Bed Bugs!

[Francisco]

So bed bugs have been all over the news around where I live. Towns surrounding mine have developed serious bed bug infestations. Furniture stores, apartment buildings, even movie theaters have been found to have bed bugs.

A couple of my co-workers have had them in their home too.

Luckily, I haven't had them - but I most certainly do NOT want them.

Are they a result of people living in abject squalor, or do they just show up and then you're fucked?

What are the best preventative measures to keep them the hell away from my house?

(One thing I've heard is to NEVER take any furniture off the street... which I wouldn't do anyway...)

[Pantimic]

Don't take furniture off the street. Watch out when staying in hotels/motels (some types of bedbugs have been known to attach themselves to suitcases). Otherwise, there are no real pesticides/chemicals used in the prevention or extermination of bedbugs. The only real preventative measure to keep them out is to wrap all of your furniture and mattresses in bedbug proof sealed plastic wrap. Besides that, when they are in, they are in, and they can live for a very long time without eating.

[Souj]

If they're on a movie seat your sitting on, all they have to do is crawl from the seat onto your clothes. Then they move from your clothes to your house and tadaa, you have bed bugs. That's why there's such a massive infestation. Once theyre in your house, they are a pain to get rid of and you'll probably need to get them professionally taken care of.

[Pantimic]

False. Almost all types of bedbugs are too skidish to attach to clothing. Any form of movement usually sends them running. If one gets onto your clothes there is an extremely small chance it will make it from wherever it attached to your home.

[Souj]

doesn't make it false, just makes it less likely to happen.

[archibaldcrane]

/lightsthecreamsodabeacon

[Francisco]

/lightsthecreamsodabeacon

Just because he capped guard skill on chigoes doesn't make him an expert in bedbugs...

[Asai]

Keep your bed on an elevated surface, if the legs of the bed are made of metal, even better. Don't let hanging sheets and such touch the ground around the bed, and dont let the bed rest against the wall. There are a few bed bug killing "machines" out on the market but they're hella expensive (they put out a little heat and carbon dioxide to draw them in), they're also the only working preventative "bug trap". Check the folds of your mattresses every so often, as that's where they like to nest. If you can catch them while they're in a small cluster still (3-4 mature bugs and a clutch of eggs) then you have a good chance of taking care of the problem yourself. Don't use bug bomb sprayers, they don't do shit. The BEST way to kill them, is to fill up a spray bottle with rubbing alcohol and spray them down until the fabric they're on is wet with alcohol. It kills them in like 10 seconds. Then just vacuum up the dead bugs and you're good to go. The apartment I'm in now had them when I moved in (east TN is kinda bad for them) but I killed them all off in just a few days. Shampoo-vacuumed/steam-cleaned the carpet after i'd sprayed them all down, haven't seen any since.

[Wizrow]

I spent a summer in Boston. The place I was staying had bedbugs and we got ate up bad. The owner spent thousands and thousands of dollars to get rid of them and they continued to plague the place. I talked with the exterminator a lot and he said this was pretty natural. He estimated about half of his calls were for bedbugs. Bedbugs can be anywhere in the room including power sockets and it's almost impossible to be 100% sure they are gone. They can also live over 6 months without feeding so wont know for a long time if they're truly gone.

Bedbugs don't like extreme heat. We washed EVERYTHING in scolding hot water and put it out in the car to bake in the sun for a couple days before coming home. Lucky we didn't bring them with us. The entire situation was pretty horrible. Now when I got ANYWHERE overnight I always check the beds. They'll hide on the corners and you'll be able to tell if they have them.

There really are no great preventative measures. If you go outside you have a shot of bring one or two back with you and you're fucked. Just be smart and google the warning signs. Check often and act quick if you find out you have them.

[Kerberoz]

Release hundreds of pregnant wolf spiders in your apartment = no more bedbugs.

[richardd]

what makes bedbugs so bad, isnt the fact that they're annoying. they just take an EXTREME amount of measure to get rid of them since they reproduce so fucking fast. i had to deal with them when i was living with a roommate 2 years ago. i didnt have a bed, i slept on the floor. hell, i been sleeping on the floor for like 5 years, and it never bothered me. my back is perfect, but one problem. bed bugs feed at night and hence the name "bed bugs" they climb up your bed and suck on your blood. it sucks waking up, itching and finding a bunch of bitten bumps all over my body.

there was 1 time, i turned on the shower and let the bath tub soak. i got in, and little by little, i saw 1, 2, 3 4 and more bugs start to surface on the water with blood stains around them. its scary man, and sometimes it can get mental. it took about 2 months to completely get rid of them. they have to spray the house like 10x, since they can hide in anything thats as thin as a credit card. so they have to keep coming back with a german shepard, to sniff out the house making sure its gone. but they'll tell you up front, that its never done in 1 job... ever. even after they were gone, i still thought i was seeing them. any little black dot in my room, i stared at at for like 1 min making sure it didnt move. its one of the most annoying things youll ever have to deal with.

i heard they're starting to make a huge comeback throughout the united states though. mostly in hotels

[richardd]

roaches and spiders eat bed bugs btw, but the most secure way to sleep at night with them not bothering you is to hope you have a bed with legs on them, and sprinkle the bug dust or whatever its called on the legs, so that when they feed, their shells will harden and they'll hopefully die lol. some will make it through, and some will be smart enough to crawl on the roof over your body and drop down. OH, its happened... they only go for human blood. so you dont have to worry about your pets. but if there is even the slightest scent of human blood in that room, they're coming for it. and they are coming about 300 to 3 thousand deep. literally. you have no idea how fucking fast they can reproduce.

[*Shinzon*]

My school in Manhattan recently had this problem and they had to shutdown one entire building of the campus for 3 days to have the place fumigated and completely cleaned. The problem mostly lies in the fact that people take them home and don't notice them, or take them out on their clothes and bags. So often when people return so do the bugs. When you get your place exterminated you have to make sure you get all your clothes bags and shoes and shit properly washed because otherwise you're wasting your time.

[Militant]

I've heard more about bed bugs in the past month, than I have in my near 25 years of existence. Just a few weeks ago my brother was talking about 1 bug he saw on his bed, which he didn't think much of at the time. Then a week later or so he just happened to see a special on the news about bed bugs and that sent him into paranoia mode. Since then hes been trying to find any more evidence, calling exterminators, he's looked into having that dog come to sniff for them (which by the way, is $300 per visit just for having the dog walk in the door). On top of that, he's moving in 2 weeks or so into a gorgeous condo, and wants to make sure that if he does have bedbugs, they don't get transferred to the new place. I've been reading about bedbugs in the news papers, seeing reports on the news, specials on tv channels. It just seems like they are everywhere these days.

edit: Oh yeah, to add to the list, earlier this week my GF's parents apt had bed bugs and had to be bombed as well. They're fuckin' taking over.

[Silenka]

This shit is making me scared to move into my dorm this fall lol >.> I've never even seen a bedbug before, I really hope I don't have a problem with them in the future, doesn't sound fun. I'm one of those people who flips out and lies awake with paranoia over stuff like that...

[richardd]

This shit is making me scared to move into my dorm this fall lol >.> I've never even seen a bedbug before, I really hope I don't have a problem with them in the future, doesn't sound fun. I'm one of those people who flips out and lies awake with paranoia over stuff like that...

look on the bright side. at least you dont have pay money out of your own pocket to have them taken care of, lol. that whole operation cost my roommate 800 dollars. thank god i didnt have to pay 1 cent financially lol. it was his fault anyways. he traveled and came back and found it in his luggage from the hotels he was staying at. i was home tanking PW and working all week.

but the price i had to pay for dealing with them sucked balls. i couldnt get a REAL sleep for weeks after it was finally over with. every ceiling kurnel shadow were bedbug suspects as far as i was concerned. people will never understand until they've been through it for weeks, but it really does punch you in the face mentally how sick these bugs truly are.


edit: you know whats funny? its been about 2 years since my old roommate and i encountered them, but he tells me that he still has the exterminator come in his house every couple months to re-spray lol. you can never 100% get rid of them when you're in a house with a lot of air ducts i guess. like i said, they can hide in ANYTHING as thin as a credit card. poor guy. the above poster hit it on the head when he said they dont have to feed for about 6 months. fucking bugs are scary lol

thank god i dont wear any of my old clothes. i think i gave them to salvation army or something... lol. i hope they didnt spread there <_>;

[Draylo]

Ugh god, I been hearing about this a lot too lately and don't want them >.>. Can you even visibly see them before they feed or whatever? How can you tell they are there (aside from getting bitten).

[richardd]

yeah, they aren't like dust mites. they're very visible lol. you can literally watch them crawl right on you, and sink their shit in your skin and suck your blood lol. they have balls enough to stay on there and feed as much as possible, even when you're about to kill em, but somehow they're smart enough to crawl on their roofs and drop on your body in order to get around the powder bed bug stuff you spray on the legs of your bed to kill them off.

youtube them lol. bedbugs suck

[SaviorSelf]

Not sure how effective it would be or if it'd even work, but there are products like Vaslan in Japan that are used to get rid of mosquitoes and other house hold insects. You can read more about it below and they have a few links on the page. Pretty much put one of the bottles on each floor of the house, open it and it lets out smoke that fills the entire floor. One on every floor and leave the house for a few hours and maybe that will do it.

http://www.dannychoo.com/post/en/257...Repellent.html

[*Shinzon*]

Careful when ordering shit, especially when importing it. Most states have laws, very specific laws about what kinds of pesticides and insect killers can be used and even where. The most effective shit at killing bugs I know for a fact is banned in NYC. Just make sure to call someone who can check for before ordering something.