Bedbuggers,

The bed bug bite photos page is turning out to be one of the big attractions at our site.

Since it obviously is a resource folks need, I want to keep expaning it. If you have clear photos of your own bites (they can’t be from a cameraphone or otherwise small), please consider adding them. If you host them on flickr or another site from which we can link to the image, then simply email me with the links. If you can’t do this, then you may send me a photo or two to be added to my flickr page.

I’d especially appreciate it if you’d look at the page and see if the bites there look like yours. Tell us in a comment below this post which person’s bites look like yours–and if none do, but you’re sure they’re bed bug bites, and you’re still being bitten, then please snap some good shots. (Remember, if you have not verified beyond a doubt that bed bugs caused your problem, then it probably is not helpful to post the photos: you just never know.)

Thanks for making Bedbugger a useful resource for others!

.

Bassomeijer’s bite, shaped like a devil. Anyone else got photos of bites in formation, that look like something else?

• (Bed bug) service included
• Do not adjust your set
• Lou’s bed bug bite photos
• bed bug life cycle photo

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We have some news. It’s not earth-shattering, and it’s not bad, but it’s pretty interesting.

Saturday night, we looked at George’s arms and found bumps. There were two bumps in the spot where he was bitten by the adult. He said, “Oh yeah, I think it stopped and restarted biting at one point.” One bite was a little larger than the other.

Then we checked the arm with the nymph, and there was a bump there too.

His bites do not itch. He thinks they might have shown up a couple days ago, but he barely noticed them because they don’t itch at all. They look like pimples. Non-itchy pimples.

Throughout our bedbug ordeal, I remembered noticing pimples on his back. But nothing ever itched him, and I always assumed he just had some pimples on his back. Now, of course, I am wondering if they were bites. Non-itchy bites.

Interestingly, George’s two adult bites are of different sizes. The adult started biting him, for about ten seconds, before he moved his arm slightly and the bug stopped biting (it actually flipped onto its back, it was so weird - I have heard of bedbugs “playing dead” and perhaps that was this response). Anyway, then it righted itself, and went back to biting, in what we thought was the same spot. I guess it was actually half an inch over.

Today, if we look at his smaller adult bite, and his nymph bite on the other arm, they look pretty much identical in terms of size and color. His larger adult bite was where the bug spent the majority of its time. This leads me to believe that the length of time the bug spends is as important, if not more important, than the size of the bug itself.

—

Meanwhile, the flaming skin around my adult bite is taking up much more space on my arm, than the skin around my nymph bite. The centers of the bites look the same - a little hard whitish-clear bump - but the itchy skin around them is definitely different for nymph versus adult.

S’s bites on day 5

My overall finding is that while my two bites started out the same, and looked & felt exactly the same for about two days, the adult bite remained swelled over a larger surface area than the nymph bite, for the following three days. So I do believe there is a difference, though in my case, it appeared over time.

• World exclusive: Bedbuggers experiment with being bitten, on purpose! (Part 3)
• Lou Sorkin: bitten on the hand by 30 bed bug nymphs and 2 adult bed bugs
• World exclusive: Bedbuggers experiment with being bitten, on purpose! (part 1)
• World exclusive: Bedbuggers experiment with being bitten, on purpose! (Part 2)

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————————————————————————

By 3 pm on the second day, the two bites were fully swelled and majorly itchy.

Waaaaaay itchier than the “bites” I’ve been feeling for the past two months. This is definitely making me doubt myself, in the weirdest way - was it all a joke? It’s hard to pin down exactly when my “really itchy” bites stopped and my “less itchy” bites began, but it was probably at least two months ago. Were the past two months all “phantom bites?”

I don’t know the answer to this. For example, there was one time back in January when I saw a nymph run across my hand. I looked down because I felt a hot itch on my knuckle, and then I saw the bug. So I’d say that was a “confirmed bite.” That bite itched, for sure, but not like these. It swelled up for about two days, and then it faded to a small pink non-itchy bump on my knuckle.

Perhaps that bug was interrupted halfway through its bite, and that’s why the bite never got huge. Or perhaps different locations on the body elicit different bite responses. Last year, when we first had bedbugs (for about two weeks in April 06) I had bites all up the inside of my arm, in similar locations to these new test bites. And those were just as big and itchy as these. So maybe the inside of your forearm is just a particularly sensitive, reactive location, and your knuckle, not so much.

Either way, these bites are raging. They itch all day and night. There is definitely a difference. I know you guys know. It’s the kind of itch where you want to chew your own arm off.

By 11 am on the third day, I’d say the adult bite is slightly larger.

But the nymph bite is still far larger than any of my recent “bites.” All the skin around the adult bite is pink, in like a 2-inch circle. They are both swelled like crazy, and they both itch like mad. It makes me wonder, does the bites’ proximity to each other make a difference? I am not about to go back for another Bite Fest, but the new questions I’d love to answer are:

1. Does the length of time the bug takes, make a difference? What if it only feeds for say, 5 or 10 seconds?

2. Does the location on the body make a difference?

3. Does bites’ proximity to each other make a difference?

I know this sounds like a long shot, but the only way I could see that I’m still getting actual, new bites, is if bedbugs (adult or nymph) are biting me for like five seconds, on “tough” parts of my body, and not near each other. I guess they could be biting me for five seconds while I sit on the couch, but I don’t feel like my face and neck are “tougher” than my inner arm.

And still, zero reaction to the cast skin. I’m continuing to monitor that arm as well as the rest of my body. So far, incidentally, nothing on the rest of my body either.

So my initial conclusion is that while I’m NOT hypersensitive to chitin, I’m also NOT currently being bit by bedbugs. What is my skin doing? I have no freaking idea. But hey. As long as it’s not new bedbugs, I’m fine.

Last night, for the first time in four months, I experienced a brief moment - maybe ten seconds - where I actually accepted that this might be over. I was putting my bag into a ziploc as I came in the door, and I pictured not doing that. The feeling went away, sadly, almost right away! But this feeling rushed over me that for the first time, I actually believed that this might indeed be over.

Baby steps.

These are the marks S has gotten on her skin for the last 2-3 months before Bitefest began. She now thinks they were “bites” (in our parlance here at bedbugger.com, “bites” are marks someone is not sure are actual bites from a bed bug).

Editor’s note from Nobugsonme:

I actually started composing S a long email on Wednesday, posing just some of those questions she notes above. And I did not send it–deciding to wait and comment after the last installment. While I hope very much that S is bed bug-free, I do want us to be skeptical about the conclusions that can be drawn from this limited experiment.

What I think S and G proved was this:

(a) G can be bitten and not react (at least for three days), and

(b) S reacts the same to nymph and adult bites (at least on her arm), and

(c) Nymph bites and adult bites, at least sometimes, look the same.

I know my conclusions will seem stingy to many, but if we want solid information, we need more research to be done.

Remember, S said a few weeks ago she wants to keep people from getting caught up in “groupthink,” the sharing of incorrect information among members of a group until everyone believes it? One fact that was becoming gospel among many bed bug sufferers around the internet was that nymph bites are small and adult bites are large. I was always skeptical of this idea, since we just did not have any proof. I am immensely grateful that S tested and shattered that belief. Doesn’t mean they can’t be different sizes in different circumstances, mind you, but on S’s arm, this week, they were not. That’s quite a nugget of information.

As S says above, “…perhaps different locations on the body elicit different bite responses.” In my own experience, I know this to be true. I have not undergone testing, but I am fairly certain. Bites on my face always looked the same: less swollen, looking like pimples but with a distinct bedbuggy itchiness that set them apart. Nevertheless, they never itched like bites on my back, shoulders, or elsewhere. They often faded quickly. Those on my toes were always tiny, but again, charactertistically itchy.

It’s possible that length of time you were bitten may matter, that distance between bites may matter (both possibilities S also posits), that even variables such as your own immune system, the degree of histamine reaction at that time or to that bug’s saliva, even how dry your skin is, or how much water you drank in the day, all of this may be a variable. I am sure there are other factors that are possible. My point is, we don’t know: this is the tip of the iceberg.

I think S is probably bed bug free as she suggests. I just don’t think she can rule out that the other marks in the composite photo were from bed bugs. Both possibilities can co-exist at the same time, in the form of bugs who just hadn’t crossed the poison yet when they bit her–they could now be dead, though they bit her. That’s my hypothesis, but we won’t get to test it. Let’s hope all S’s and G’s only future bed bug bites, if any, are by choice– “from a can,” if you will.

Thanks again to S. and G for sharing this amazing experience, and for the nugget of wisdom we’ve gotten from it.
Thanks also to our readers, for coming back to parts two and three!

• World exclusive: Bedbuggers experiment with being bitten, on purpose! (Part 4)
• World exclusive: Bedbuggers experiment with being bitten, on purpose! (Part 2)
• World exclusive: Bedbuggers experiment with being bitten, on purpose! (part 1)
• recent bites from bed bugs (photo)

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What We Learned, So Far (Day 2)

by S

George did not react immediately, and still has not reacted. It’s now the next day. So we now know that they may have been biting him the whole time too. Not “preferring me.” Sure, they still could have preferred me, but he had zero reaction. We studied the places on his skin, circled in pen. Not a red dot, not a pinprick, not a single clue that a bug had spent five minutes sucking his blood. He felt no itch, either.

The adults take longer to feed than the nymphs. I guess that’s intuitive but it’s still interesting to know. The nymphs were each like 2-3 minutes, and his adult was like 5 min and mine was like 10. Maybe I am actually tastier, or maybe the bugs were just different.

My right arm, which had the cast skin on it, had no reaction. No itch, no redness. The skin sat there for 5 minutes, in two different places. I’ll continue to monitor it. But maybe, at least in me, there is no chitin hypersensitivity. I don’t doubt that it exists in others, but it hasn’t shown up in me. This leaves me confused, but at least I’m able to rule that out - or at least make a guess that chitin is not to blame.

The spot where the adult bit me, showed a little white swell, immediately after the bug was done. This looked very similar to the little white swell that the nymph bite made. Neither of these itched, right away. During the time when the adult was biting me, G said that he could see my skin turning a little pink around the bug. This went away pretty quickly. When we walked out of there, if it weren’t for the circles in pen, you would not have known we were just bit by bedbugs.

I woke up a few times throughout the night last night, just because I was nervous. I kept thinking I could feel an itch on my neck. But no, there was nothing there this morning. Most importantly, my arms did not itch throughout the night.

This morning, my left arm itched. And I will say with complete confidence that right now, the two bites look EXACTLY THE SAME. No joke. The nymph fed for like 3 minutes, and was teeny tiny. The adult fed for like 10 minutes, and got all big and fat and made my skin turn pink right then. Today, they look identical. Check it out in the photos.

S’s arm that night:

S’s arm the next day:

Finally, the itch started when I woke up and has been getting worse and worse all day. It itches hard. Both bites itch the same. They burn. They are sensitive to my clothes on them.

They feel like my original bites did, but I don’t think I’ve felt an itch like this in a long time. And you know what, I WANT these to itch like mad - it helps me to confirm that I have NOT been getting bit by bedbugs these last couple months. Plus, I’m obviously not immune to the bugs’ effects. I didn’t think immunity was possible, but hey, now I have a little proof of that, at least in me.

Now granted, these two bites are close to each other, and are maybe somehow affecting each other. They are also on the underside of my forearm, a pretty sensitive spot. I had bites here when our first infestation began, but none here this time around. I know that location has an impact.

But let me just say, that I am feeling a little (okay, a lot) better about my recent “bites” being only some type of lingering sensation. I don’t know what it is, or what is causing it, and so far I don’t have reason to believe it’s chitin. But maybe bedbugs have forever changed my skin, and I’ll just get little itchy swellings from this point on.

I will continue to monitor these bites. They are already bigger and itchier than they were just a few hours ago. Damn, an itch never felt so good. (I am not scratching - I’m trying not to even touch them).

Plus, I faced my fear. Well, I didn’t totally face it because I didn’t look, at least not at the adult. But now I’m looking at the pictures G took. And here I am. With two growing welts, but otherwise, healthy and alive. This doesn’t make bedbugs less hated, but it’s giving me a little bit of perspective.

I want to add that I don’t think everyone should do this, because if you had bedbugs and you’re still seeing “bites,” you should do every possible thing you can to get rid of them, and try every doctor or PCO before resorting to this test. In many cases, you probably still have bedbugs. I still think, with a shrinking but persistent part of my mind, that we could still have them too. We could always have dormant ones, and hey, we could always get them again. But for me, in my particular situation, I needed to know a very specific answer to some very specific questions. So now I have a little more information. I hope this helps others as much as it’s helped me.

Editor’s note from Nobugsonme:
Two things stand out at me:

First, when we’re told a lot of people don’t get bitten by bed bugs, I wonder if this is an error. Parakeets was quoted a statistic by entomologists at the Bed Bugs conference she attended last fall, that as many as 70% of people are not bitten. I have no idea where they got the statistic from, and would love to know.

Has anyone ever verified that in any way, or was it assumed that since some people did not react, they were not being bitten? G assumed he wasn’t, and many of us have roommates, family members or partners who thought the same of themselves. G’s research is valuable in that it is proof at least some people are bitten and show no signs.

I hear a deep-pitched collective gasp; while some men suffer from bites (hello BuggedinBrooklyn, Willow-the-wisp, et al.), and some women don’t, we at Bedbugger.com usually hear from women who are bitten that live with unaffected men. That might simply mean men don’t talk about their problems as much online, or that this site just appeals more to women. But it looks, from where we stand, that women are more likely to suffer from bed bug bites in a home with both women and men present.

Secondly, S’s research backs up Sean the PCO’s experience — he has said that his nymph and adult bites look the same. S has proved that in her case, at least in this instance, that is true. Many people have assumed that their smaller bites were from nymphs. But this was just speculation.

I’ve often cautioned against making assumptions about why this bite or that bite looks as it does, and in light of this experiment, I’m even more inclined to be cautious: when it comes to how bites look and how they feel and when and for how long they appear, you really don’t know for sure, unless you see it happen, like S and G did. But remember, S’s other bite photo (on the bite photos page) looks quite different: this is evidence that even on the same person, every bite does not cause the same reaction.

Folks may want to look back at the comments following the lingering sensations post I wrote a month ago. You should remember that one of the three regular Bedbugger commenters who speculated they might be having “lingering sensations” or phantom bites now has evidence s/he is still being bitten. I think S has good reason to think she’s not getting bitten at home now, as she says. Her experiement gives her some good information on that. But the other Bedbugger’s experience is a caution against assuming your itchy “bites” or sensations are not from bed bugs, and against waiting too long to find out, rather than taking action.

S has some follow up on the bites three days after the deed was done, so this is now a three-part series.
More to come Friday at 9 am EST! Thanks again to S and G, the first official Bedbuggers of the Week!

• World exclusive: Bedbuggers experiment with being bitten, on purpose! (Part 4)
• World exclusive: Bedbuggers experiment with being bitten, on purpose! (part 1)
• World exclusive: Bedbuggers experiment with being bitten, on purpose! (Part 3)
• recent bites from bed bugs (photo)

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I must confess, I thought S and G were mad when they decided to beg their PCO/entomologist friend to let them be bitten by bed bugs. He must have too: he made them sign a waiver, but he let them experiment.

I am really amazed at the story you’re about to read, and while I think it’s a bit crazy, it also provides a certain kind of scientific evidence that has been lacking. Look, this is not a controlled research study, and research needs to be done in order to draw any major conclusions. If we know one thing about bed bugs, it’s that we don’t all react the same to bites, which can look different, feel different, and take longer to appear (or, in fact, never appear) depending on who is bitten.

S and G each wanted to know if they would react differently to adults vs. nymphs, whether G would react at all, since he assumed he wasn’t being bitten at home, and whether S would react to having a dead bed bug on her skin. What I do think is safe to say is that S and G learned something very interesting about they way they react to bed bugs. It may or may not correspond to your experience, but it probably does mirror lots of peoples’ experiences.

For some background on bed bug bites, here’s an article from last October about doctors (not) diagnosing them, which links to a number of photos of bed bug bites that do, and don’t, look typical. You may also be interested in S’s two photos from our “bite photos” page, which is a reminder that bites do not always look the same on the same person.

One final disclaimer: please do NOT try this at home. While bed bugs are not known to spread disease, that can always change, and it probably isn’t a good idea to get bitten on purpose or to share bed bugs with others.

So without further ado, here’s the first of two installments (the second is coming on Thursday morning). Thanks to S and G for taking it on the arm, in the name of research! And my super-special thanks to S for writing the article below.

Bite Fest 2007

By S.

I decided to get bitten because I really need to know if my bedbugs are gone. The infestation began in early December 06 and after 4 months, we really, really, really think they are gone. Our PCO does too. There’s been no evidence in months. But I am still waking up with little, mildly itchy bumps on my skin, maybe 3-4 a week, and nobody has been able to give me a satisfying explanation.

Are my bumps a reaction to the chemical? I don’t think so. I spoke with the makers of Demand, and no, it would not cause single, itchy bumps. Are they pimples? Well, a lot are on my face, but they look and feel different to pimples. Are they a skin hypersensitivity? Maybe. But could that account for ALL of them? The ones on my face look different than the ones on my chest, which look different than the ones on my arms or back. And what would I be having a hypersensitivity TO? Are they old bites flaring back up? Maybe, but some of them, I’m fairly certain, are in new places. Are they nymph bites? Maybe, although by now, wouldn’t the nymphs have grown up, and the bites gotten bigger? Are nymph bites smaller than adult bites? Finally, might these be regular bedbug bites, but I’m not reacting as much as I used to? Can you become immune?

All these questions have been plaguing me for months. I felt that at this point, after consulting two dermatologists, many PCOs online and in person, and gleaning everything I could from other peoples’ stories, I just had to try it out for myself. The only way to know if these are new bedbug bites, is to see what actual, confirmed bedbug bites look like. Not four months ago, but now. And not photos of other people’s bites, but my bites, on my skin.

So my PCO raises colonies of bedbugs because, well, he is crazy. But also brilliant. He feeds them on himself and keeps them in vials. He has adults, nymphs of every instar, including first instars. There was fecal matter, cast skins and a crumpled-up piece of paper in the vials - just a little jar of goodies! Ugh, it was SO GROSS. And something else, that I knew but was still gross to see for myself, was basically how LAZY they are. In the vial, they don’t crawl around. They just sit there, in the folds of the paper.

My lovely boyfriend (we’ll call him G) said he’d do this with me, because he wasn’t scared, and he knew it would help me to be braver. I am not brave. I had nightmares about this for weeks - mostly that the bug would somehow run up my arm and into my shirt. Also, in my nightmares they were humongous. The one dead one, that we found on a glue mat when our infestation began, had grown larger in my memory. So while my boyfriend was like “THEY’RE HUGE!” I was like “Oh, they’re actually not as big as I remember.”

The other reason for G to do this, was that he’s never found a single bite. So we hoped to answer the question “Do they just prefer me? Or do they bite him, and he doesn’t react?” We knew that if G DID react, then they have actually been choosing me over him all this time.

Andy (the PCO) was well-prepared when we arrived at his office, on the south side of Chicago. He had us sign waivers saying that we wouldn’t blame him or his company for any damages. Sure, no problem. Then, here’s what he did. He’d take the bug we wanted to test out of the main vial, with tweezers. He’d place it in a clean, empty vial. Then, he’d tip the vial sideways, until it was pressing against my arm. Then he’d turn it over, and just hold it down. This way, the bug had about a one-inch circle of skin, and couldn’t run away. We’d press the vial down firmly the entire time. When the bug was done biting, I’d gently tip my arm until the bug fell back into the vial, and then Andy would cover it with a lid. It was all very controlled.

BUT STILL REALLY GROSS!

So, here’s how it went. First, G did a first instar nymph.

This is the nymph on G:

This is G’s immediate reaction to the first instar nymph:

As you can see, his reaction was basically nothing. No itch, no red dot, no evidence that a bug was ever there. (We made a circle where the vial was, and a smaller circle where the actual bite took place).

While he was doing that, I did a cast skin. (We just placed it on my skin). I have read from multiple sources that chitin hypersensitivity could possibly elicit a bite-like skin response from a dead bug, or even a skin. (Their skin contains chitin).

This is the cast skin on S:

And S. right after the cast skin:

The skin sat on my arm for about 5 minutes. It fell off once, so we put it back in a different place (hence the two circles). No immediate reaction to the skin.

Meanwhile, the nymph was biting G, but he couldn’t feel a thing. They are really tiny. We watched it go from clear to red.

Then, G did an adult, while I did a first instar nymph. His adult was oh so gross. It landed on its back, then turned itself over, stood there, and started biting. It was really quick. Again, he didn’t feel a thing.

This is the adult after it fed on G:

As you can see, it’s huge. The adult grew fatter as well as longer, during the 5 minutes it was feeding.

I had the teeniest little first instar nymph that latched onto me quickly, and when I saw the little red spot form, I looked away. It was done after maybe 2 or 3 minutes. We took it off and circled the spot with pen.

This is S’s arm after the nymph:

There was the tiniest whitish flat swelling on my skin by the nymph bite, and that was all. G was showing no reaction to either bite. It seemed like we weren’t gonna learn anything from him about the difference between nymph and adult bites.

So he said, “I think you should do an adult.” I was not mentally prepared for this. They are just so much bigger, and grosser, to me. But I knew he was right, that would be a true experiment, and we’d learn so much more this way.

Adult biting S.

Andy brought it over in a vial, and I covered my face with my hands. He pressed that vial down so hard, and during the entire time, I kept telling him to press it harder! I did not feel the adult biting me. But I did start to feel an itch, about halfway through! And that freaking bug sat there for ten minutes. It felt like ten hours. I never looked. G held my hand and we tried to talk about other things. Finally, it was done and I knew it was done because right away, I felt it walk. I practically screamed, and Andy came over and took it away. It clung to my skin at first, it didn’t want to fall off and into the vial, he apparently had to move the vial a little, and I was trying hard not to cry. I never looked. And then it was off, and it was done.

S’s skin immediately after the adult bed bug bit her:

Editor’s note:
What happened the next day?

Did G develop a reaction to the bites? Did S?
If so, did the nymph and adult bites look different?
Did S develop a reaction to the cast shell?
And what does it all mean?

Tomorrow (Thursday) @ 9am EST, come back for Part 2 of S’s story.

• World exclusive: Bedbuggers experiment with being bitten, on purpose! (Part 2)
• World exclusive: Bedbuggers experiment with being bitten, on purpose! (Part 3)
• recent bites from bed bugs (photo)
• World exclusive: Bedbuggers experiment with being bitten, on purpose! (Part 4)

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I am adding these to the bite photos page, though they’re slightly unusual: they depict what happens when Lou feeds hundreds of bed bugs in one spot on his arm. Your bed bug bites won’t look like this.

However, I think Lou must be a lot less allergic to bed bugs than many of us to be able to withstand such a concentrated assault. We know that some Bedbuggers react quite badly (though not like this by any means) to even single bites, and hundreds in one spot could be quite harmful. At least one active member of our blog was rushed to the emergency room. Serious allergic reactions are rare, but the bed bug bite reaction is a histamine reaction to the substance the bed bug injects during feeding. Your level of allergic reaction may be worse or better than someone else’s. It might be worse or better depending on the size of the bug. It might be worse or better one day, or another. The truth is we don’t know enough about bed bug bites, yet.

The captions below each photo are what Lou added to the descriptions over at flickr.com.

Lou says:

My arm after feeding a few minutes by the hundreds of bed bugs in the colony. Note individual welts when compared to other pictures in which the individual welts have coalesced into a large welt. After about 10 minutes of feeding, you cannot readily discern individual welts from individual bites.

Lou says:

About 10 minutes after having fed hundreds of bed bugs through the 1/3 mm mesh cover of colony container which is inverted on my arm during feeding. Since many crawl over one another during feeding frenzy, they produce the characteristic bed bug odor similar to a mixture of cilantro and citronella.

Lou:

10 minutes after feeding colony of bed bugs. Hundreds feed through 1/3 mm mesh holes at one time. Inflammatory reaction, but no itching to speak of. I experience a slight itchy feeling during feeding, but hundreds feeding at one time. When finished, they leave and others take their place.

Lou:

About 1 day after having fed bed bug colony. Note that swelling is appreciably down and pink diffuses out from central area. Bright red in area where feeding occured. This leaves in about a day, 2 days and skin back to normal level, just slightly darker than normal coloring for a week or so. Also not much itching to speak of: lucky for me. The itchiness can definitely vary from person to person.

I will link to this from the bite photos page, but I won’t put it all there, because Lou’s situation is a bit unusual and these bites aren’t really what most people should be looking for when they’re trying to diagnose their problem.

• recent bites from bed bugs (photo)
• Good news, Chicagoland: you might have itch mites
• Lou Sorkin: bitten on the hand by 30 bed bug nymphs and 2 adult bed bugs
• World exclusive: Bedbuggers experiment with being bitten, on purpose! (Part 2)

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S. has asked about hosting photos of bites, bugs, etc. I don’t want to physically store photos on the server, since that uses a lot of space. But an easy option is to use flickr.com. I encourage you to start your own flickr accounts, where you can upload photos. But if you already use flickr for personal photos, and don’t want friends to see your bite photos (!), you might want to start a second flickr account (anonymously). It’s free, you just need an email.

If you put your photos on flickr, you can then add me as a contact (I’m nobugsonme on flickr), tell me they’re there, and we can link to them from the site. I can put up a photo gallery on our site of bite pictures. (You know I also collect photos of apparent bed bug refuse–mattresses on the curb, that sort of thing.)

If you put a photo on flickr (or send one to me to put on my flickr account), you should realize that anyone anywhere who goes on flickr can link to it. I will use settings that prevent them from downloading it. But they can link to it. (If you host it, consider preventing downloads–that way people can link to the photo, but can’t download it and use it in any documents.)

If you want me to put your photo up on flickr, send me an email (nobugsonme at yahoo dot com) and attach the photo(s). Full-size is fine. Make sure you include the statement “You have my permission to post this photo on flickr,” plus your name or nickname from this site (whatever name you’re using in comments). I will attach your nickname to the photo, so the photos can be grouped by person. I will not use your real name, unless you tell me to.

If you send a junk-on-the-curb photo, tell me where it is (intersection, block, rather than actual address).

Here’s one from Huntington Township, Lond Island, sent by a reader; look at that beeeeauuuuutiful clean mattress (wonder what’s wrong with it?):

Let me know if this procedure works, or if you foresee any problems. You can send photos anytime, because we don’t need the new site for this.

Thanks for making Bedbugger more interactive and a better resource for others!

• bite photos
• Welcome Bedbuggers!
• FAQ: I am not in the US. Can you tell me where to buy XL ziplocs, or what mattress covers are called in my country?
• Bed Bug Awareness bill in Ohio House of Representatives

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What’s good about the article? Well, it documents a concerted effort on the part of Vancouver hotels and a dedicated (probably money-hungry, but who cares?) PCO to learn about and control bedbug infestations. The author does a great job of acknowledging the detrimental effects, monitarily speaking, of bedbugs on hotels:

Nobody wants to admit they have them, but nobody can afford to pretend they couldn’t get them at any time. The recent resurgence of the bedbug has become a major issue for the reputation-sensitive hotel industry, where its bite can cause serious financial hemorrhage.

Later, the article defines the nature of the damage from the hotel chain’s perspective:

Hotels rely heavily on repeat business, and Jarvis said concerns about public health issues like bedbugs can be very damaging,

“You could have a customer who is a business traveller and spends 50 hotel-nights a year with one particular brand,” he said. “If they have one incident, their likelihood of returning to that brand is fairly small, and the financial impact of that is very significant.

“So we see all of the major brands really reacting in quite a big way to this.”

Concern over potential lawsuits, particularly in the U.S., has led many hotel chains to re-examine their policies in regard to bedbugs in order to make sure they are doing all they can to prevent or eradicate them.

It’s a relief to know that hotels are becoming more aware of the potential for bedbug infestations, and are taking serious measures to combat and eliminate them. This is great news, and is going to become more and more necessary as people are bitten and lawsuits are filed.

That’s the upside of the article. The downside? The author seems to think that the general public overreacts to bedbugs. In fact, the author says

[A bedbug is] a tiny, blood-sucking pest capable of inspiring disproportionate horror… The idea of blood-sucking insects attacking people while they sleep seems to create a primal horror, although bedbugs do not pass on disease and their bites often go unnoticed.

Bedbug bites often go unnoticed? Sometimes, but not when you get five hundred in a single night, as this Chicago woman did at a hotel in Ellenville, NY. Or, for that matter, when you are bitten 600 times and your children suffer five hundred bites A PIECE in one night, as Eunice Juarez and her family were at the Fairfield Inn Anaheim Disneyland Resort. Check out the graphic pictures in these articles, and then tell me that bedbugs inspire “disproportionate horror.”

The San Fransisco Department of Public Health obviously doesn’t think bedbug infestations at hotels are at all blown out of proportion by the public. In fact, the city developed this plan of action specifically for hotels, and has enforced it as a code of public health. Why? Not because bedbugs create “disproportionate horror,” but because bedbug infestations are serious matters- they spread quickly, they are highly transmittable, and they are financially devastating, and not just for hotels.

I wonder if the author of this article would be up to spending a night or two in an infested room? I wonder if the thought of getting hundreds of bites from a parasite that feeds solely on humans would be a little horrific? I wonder, particularly, how horrified the author would be to learn that bedbugs are easily transported, and the possibility of taking them home from an infested hotel room is pretty good? I would bet that the author would be, well, horrified at the thought of having bedbugs in his or her bed for the month or two it takes to eliminate an infestation from a home. And I’d say that horror would be… Proportionate.

• Vancouver public education forum on bed bugs is a start, but probably not enough
• Highlands bed bug and (no) breakfast: not so romantic
• After a fire, bed bugs “rain down from ceilings” into other apartments
• Lexington, Kentucky public housing infested with bed bugs

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Offering a welcome respite from the same old bug photos, this video from KDKA news has Allegheny County Health Dept. entomologist Bill Todaro holding a bedbug impaled on a sharp pin. They also have three different varieties of bite photos–showing huge welts on one woman, small bites on another (like mine!) and in-between size on a third victim.

Not so great was the insistence of entomologist Todaro that you’ll see the bugs, since some of us look for months and don’t catch them in sight:

“You’ll see the bugs. They’re visisble. They are big enough to be seen with the naked eye.”

Yes, and no. They’re big enough to be seen, sure, but it’s important for people to know that they may hide in locations other than your mattress (where they’re easier to spot), and they also have five life stages. The smallest is speck-like (one journalist compared the size of the smallest ones to the size of a period in the New York Times). I’m a bit sensitive on this point; my own doctor has been taking this kind of “you’ll see them” advice to heart, and refused to believe I even had them. That’s not to say my experience is typical; most people with infestations do see some bedbugs at some point. But it is not a done deal, and it certainly is not guaranteed they’ll be in any way infesting your actual bed. We were overjoyed to find our bed looked brand new, assuming at first this meant no bedbugs.

Todaro also mentioned the “musty smell” they can produce. In my opinion this is a waste of news time, since I have not come across anyone with infestations who could smell them. Perhaps it has to be quite severe.

I did, however, appreciate the warning that people who’ve been to hotels should unpack (upon their return home) over the washing machine, or maybe put their suitcase in a freezer for a week. Their other suggestion (leaving your bag outside in a plastic bag for a week) would be virtually useless unless it were below freezing all week. In October, it’s poor advice.

All in all, they did really well on some fronts but quite poorly in others. Grade: C+.

(It would be a solid C but their range of original footage was impressive.)

No bedbug news segment is bad, however. I am glad these monsters are all over the news.

There was a second tv news story from WPXI Pittsburgh, but I was almost glad the video link did not work, since the photo looked like something out of a horror movie. Bedbugs the size of a child’s face, leave wounded youngsters in their wake (news at 11):

The horror!  The horror!

Yes, bedbugs are bad, but I take some comfort in their size, relative to mine.

It’s a bit sad that Bedbugger is now actually reviewing bedbug news segments. But what else do you expect, since reading and viewing the bedbug news is now my main pastime?

• bed bugs in the media: the Today Show, Tuesday morning
• Riding the bed bug wave
• “bed bugs,” the movie
• recent bites from bed bugs (photo)

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Road rage? Air rage? Going postal?

Wait until we start seeing cases of bedbug rage. Listen, this bug will make you madder than working for the US Postal Service, driving on the LA freeways, and waiting all day in an airport line just to have your toothpaste conviscated and your flight cancelled. Wrap that up and multiply by 100.

But I digress.

The important thing to remember is that certain outlets are recognizing bedbug infestations as a health concern: the Mayo Clinic, and the Allegheny County Health Department, which says:

While bedbugs have been known to harbor pathogens in their bodies, including plague and hepatitis B, they have not been linked to the transmission of any disease and are not regarded as a medical threat. Some individuals, however, can get skin infections and scars from scratching bites. While bedbugs are not regarded as a vector of transmissible diseases, they are a serious stressor and will create a lot of alarm and distress. With some individuals, it may precipitate mild to moderate cases of delusional parasitosis.

Until if, and when, we see Hepatitis or something even worse being transmitted by these monsters, it all comes back to mental health. I am not discounting the possibilities of delusional parasitosis, but keep in mind that many of us do not get taken seriously when we first turn up in the doctor’s office with bedbug bites and stories of bites from insects many of us can’t see, or at least don’t see for a long time. In other words, some people will assume it is, on some level, a mental health issue. (Because every day people who are imagining little-insects-they-can’t-see constantly biting them do come to doctors.)

On the other hand, anxiety and the stress of deadling with this issue, which can take up all your time and energy and seem insurmountable at time, is very much a mental health issue. So it being extremely itchy and never getting any sleep–I’d say those are mental and physical health concerns. And they’re just the reactions most of us get.

Doctors treat us for scabies, send us to dermatologists to have our “skin condition” looked into. My doctor told me I did not have bedbugs: “you’d see them,” she said, “and these don’t look like bedbug bites anyway.”

They did not look like this, or this, or this. You’d forgive my doctor for not knowing they can also look like this; and sometimes they can be smaller versions of the same, and don’t photograph easily. I have a lot of those right now.

And that sent me away to hope she was right. (You know things are bad when you actually hope this is burrowed under your skin and causing your problems.)

A long dark night spent covered in Elimite later, and I was still wondering. But that scabies cream (made of the same wonderful pyrethroids the pest control operator will eventually spray in my apartment) gave me a fever and made my skin really itch. And still, weeks later, the doctor was sure I didn’t have bedbugs.

The bottom line is that they are a health issue. And if you came here to find out if you have them, well, yes– ask your doctor. Maybe s/he will recognize the bites. Look high and low, not just on your mattress or under the bed frame. Look behond pictures, in closets, in cracks, in deep, murky corners. Look under switchplates and light fixtures. And even then, you may come up with nothing. Ask a pest control operator to look. And remember that it’s possible to breed a colony for months before you ever see one.

The people who aren’t allergic can’t do anything until they see one. I guess on some level we should be grateful we have some kind of warning. I just wish it did not itch so very badly…

• bed bugs clear Port Jervis, NY Hospital’s mental health unit
• Presidential Towers sold, with free bed bugs! Doctors and bedbugs (again)
• teaching doctors to diagnose bed bug bites
• World exclusive: Bedbuggers experiment with being bitten, on purpose! (Part 4)

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