Need more specifics on what bed bug bites are like and everything else

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Need more specifics on what bed bug bites are like and everything else

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stressedinalbany

newbite
Joined: Aug '08
Posts: 2

Posted 1 year ago
Fri Aug 1 2008 13:31:10
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Let me start by saying that I have read everything on the blog as well as numerous forum threads and there is so much information that it is difficult to soak up. Therefore, I apologize if I'm asking something that is covered clearly elsewhere.

My story:
I went to a wedding in a different city this past weekend and stayed at 2 different friends apartments. At one point (I don't recall exactly) I noticed 2 or 3 bites on my body in strange places (mostly my upper thighs and right around the elastic waist band of my shorts). I didn't think much of it because it's not like I've never had bites before. But then when I got home from the wedding a friend suggested that I might have bed bugs. I didn't think much of it, although I kept an eye out (ha ha -ignorant me), but I did not do the thorough research about where they hide and how impossible they are to eliminate. So, the following weekend I brought several baskets of laundry to my parents' (a single family detached home in a small town) to wash (cold water, low/medium heat drying as usual) as I was taking care of their house on weekends while they were away for a few weeks. THEN I found this site and others and realized that I had probably just done the worst thing I've ever heard of in my entire life. I tried isolating my bed there the best I was able to under the conditions and "slept" 2 nights without getting any bites or seeing anything (I saw a couple of bugs and bug skins, but none of them looked like they were bed bugs, and one of them sorta did, but it was in a bathtub on a different floor of the house than I was sleeping in, and out in the day, so it probably wasn't one. And yup, I killed it instead of trying to catch it. It was about 10-15mm long). All I did was use a known sterile pillow and known-sterile sheet on a mattress without any linens on it (after first inspecting the mattress), put a perimeter of double-sided carpet tape on the side of the mattress, and pulled the bed away from the wall, but still had no noticeable bites or catches in 2 days.
I have since left the house and have not returned. It is unoccupied and there are no pets.
So now I'm at my apartment and I have increased my efforts little-by-little to get some actual evidence of having bed bugs. I didn't get any new bites since I got back to my apartment from visiting for the weddings during the first week, and after having returned from my parents it has been another week, and still nothing - I think - except...

I have lots of very very small pimple-like bumps on my legs that aren't particularly itchy, almost nothing on my arms, and nothing noticeable at all on my torso even though my arms and torso are what are exposed at night. I was sleeping on a cheap mattress on the floor before, so I threw it out, taped a perimeter with double sided carpet tape (I have carpet), sprayed it down with 91% isopropyl alcohol twice, and took my linens and pillows and some clothes (all in duct-tape shut garbage bags) to the 24 hour laundromat along with some of the major sized ziplock bags, washed some things and then put everything in the driers on high for over 20 minutes.

So after spraying the area twice and establishing a taped perimeter, I blew up an air mattress and slept on that with one of my newly (hopefully) sterilized pillows and a sheet.
Unfortunately right before bed I noticed a dead bug just lying inside the perimeter. I didn't see it there while I was spraying, but it was plain as day when I got back from the laundromat. I picked it up with tape and taped it to a piece of paper. I took a magnifying glass (2X/4X) that I bought earlier that day and looked at it. It LOOKS the most like a bed bug of any of the bugs I've caught so far, but it still seems rather thick for being as large as it is (it's about 4 or 5 millimeters long (I think) and is almost black, and has a rounded back sorta like a beetle), and it seemed too easy to catch under strange circumstances. Also, like I said, I have very small red blotches that don't exactly itch, but those are the only things I’ve noticed since 2 weeks ago (nothing big and itchy like the first bites - I had to use hydrocortisone to get them to even wane)

I just talked to my roommate about it yesterday (because I wanted to be sure before I imposed my crazy on others) and he said he hasn't been bitten or noticed anything out of the ordinary even though he was the only one in the apartment for 4 days while I was at my parents last weekend.

Am I still just in denial? I seem to go back and forth between flat denial and positive panic, and it's exhausting.

One thing I can say is that having taken things to the laundromat last night and storing them in Ziploc bags until the morning has helped me not to have so much psychological "itching" or feeling of bugs crawling on me during the day.

My next move should be to have an entomologist look at the bug I caught, right? I think there are entomologists in the building I work in, so I may be able to do that on Monday. In the meantime, should I just continue to locate all cloth items in my bedroom and launder them and seal them? I don’t know what to do about my roommate’s room or the living room, but I figure I can at least be making my room more easily combatable.

Question 1: What is the necessary length of time to have items in a commercial dryer on high? I know the blog says 2 hours, but wow I just can't fathom spending that much money every time I dry things (1 quarter gets me 6 minutes) or it needing to really be that long.
Question 2: Does isopropanol (91%) kill eggs?
Question 3: How do I know if they’re in my car, and what do I do about it?
Question 4: What are peoples routines that help them get out of bed and to work in the morning without totally freaking out and with some degree of normality?
Question 5: What should I do about my parents’ house?

Any and all feedback will be appreciated
buggyinsocal

oldtimer
Joined: Jun '08
Posts: 1,130

Posted 1 year ago
Fri Aug 1 2008 14:35:35
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A couple of quick responses (I'm sort of rushing off to something) until other people come in and fill in more details.

Q1: no one knows for sure what the exact time is. There's a great summary of an experiment that seemed like the most detailed info I found. You'll kind of have to make a decision about how much time and how much heat you feel comfortable with, but these numbers helped me out.

http://pctonline.com/articles/printer.asp?ID=2822&IssueID=226&Source=back

Go to the section on laundry, and read about the experiment with bed bugs in socks in different wash temperatures.

The two guidelines I've seen consistently are this: the dry item needs to reach 140 degrees for a minimum amount of time. For clothes that are wet, most people say that means drying them on high for 20 minutes past when they are already dry.

Some people have also had success with drying items on hot for like 7 minutes when the items were already dry.

If you trust the lab numbers in that article, washing them in warm soapy water alone should do it.

Most people dealing with BB trust very little, so I suspect drying things until they've very hot and very dry makes us feel better.

Q2: Isopropryl alcohol (91%) does not reliably kill eggs. Eggs are killed reliably by very few things--extreme heat (over 140 degrees) is one of the only things that will.

Q3: I didn't worry too much about my car--mostly because my car regularly reaches 140 degrees and stays there for a few hours and I didn't seem to be getting bitten there. So, sorry, I can't help you there. Some people have vikaned their cars. I wondered whether getting the car cooked at a 3 day auto body/paint shop might do it, since someone who called Car Talk did that to rid their car of baby black widow spiders, but I don't think anyone's tried it yet.

Q4: a lot of us live the ziplock lifestyle. I really carefully inspected a few pairs of shoes and took them off outside, changing into flip flops that I could regularly wash in hot for in the house. I took my work clothes off and put them in a ziplock before I did anything else in the apartment, once I knew they had been laundered so as to be BB free. And I bought some cheap casual stuff to wear while working in the house--stuff that I could wash in hot and dry the ever living daylights out of.

Q5: I think at this point the most important thing is to tell your parents and tell them why you're telling them. Point them in the direction of information (like this website).

Hopefully more people will be along later with additional info.

Hang in there.
stressedinalbany

newbite
Joined: Aug '08
Posts: 2

Posted 1 year ago
Fri Aug 1 2008 21:13:03
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Now see...
I just caught something biting me on my neck, which could have been a total coincidence. It's elongated and only 2mm long, so it doesn't really look like a bed bug. I caught it with tape. I also found a dead tick in my room.
It's like the key master and the gatekeeper met in my room and are summoning the insect Armageddon. I don't know what is going on with all these biting bugs, so now I'm completely unsure if I even had bed bugs to begin with. If I'm still getting random bites, what is one to do? Is it appropriate to contact an exterminator just to have them see the bugs I caught and see what they can tell me? I've now caught 3 different types of bugs with strategies that I intended to catch bed bugs with, and at least 2 of them are of the biting sorts. Is there an agency or some other place one can go to have these things identified?
buggyinsocal

oldtimer
Joined: Jun '08
Posts: 1,130

Posted 1 year ago
Sat Aug 2 2008 1:39:45
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It's totally appropriate to call a PCO (the term that professionals who manage pests prefer over exterminator) and have them look at what you've caught so far. You might try searching the forums to see if anyone else has suggestions for PCOs in your area.

I was 99% sure I had BB by the time the PCOs came out because I had caught several adult bugs, so the confirmation stage seemed unnecessary to me, but it is a standard part of the process. Many PCOs need proof (bugs you've caught, bugs or other signs of bugs they find in their inspection) before they can treat,