Got Bed Bugs? Bedbugger Forums » Introductions
My Experience
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Bug E. Curious
newbite
Joined: Feb '10
Posts: 1offline
Posted 3 years ago
Sun Feb 21 2010 0:30:55
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Ok, here's my experience with bedbugs.
Looking back my experience started back in late August, early September of last year. I was staying with a friend of mine due to financial constraints and I was noticing I was, well, itchier than normal. I chalked it off to fleabites because there were three inside/outside cats that lived there as well as a dog. When my daughter came to stay with me (I'm what amounts to divorced) and ended up with several big welts I wrote it off to fleabites and her allergy to Tide detergent---she's severly allergic to Tide and ANY insect bite. A bite from something as innocuous as a flea will produce a quarter sized welt at times on her. As for Tide, if she merely sleeps with a blanket that was washed in Tide she hives out something awful.
Anyways, when I went to move out towards the end of September to my new apartment my friend offered the mattress from the guestroom since I didn't have a bed of my own. After a few times of sleeping on this mattress I noticed that every once in a while I would wake up with a mild rash and very occaisionally woke up with three or four big welts for me. I chalked it off to fleas yet again as the cats used to sleep on the mattress when it was in the guestroom. Daughter still got welts when she came to visit but I wrote it off to possibly being allergic to the roach spray that the landlord had used on the apartment before I moved in.
My first inkling that it might be bedbugs came when I had to move back to the same friend's house that I had just moved from three months earlier. I was moving my stuff into what had been the guestroom and I saw a strange bug crawling across this piece of driftwood that was in the guestroom. I crushed it with my thumb and when it came away smeared with blood I immeadiately thought "bedbug". Searched it up on the internet and and it definitely looked like what I had killed when I moved back in.
Looked all over the room for signs of infestation including on the mattress and I didn't find anything. Never did find any evidence of infestation---no cast skins, no fecal matter and most importantly to me no blood spots or smears on the mattress or bedclothes. Over the past two months that I've been moved back in I've killed maybe six or seven altogether. Even with twice weekly inspections in my room I still haven't found any evidence of infestation outside of the occasional BB.
My plans are to encase the mattress I sleep on with a zippered plastic cover and dust my room (and most of the house) with food-grade DE under the guise of treating for fleas and any possible roaches that may stray into the house (I already wash my clothes on an almost daily basis in hot water and dry until nearly toasted). Notice I said "guise" because my friend has no idea that we have bedbugs and to be totally honest I don't plan on telling her. Why? It's complicated but the simplest explanation is that I'm afraid that the idea that she has bedbugs will emotionally unhinge her to the point (she has OCD, depression and severe moodswings) that the friction will result not only in an unhealthy emotional breakdown for her but it will end with me out on the street. It's a screwed up situation I know but right now my need for a place to live not only so I don't freeze but so I can see my kids outweighs any thoughts in my mind of telling her of the POTENTIAL bedbug problem.
Here's to hoping the DE will contain/eliminate the problem.
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