OMG I think I have BB! « Got Bed Bugs? Bedbugger Forums

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OMG I think I have BB!

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eroberts_1

newbite
Joined: Sep '09
Posts: 6

Posted 5 months ago
Thu Sep 24 2009 11:10:03
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2 nights ago I had a creepy-crawly experience. I have a newborn so I'm up several times at night anyway, so I had just fed the baby and got back into bed when I started feeling things crawling on me. I actually kept turning on the light thinking there was a spider in my bed or something, but I didn't see one. Now I wish I would have looked a little better because I was only looking for something big and obvious. The next morning I found bites all over my arms and stomach. I went to the Dr. and she said it's probably bedbugs. What?!? I live in Minnesota in a house, not apartment. I am freaking out. I just called Terminix. I thoroughly inspected my mattress and sheets and couldn't find any bugs or spots, etc. I slept on the couch last night and put double-sided tape all over my bed and bedroom to see if I could catch anything, but didn't. I have an old mattress so we were planning on getting a new one anyway, but the more I read the more I seem to see that just getting a new mattress probably isn't enough. I am freaking out! I have two kids! Does anyone know what the standard treatment is for a single family house and costs? Thanks!
BuggedInSomerville

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Joined: Aug '09
Posts: 65

Posted 5 months ago
Thu Sep 24 2009 11:17:14
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Two quick notes:

- If you suspect bedbugs, isolate your bed. This means: make sure none of it (including sheets) touches the walls, and place the legs in cups of oil.

- Do not relocate to the couch. This will only spread the infestation.
William Lee

newbite
Joined: Sep '09
Posts: 4

Posted 5 months ago
Thu Sep 24 2009 11:54:06
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(first excuse my english as French is my first language)

I'm not exterminator but i experiment what seem to be a small bedbug problem since two months (the last with treatment). I read a lot on the subject as i want to get rid of this for sure.
It's getting better every day i think.

-I suggest you keep sleeping in your bedroom as the bedbugs will move to were you sleep.

-Double face tape worked for me to catch a bedbug who wanted to climb on the bed frame.
It's only a temporary relief from bites and it DON'T replace a professionnal treatment.
Put double face tape on the bed frame of your childrens too...just in case. If you don't have too much bed bugs they will stay with you in your room at the begining.

- Don't move furnitures from the room in another room in case insects are living in it and will infest the other place.

-Don't use insecticide by yourself for this. You need a methodical approach with professional help.

-Inspect carefully your bedroom, starting with the bed (if you have a wood bed frame, look every joint). If there is holes in blankets or matress, it can be inside. You are looking for brown spot (look like little paint drips), cast skins (pictures on this site) or ...bed bugs. Usually you have adult babies and eggs in the same spot.

Adult bugs are visible (size of apple pits) and they are not so scary of you. But most of the time you don't see them during the day. They like to hide in wood crevice, cardboard boxes and clothes. Most of the time they live next to their meal ( iknow it's horrible).

-Inspect luggage in every seams ( backpacks etc...)

-You have to move things carefully and you need a flashlight.

-Try to remember if you recently bought used furniture or clothing (if yes, inspect these things very carefully). Do you have a child who play to friend house that may have a bedbug problem (not an easy question i know). Did you sleep in a hostel recently ????

Now if you find something or just get bit again during the night, call the best exterminator you can find. If you take the problem at the begining as it seem to be you will fix this.
Your not alone as you can see.

P.S : read a lot on the subjet (you have a load of info on this site FAQ and good links too.
parakeets

oldtimer
Joined: Mar '07
Posts: 913

Posted 5 months ago
Thu Sep 24 2009 16:37:47
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You say you have a newborn. Have you considered the possibility that you might have gotten bedbugs in the hospital? Did you talk to roommates there and see if they now have bites too? So sorry to have this terrible problem when you are a new mom.
cilecto

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Joined: Aug '08
Posts: 896

Posted 5 months ago
Thu Sep 24 2009 20:43:01
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Welcome, E. I hope that I can allay some of your terror. You say this happened a few days ago. Just once or is this ongoing and increasing over time?

Here's what I understand from what I've read here and elsewhere. I hope that it helps you.

Doctors don't have a definitive way to determine if a skin reaction is to BB some other insect or something else entirely.

People react to BB in various ways. They also take varying time to react. So, if you were bitten by BB, it may have been outside your home and a few days before you reacted.

If you suddenly found "bites" all over your body, it may be that a mass of them came to your home in some object. If you have adjoining neighbors, which I understand you do not, a horde might have just escaped their attempt at treatment. Otherwise, a handful of bugs in your home (each of which feeds only 1 or 2 times a week) wouldn't pepper your entire body with welts in one night. Rather, your marks will increase as your BBs breed and their population grows. (An exception to that might be if you've been getting bit for a while and your skin just started to react now.)

So, my advice to you is to get educated and be vigilant, but hold off on conclusions or going into action.

Best of luck.

Ci
eroberts_1

newbite
Joined: Sep '09
Posts: 6

Posted 5 months ago
Fri Sep 25 2009 9:29:46
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Thanks everyone. So it's day 3 of our BB saga. I'm a little dizzy from 3 sleepless nights. So far no new bites for me and no bites at all for anyone else in the family. But I swiffered my floors last night and found what might be 2 dead bedbugs - one on my bedroom floor and one in the bathroom. Thank goodness Terminix is coming today. I know everyone said not to relocate to the couch, but I had to do it. The hubby and I spent 2 horrible nights on the couch downstairs, running to the bathroom to check our skin for bugs every hour or so. My bedroom is vacant, sheets off the bed and I left every light in the house on for the last 3 nights. I still have tape all over my bedroom but so far haven't caught anything. My bites are oozing today and so itchy I can hardly stand it. I got some kind of steroid cream from the Doc but it doesn't work. I hope Terminix can answer all my questions. I'm really praying that they know alot about BBs. If I got such a big number of bites in one night (about 20), does that imply that I probably have a huge colony of bugs or 20 of them? If it's big why can I not find them? If I found the dead bugs in different rooms, does that mean they are all over the house? Or do they spread out at night and come back to one location? If they're dead, does that mean they got lost, couldn't get food and died? Where do you get supplies such as big bags and mattress cases? What is the typical treatment these days for BB? Chemicals? Heat? I'm gonna go crazy.
Nobugsonme

your host
Joined: Mar '07
Posts: 6,173

Posted 5 months ago
Fri Sep 25 2009 14:05:00
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cilecto - 17 hours ago »

If you suddenly found "bites" all over your body, it may be that a mass of them came to your home in some object. If you have adjoining neighbors, which I understand you do not, a horde might have just escaped their attempt at treatment.

This is fully possible.

However, it can also mean that you were bitten and bitten for a while without reacting (or without reacting much), and then reacted all at once.

At least one entomologist who KNEW he was being bitten over time without reacting (because he fed a bed bug colony) reported such an all-at-once reaction.

I think I had one too -- it did not appear that there was any influx of bed bugs, but that I simply did not react at once. One day I started seeing lots of bites, and they continued to appear at a much more gradual rate once they started.
cilecto

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Joined: Aug '08
Posts: 896

Posted 5 months ago
Sat Sep 26 2009 23:29:43
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Nobugsonme - 1 day ago »

This is fully possible.
However, it can also mean that you were bitten and bitten for a while without reacting (or without reacting much), and then reacted all at once.

Yes.

E. I hope that talking about this is helping you.

Re your 20 bites, hard to say (and bear in mind, I'm a business major, not an entomologist and stink at math and stat). Say you live alone (hypothetically). You react instantly. You get 5 fresh bites a night. Say 3 of the 5 are caused by the same bug moving around, the other 2 are from really steady bugs. So, you got bit by 3 bugs. Estimate that a bug feeds once a week (I've read every 5-10 days). So, multiply 3 x 7 and you have 21 bugs (which, in turn are breeding). Of course, some of these premises are faulty, so take this with a grain of salt. Also, bear in mind the "suddenly react all at once" phenomenon, that I alluded to and NoBugs brilliantly illustrated.

You asked what is typically done for BB. BB control is evolving and may consist of one or more (typically several).
- Physical removal (e.g., vacuuming) or disposal of infested items (based on discussions here, too often done un-necessarily)
- Cleansers (like Murphy's and others)
- Application of chemicals, liquid and/or powder, fast and/or slow-acting
- Dessicants (powders that cause BB to overheat and/or dry out)
- Heat (washers/dryers, steam applied to objects, heating chambers, heating the whole house)
- Extreme cold (sounds sexy, but has taken a lot of fire on this board)
- Gas fumigation, of the entire house or of objects
- Isolation (mattress wrappers, caulks, sealants)

Based on what people are saying the "typical" pro treatment today involves:
- Making surfaces accessible (like emptying your nightstand & closets
- Washing/drying/bagging fabrics
- Application of chemicals
- Repeat in 2 weeks, do deal with newly hatched eggs (eggs resist most chemicals).
FAQs here - http://bedbugger.com/faqs/
Excellent videos - http://tv.bedbugcentral.com/

People do get spooked and want to fix probems like this ASAP. This opens them to a lot of stress, as well as potential exploitation by people selling ineffective, overpriced or un-needed products and services. Which is why I urges you to try and "breathe" and determine what your problem really is (and how bad). Have you had the bugs you found identified as BB? How did it work out with the PCO?

Hang in there.
eroberts_1

newbite
Joined: Sep '09
Posts: 6

Posted 5 months ago
Tue Sep 29 2009 10:08:00
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It has been one week today since I got my bites. Terminix came out and confirmed that the dead bug I found WAS a bedbug. I think it fell out of my dried sheets. But he couldn't find any other bugs or evidence of them. He left some traps and so far I haven't caught anything. He said it's possible my husband brought home a couple of bugs in his suitcase (he travels every week and unpacks his suitcase on our bed! No more!). As soon as I got the bites, I threw out the mattress set and cleaned all the bedding. PCO said that could have taken care of them. The one I found dead didn't look like a full adult yet (it had some "transparency" to it). So hopefully that means no eggs laid? How long without getting bit can I go before assuming they are gone? I know the adults can go for a long time, but then eggs have to hatch, right? So how long??
parakeets

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Joined: Mar '07
Posts: 913

Posted 5 months ago
Tue Sep 29 2009 14:06:55
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I've heard you have to wait 56 days, or some number like that, before you are "out of the bedbug woods." Time will tell.

If your husband travels weekly, you might want to invest in a Packtite. Cheaper than calling in PCO's for repeated visits. Until you get the Packtite, have him seal his suitcase up in a very large ziplock bag (they fit over carry-on luggage) while he is in the hotel room and after he gets home and empties it (all clothes go right into the washer/dryer or to be drycleaned), and tell him to carry his clothes in ziplock bags inside the suitcase and put his dirty clothes in ziplock bags. This will really help. As for the "all clear," would you trust a bedbug dog more than a visual inspection since you had 20 bites?
eroberts_1

newbite
Joined: Sep '09
Posts: 6

Posted 5 months ago
Tue Sep 29 2009 14:39:06
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I've contacted a dog handler in my area. Just not sure if I want to go ahead and have them come out right now. It's about $200. What I've read about the dogs is that they rarely have false positives (detecting something that isn't there), but can have false negatives (they don't find them and they are there). Which means I could be where I am right now if they don't find anything - still unsure if they're there or not.
cilecto

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Joined: Aug '08
Posts: 896

Posted 5 months ago
Thu Oct 1 2009 18:30:59
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Do shop carefully for canine detection. These boards are rife with stories of dogs being wrong both ways. Sales reps say a lot of stuff. Also, dogs can only tell you what's going on right now. Whether you go k-9 or not, to learn how to inspect and invest in some lower cost detection tools, such as climb-ups or the devices David Cain markets. You'll feel empowered longer term rather than nervous about what happens when the dog leaves.
eroberts_1

newbite
Joined: Sep '09
Posts: 6

Posted 5 months ago
Thu Oct 8 2009 15:36:03
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Update: It's been 21 days since my bites. The very morning that I found the bites, I went to the Dr and she confirmed they were BB bites. I immediately went home, tore my room apart, disposed of my mattress and boxspring (it was old anyway), washed & dried everything twice in hot, hot. I found a dead bug when I was folding the blankets. I had Terminix come in for a free inspection and they found nothing (no bugs, no evidence). But did confirm that the dead bug I found was a BB. They left traps and said call if you see anything or get more bites. I wasn't comfortable with waiting, so I called in a k-9. They came in, went around to every room in my house twice. Hit on nothing. Then just as they were getting ready to leave, I asked if they could do my husband's suitcase (he had just come home from another work trip - the suspected source of our bugs). I had my husband bag his suitcase as soon as he came in the door the night before. As soon as I openned the bag, the dog went nuts. Needless to say we tossed the suitcase too. We now have a prevention procedure - my husband never puts his suitcase on the hotel beds. He leaves it on a luggage rack in the bathroom of the hotel and leaves the bathroom light on during his entire stay. When he comes home, he takes everything out of the suitcase, clean or dirty and washes it. Then bags the suitcase and stores it in the garage until his next trip. He never brings his suitcase into our bedroom - rather he packs downstairs on the tile floor in the laundry room. An ounce of prevention...perhaps this is a cup of prevention, but it's ok with us to ensure we NEVER go through this again!
cilecto

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Joined: Aug '08
Posts: 896

Posted 5 months ago
Thu Oct 8 2009 17:30:27
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Glad you're resolving.
Few points based on what others have said here, plus my own practice.
Luggage racks can also be infested.
When I go somewhere risky, I keep my gear in a giant ziploc from arrival to departure. Any items worn in that location are bagged until washing, with the bag then disposed outside the home.
buggyinsocal

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Joined: Jun '08
Posts: 1,259

Posted 5 months ago
Thu Oct 8 2009 18:45:07
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And for someone who travels frequently for business, a packtite might be a good investment.

That way, upon return from each trip, the suitcase can go directly into the packtite, killing any possible hitch hikers before they can drop off into the house.