bed bugs

[badger]

I'm TERRIFIED of getting them!!

I buy quite a bit online, and it just struck me that I could bring the bugs in my home through something I buy. I hear you can kill the bugs and the eggs if you throw an item in the dryer for 20 minutes, but what to do with stuff you can't throw in the dryer?? And what about hotels and general travel, I could bring some back in my suitcase.

From the sounds of it if you get it, you pretty much have to torch your place to get rid of them. Yikes

[jessmarimba]

and what about if you don't have a dryer?

I travel all the time, I'm so worried about bringing them home from a hotel.

[JennK13]

My husband is an exterminator and deals with bed bugs on a daily basis (Jess, I'm sure you can imagine the influx of calls they've received with all the recent press locally about them!!).
You can actually get rid of them by calling an exterminator - he treats for them all the time without "flames" or heat - he uses a spray to kill them, but only professionals have it (not something you can get from HomeDepot or some thing). The best way to NOT get them is to NOT bring them in. Check the stuff you buy BEFORE bringing it into your house. You can see them; they look like miniature ticks. You can also see their feces (like black dots) on things. Whenever we travel, before we unpack or anything, he pulls up the sheets on the bed and looks at them to see if he sees anything - like I said, it's pretty obvious if they're there.
Something I find really odd (Jess, don't get grossed out!), we moved to Colorado from California. He would do one or two jobs a YEAR in California, mostly at hotels from travellers bringing them in. Here in Denver, he does one or two (or more) A WEEK!!!! A person's financial situation doesn't matter - he services poor people in the ghetto just as often as he services rich people. And usually they are brought in by either people who have recently travelled, or those who have bought furniture used and brought it into their homes, or the college kids who come home for a break (who have bought stuff cheap as college students do).

[Chicken Little]

I leave my luggage in the garage for 24 hours after I get home. The only thing that comes in the house goes directly into the washer/dryer.

[OakLeaf]

I read to take everything out of your luggage outside and put it on white garbage bags. The white plastic makes it easier to see the bugs.

+1 on checking hotel mattresses. Also never put your luggage on the floor.

[jessmarimba]

I'll just hope all of his work here is in hotels too!

[marni]

while you still should check the beds in hotels, a catalog store called gaia used to carry a silk travel bag/ sleeping bag style sheet that kept you off of the questionably cleaned sheets in a hotel. I have one and use it whenever I do a cross country tour because between dealing with a) finding a motel that can house 20-30 women for one night, all preferably in ground floor, non smoking rooms, that is not in a huge suburb, and b) finding the next one withing a doable days ride for 6-8 weeks is a challenge which means that at times, the nights' lodging ends up being in less than totally desireable locales.

I also leave anything new or returning luggage outside in the garage and then go straight to the washer or a white garbage bag for 48 hours.

just saying....

[badger]

this may sound stupid, but what does leaving luggage in the garage for 24 hours do? will the bugs leave? die?

[Grog]

Bed bugs can lay dormant for one year so I'm afraid 24 hours in the garage won't do much. Laundry will help kill the eggs if the water's really hot. Not sure the dryer is quite enough, but it's better than nothing I guess...

If you are *really* terrified you can get a bug-proof casing for your mattress. (In fact, you can ask me to give you one - my husband would NOT tolerate it and kept thinking that it made plasticky sounds... I did not think it was that bad.) It's the most obvious hiding spot for them and will prevent most problems supposedly...

When we were in Paris last year I inspected everything in the hotel room when we checked in (mattress seams especially) and couldn't find anything, however the first morning I found a dead bed bug (positively identified) on the bed. No traces of blood anywhere, no feces, nothing but a single dead bed bug. (I kept the dead bug and used it to bargain a deep discount on the room price later on.)

Needless to say, we were freaked out, but there was no way I was going to try finding another hotel in Paris for the remaining two nights, and the other place would have been just as likely to have bed bugs, as every hotel of every major city in the world does. When we landed back home, everything went straight to the hot cycle in the washing machine (even what was not supposed to - that's life!) and our bags were thoroughly inspected and vacuumed outdoors.

Later that summer, I started getting bites on my extremities, often two in a row. (Bed bugs are well known for taking three in a row, also known as "breakfast, lunch and dinner" when they are disturbed in their blood-sucking activities.) Freaked out even more. It took me a while to realize that the bites were occurring after my night shifts volunteering at the aquarium, and that's probably where the bites originated. [For Badger's: I always wondered what the kids brought from home when they came for sleepovers.... But maybe it was just from outside when I checked resp rate at the surface.] In the meantime, we cleaned everything EXTREMELY THOROUGHLY in the home, vacuumed every crack obsessively, and covered our mattress with the aforementioned mattress cover, which my husband despised.

We never saw a bedbug again, but they terrorize me still.

[badger]

I'd imagine the mattress protector's just after the fact, isn't it? If the mattress is already infested, then I'd rather get rid of it than to try and keep them INSIDE the mattress *shiver*

I'm so paranoid now... I wonder if freezing the articles in the freezer would kill the eggs/bugs? I often do that with my wool items or shoes with wool because I had an infestation of wool eating moths a couple of years ago.

About once a year, I'll get a cluster of bites, sometimes up to about 8 tiny, angry red bumps. Itch like nothing else, but I know those are flea bites. I got another bite not long ago that was rather raised and painful/itchy at the same time. I suspect that was a spider, but whenver I have an itch somewhere I'm terrified to look and find the breakfast lunch and dinner.

Thankfully my new washing machine has a "sanitary" setting, which uses hot water and promises to kill 98% of all viruses and bacteria, so hopefully the bugs and eggs will meet their demise, too. Too bad I can't wash leather shoes in a hot cycle...

p.s. I wouldn't be surprised at all about the bed bugs at the aquarium, you'd think with all the exotic stuff they get shipped in there's bound to be unwanted visitors!

[OakLeaf]

Not sure the dryer is quite enough,

I'm no entomologist, but I've read over and over again that 30 minutes at or over 120°F will kill them, and the dryer is an easy way to do that.

Honestly, I think the whole thing is overdone. Bedbugs don't spread disease, they don't eat crops, they don't damage property. They just leave bites on middle-class and wealthy people that are associated with a stigma of poverty. Anyone who spends time outside in the summer gets mosquito and fly bites that are much worse on every level - worse swelling, worse scarring, worse itching, and worse potential as a disease vector.

The bedbug outbreak is just forcing economically comfortable people to admit that they can't 100% control their environment. The whole fanaticism about sterility has taken cleanliness to a level that's unhealthy both physically (in terms of immune system development) and, obviously now, mentally.

I don't consider myself lackadaisical about protecting against bedbugs when I travel, BUT some of what I read just seems obsessive-compulsive.

[badgercat]

Oakleaf, I see where you're coming from. While I don't vacuum my luggage when I get home, I do thoroughly check hotel mattresses and such. But what bothers me about bed bugs has nothing to do with economic stigma, it's the idea that I'd have to spend a huge chunk of my time and money (which as a student, both are at a premium) getting rid of an infestation of something that exists to suck my blood while I sleep (meaning I can't really actively defend my body from them, like I could swat away a fly while sitting outside). Prevention is the best medicine, in this case.

I know that they're essentially harmless, but that doesn't mean that they're not creepy. And that has nothing to do with how much money I do or don't have.

[Cataboo]

I don't like having roaches in my house or in a hotel i'm staying at, either.

I've run into bed bugs 3 times - once in a hospital guest center in LA - found a couple, I immediately put all my clothes into the laundry - hot water & high heat. And did it again. They gave us a new room which seemed to be fine, but I kept the luggage up on tables and left it zipped.

When we got back home, I again washed all the clothes on hot water & dried on high heat (including my wool which did survive these 3 washings) - and left the luggage out in the shed for the winter. Extended cold temps will kill them.

Then in Costa Rica last november, one hotel had them - I'd put my luggage up in the closet with it zipped just thinking the place was grungy - so when I got back from costa rica, basically put what could take it in laundry on high heat, everything else went into the shed and stayed their for the winter - given that we had the 4 feet of snow last winter...

Then a few weeks ago, I was at a wedding in NJ... i didn't see any bedbugs in the hotel, but one of the other wedding guests in the other wing of the Marriot hotel we were at woke up covered in bites... I had just stuck my bag on the couch and not zipped it up - so again, I stuck everything that could take it in the laundry on high heat - the rest of the clothing has gone into the shed and I guess it's staying there till spring and hopefully the cold'll kill any bugs that may be in it. Since it was a wedding, I had nice clothes for the rehearsal dinner & such that I don't think will survive high heat.

I have needed a couple pieces of clothing from the bag - and those have gone on the dashboard of my car on a hot sunny day to heat them up to temperatures that should kill bed bugs.

From what I read, if you have clothes you think are suspect, you can stick them in a black bag and leave them out in the sun for several hours on a day that's over 70 some degrees - 20 mins at 140 degrees will kill them, but also a few hours at 110 degrees will kill them as well.

I figure my dashboard gets hot enough, but I did inspect looking for eggs or bugs before hand. Eggs are supposed to hatch within 1-2 weeks.

[OakLeaf]

See, that's just my point, though.

I don't like roaches, either. (Which DO cause property damage - they will eat holes in wool - and DO have the potential to spread foodborne disease.) But if I see one, I don't freak out, I'm not ashamed to face my co-workers, I can sleep at night, I don't have anxiety attacks all day long (related to the roaches, at any rate ). Unlike some of what you read about bedbugs.

[badger]

I don't know about you, but infestation of any kind grosses me out. I had a hell of a time with those moths, I had to turn my place upside down to vacuum every little crevice, and to throw tons of stuff out and the rest in the wash and/or freezer. And I still see the occasional moth so I know I still have them.

I've also had a flea infestation once and it was awful. Like I said, infestation of any kind is not good.

And while I don't feel the social aspect of this, I do feel embarrassed that somehow I'm not up to snuff in my cleaning, or that I'm somehow unsanitary (when I had the flea and moth infestation).