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Discovered bed bugs about 1 month ago...have exterminator coming fri, help!!

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   bedbughellhouston
   

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   Posted 2 years ago
   Mon Feb 28 2011 23:04:31
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   OK heres my story....about a month ago i started noticing bites that itched and i was convinced it was just mosquitoes. well i started getting suspicious when i saw on our weekly apartment flyer, an article titled "bed bug facts you should know" and that's when i put two & two together. a week after me, my roommate (sister) started noticing them too...just a couple a night. I talked to the apartment management and they said they'd send someone to look at our rooms. There was nothing visible to the eye, nothing on the baseboards, mattresses, etc. My sister and I still haven't visibly seen a bug. however, the maintenance man left a glue pad under our beds and came back and checked after a week. there was a tiny, i mean SPECK that they sent to the lab for testing and is confirmed to be a baby bed bug. Like i said, the bugs are babies and still not visible even when they're crawling but enough to keep me up all nite now that it's confirmed they are bed bugs. after much research online i see article upon article about how exterminating /pesticides aren't effective and the only effective treatment is the heat treatment. Management will not do the heat, they will only do their pesticide treatment which they argue has worked in times past. I dont feel comfortable with this but obviously theres not much i can do at this point. SO my question is, who has had effective pesticide treatments? they've instructed us to bag up all our clothing and wash it but the instructions are so vague im not sure how to do it. Should i buy airtight bags and move my clothing to the laundry room and wash everything in hot water and then put the clothes in new bags immediately after (obviously throwing the old bags in the dumpster asap)? I just need some insight on this preparation. i dont know what to do with all my pictures in my room, i have plastic bins stacked filled with clothes, can the bugs go in there? Im hoping since the bugs are so tiny and probably so new we still have a fighting chance. However we wanna be sure we're doing it right. ANY advice is great, im new to this, ive seen it all over the news for the last year but i guess i had no idea how severe it was. i cant calm down cant sleep i cant sit still. this is an absolute nightmare and im so glad i found this forum so others can talk about these issues together!! thank you everyone!

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   Nobugsonme
   

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   Posted 2 years ago
   Tue Mar 1 2011 0:56:11
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   For prep besides laundry, the PCO should have a list of written instructions. Ask your landlord to ask them.

   As for laundry,

   • Seal the dirty stuff in bags. Can be ziplocs or regular thick contractors' bags. Seal in an airtight manner (either tying the bag so no air can escape, or zipping a ziploc). This keeps you from spreading bed bugs around everywhere you carry the bags.
   • Take bags to where you're going to wash the stuff. Wash on hot. (Cold should be okay too, as long as you will dry on hot.) Do not overpack dryer. Dry on hot until really dry.
   • If items are clean or can't be washed on hot, drying dry items on hot alone is sufficient.In this case, drying most clothing for 20-30 minutes, not tightly packed in dryer, should be enough.
   • These drying instructions do not apply to thick items like comforters, pillows, and stuffed animals; we don't really know how long they will take. Consider a Packtite for such items (as well as shoes, clothing, hats, etc.), but I would run it for a good long time.
   • Throw away bags dirty items were in.
   • Load cleaned, dried items into new bags, and seal in an airtight manner. Again, the type of bag does not matter, but many people like the XL Ziplocs (or smaller zipper bags for individual outfits) so they can open and close them repeatedly.
   
   

   Please see our FAQs also, but remember: only the pest control firm you're using can tell you how they want you to prep for their work. Some want nothing, some have really specific instructions peculiar to them.

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