one should be bagging anything (or spraying pesticides!) without the explicit instructions of their pest professional (preferably one they believe to have extensive experience getting rid of bed bugs). PCOs each have their own ideas about prep and you should never do anything until someone has confirmed the presence of bed bugs (and, hopefully, gotten some idea of their harborages) and then told you what to do. “Bagging” is not a given, and in fact, can mean wildly different things as this FAQ explains.

Anyway, back to the story. In the course of this book inspection and bagging procedure, New 2 The City encounters her copy of Shakti Gawain’s Creative Visualization, and contemplates the glass-half-full side of having bed bugs:

As much as this experience with bedbugs has created a overwhelming amount of stress in my world, I am grateful for the opportunity for contemplation that is at hand.

Similar sentiments tonight from fedupwithbb in the forums (that’s the woman featured on the Today show this week whose home had four vikane gas fumigation treatments (four!), and who still has bed bugs, and no idea where they’re coming from); she writes:

I suppose this kind of slow house fire (as I like to call it) does have one advantage… It gives you a new perspective on the idea that “it’s just stuff.” It has been sad to let go of a few things, but somewhat liberating to realize that I don’t need a lot of what I have in my house, you know? I mean, it creates a terrible carbon footprint because I can’t re-use, I can’t continue my cloth diapering, I use crazy amounts of water, energy for heat, plastic bags, disposable diapers, etc., etc. But it does paint a very clear picture of the few things I have that *really* matter. The rest, I am learning, I can live without. That’s a good thing to be reminded of.

What an amazing attitude!

Make no mistake, bed bugs are a nightmare in many respects. But we have to do what we have to do, and bravo to these ladies for seeing the other side of the coin.

Creative visualization. Let’s all go visualize bed bugs disappearing.

Can’t hurt, right?

Creative Visualization: Use the Power of Your Imagination to Create What You Want in Your Life (Gawain, Shakti)
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Les punaises de lit: bed bugs en français

nobugsonme — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 05:56:16 +0000

Here’s a hearty welcome to (well, to our knowledge, anyway) the first bed bug blog en français!

Out of Montréal, in fact: La Cibole de Cimex. The author is named Corinne and has had bed bugs. Deux fois. Merde!

(I only get to swear in French, because Bed Bug Helloise is a proud monoglot. She hasn’t a clue I have a multilingual potty mouth.)

Two times. We’re sorry to hear that, but we are glad she’s blogging about it and can provide a bed bug resource pour les francophones.
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