Praying we had just fleas, but need advice just in case...

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Praying we had just fleas, but need advice just in case...

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buggedinky

newbite
Joined: Sep '09
Posts: 3

Posted 2 months ago
Sun Sep 6 2009 12:41:10
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Dear All,

Thank you for this forum--it has helped me immensely already, but this is my first post. I apologize in advance for the length of this post... My husband and I have so much sympathy for those of you who are suffering with bedbugs...

We live in KY on a farm--our nearest neighbor is 1/4 mile away. My husband and I sleep in a double bed which belonged to my grandmother in a home with wooden floors throughout. Teh bed has a wooden frame with a wooden headboard and a wooden footboard. We have a number of wooden dressers in the bedroom. The bedroom has a pine wall behind the headboard and a pine beam made running above the bed. We have a cat which used to sleep at the foot of the bed. We have a dog who sleeps downstairs in the living room next to a sofa. So, suffice it to say, we have many, many, many places where bedbugs could harbor.

Because we live in the country, we are used to mosquito bites and the occasional chigger incident. Because we have pets, we have seen the occasional flea, but we try to keep fleas under control with Frontline. So, when we got a few bites, we thought nothing of it.

When my husband gets bitten, the bites do not usually bother him. Because we live on a farm in Kentucky, chiggers are a nuisance that we constantly battle--of course we try to wash them off before getting into bed. I have severe allergic reactions to many types of bites, so we try to be vigilant.

Here is our story...

About two weeks ago, I got a few bites between my toes--they blistered and itched. More and more bites started appearing on me each night, so we looked at our calendar and realized that it had been nearly 2 months since we Frontlined our pets. So, we applied Frontline to them both. Things worsened dramatically for me. By about a week and a half ago, I had several hundred bites and they all formed blisters and itched like crazy. We have both battled fleas before and this did not seem like it was fleas to either of us because flea bites never blistered on me before. In addition, we had seen no fleas. We spent one night away from home to get some relief and then started looking and looking for what it might be. A week ago Saturday, we ran across this site, worried that it might be bedbugs, because we both occasionally travel and we have occasional houseguests, so we called the 800 Orkin number that day and told them we were fearful we had bedbugs.

Orkin made an appointment for Monday at 10 am. The Orkin exterminatior did not show up, so at 11:30 am, I called them again. The office said that they would have him call me. He never called. So, we called a local Orkin office and asked for a different exterminator. We also called Terminex. Late Tuesday, the exterminator from Orkin showed up and inspected. He removed the mattress and boxsprings. He turned the bed frame over and inspected the headboard. He also turned over the nightstand. He found nothing. I mentioned the possibility of fleas and he looked at his pants, seeing nothing. He showed me a photo of a serious bedbug infestation that he battled. I talked to him about what we planned to do... namely use diatomaceous earth and encase the mattress and boxsprings. He suggested that we treat the electrical outlets with the DE as well as the woodwork. He left after about 1/2 hour of inspecting. He left me with one single gluetrap, telling me to put it near the headboard and call him if we found any bugs... He had never heard of Climb-up Interceptors, so we are not completely convinced he has sufficient experience with bedbugs.

My husband continued to sleep in the bed as bate, but I moved into a tent outside to get some relief. In the meantime, we purchased Climb-up Interceptors, diatomaceous earth, a duster, a bedbug oven, mattress, box springs, and pillow encasements. My husband continued to get bitten (small red dots primarily in lines all over his body but mostly on his legs. Fortunately, his bites do not itch.) Mine are now healing...

I dusted the spare room first and we carefully inspected and encased the spare mattress and boxsprings. We saw no signs of bedbugs. We baked the pillows in the bedbug over before encasing them. That bed has a metal frame, so we put mineral oil under all the feet.

Then I inspected and dusted the rooms below and beside our bedroom, again seeing no signs of bedbugs.

Then I inspected and dusted the sofas in the living room. We saw nothing, but we put Climb-up interceptors under the feet of all of the sofas.

Yesterday, we began to tackled our bedroom. we inspected and encased both the mattress and the boxsprings. We did find two suspicious areas which looked like they might be dried blood trails on the sides of the mattress. There were 7 or so streaks in one area and 2 in another--the Orkin man had not seen them. The boxspring was difficult to inspect because there is a great deal of batting inside. We isolated the bed and put Climb-up Interceptors under the feet. We bought new white sheets and washed them and the white cotton blanket in hot water. We dried them both in a hot drier for 70 minutes. We baked the pillows in a bedbug over before encasing them. Then we slept together in the bed. Apparently, we got no new bites, at least none that have shown up at this point. There were no bugs in the Climb-up Interceptors and no evidence of bedbugs on the sheets or encasements. We do plan to keep sleeping in our bed trying to lure any bedbugs out to feed on us. We are now keeping the cat out of the bedrooms so that his claws do not damage the encasements.

I am now methodically inspecting and emptying one dresser at a time, washing all the clothes in hot water and drying them in a hot dryer. The clean clothes are going into plastic tubs in a far away room.

So, we are praying that one of two things is the case: 1) I had a severe reaction to a small flea infestation which has now been eliminated by the Frontline, but both pets continue to scratch, so we are suspicious that this is not so. 2) We had a minor bedbug infestation which has now been contained in our boxspring encasement.

Given the seiousness of catching a bedbug infestation early and that this could be bedbugs that are not yet contained, we would very much welcome any advice from those on this forum.

We have an appointment with an inspector from Terminex coming Wednesday.
DrFrank

junior member
Joined: Jul '09
Posts: 122

Posted 2 months ago
Sun Sep 6 2009 15:37:56
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Make sure you wipe the bed down with lots of oil or oil soap to kill any bugs or eggs on the bed itself, and caulk the cracks. Other than that, you're doing everything you need to be.

You've already got the most reliable means of detecting a bed bug infestation (the interceptors) so if I were in your position I'd ask the Terminix guy to tell me about and look for signs of other things that might be causing the symptoms you're experiencing.
buggedinky

newbite
Joined: Sep '09
Posts: 3

Posted 2 months ago
Sun Sep 6 2009 18:26:53
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Dear DrFrank,

Thank you for your encouragement and your advice-we certainly need it and appreciate it.

We have already washed the wooden bedframe with hot water and Murphy's Oil Soap-Sorry that I forgot to mention that in my earlier post.

As for caulking, oh my gosh... we have so much wood! Our floors are 3" pine with credit-card sized gaps between each board. One wall in the bedroom is 8" wide rough-cut lumber with space between each slat. There is a wood beam running over the bed. This is a beam made from 4 pine 2x8s joined together, with lots of spaces. Of course, the baseboards and 1/4 round are all wood too.

And we have as yet seen no bedbugs... So, right now, we are holding off on the caulking in the hope that we have contained the problem. We have not dusted the bedroom either (though we have dusted all the adjacent rooms), because we do not want to spread the problem throughout the house.

We are still praying the problem is either not bedbugs or has been contained.

If you think we are making a mistake, please, please, please tell us!

Many, many thanks!
buggedinky