30 Aug 05 Bedbug Genocide: Entry #7
I’m writing this before starting to get ready for the day, so I’m both not very cogent and also aware of some time pressure.
In terms of bedbugs, I’ve fortunately not seen any live bedbugs since the spraying. I do see some bedbug corpses on the floor, which are tidied up with Kleenex, and I did see an extremely tiny wriggling insect on the floor the other day which looked almost larval and was rather disgusting, but I’ve not seen a live bedbug for quite some time. I did go out and replace the flashlight which Charlie accidentally trashed, and during those moments where I wake up in the middle of the night, I’ll probably do a quick run up and down my air mattress, but nothing so far. (On that note, I’ve been sleeping pretty crappily over the last few nights. I’m not sure exactly why. The weather hasn’t been icy cold, but it’s been tolerable, but I’ve just not been able to get comfortable. Moreover, I’m concerned about whether the air mattress can support my movements about at night; although it remains entirely intact, there are these somewhat strange-looking areas where I’m not sure if it’s “ripping” or not.)
Some really great news, though — I decided to bite the bullet yesterday and call my landlady and ask her if I could be let out of my lease. To my great surprise, she assented, and will let me out of my lease either at the end of October or at the end of November, as I requested. (”It’s not a marriage,” she said, “it’s an apartment.”) I had been planning to move even before the bedbug invasion, but had let some other things delay me, such as the thought that it was too physically arduous for me in my physical condition. That may or may not be, but one way or another, we’re getting out of here.
One reason this timeframe is nice is that after the next and hopefully final spraying, I will be unpacking everything so that any bugs hiding away in packed material have time to come out and then cross the poison on their way to me. (Thus, I must remember not to be discouraged if I do in fact see bugs after the unpacking and/or receive new bites. It may not happen, but it could.) This timeframe should end up being the best chance for me to remain bedbug-free before moving to a new apartment. I’ve been told that the poison lasts 60 days (although it is most potent the first 14 days following its spraying). So if there are bedbugs in other parts of my belongings, they should have time to emerge and be killed; if there are bedbugs elsewhere in this building, it’s very possible that they may now not have time to re-infest my apartment.
Nothing can be zeroed out as a possibility — they could decide not to emerge (although if they’re hungry, I can’t see why they wouldn’t come out), or if I leave at the end of November, there is a 30-day window where the poison might possibly be ineffectual and the bugs could come in (if they indeed came from elsewhere in the building). But why assume that the worst case situation must happen? It can, but it very often doesn’t. I’m just going to do my best to make sure that the little buggers stay gone.
Work had a bit of an unpleasant surprise, which I’d rather not write about here, at least not now. Let’s just say that I’m hoping the unpleasant surprise will be taken care of with renewed focus and a little discipline.
I’m almost afraid to say this, out of fear that a big Monty Python foot is going to come down from the sky and squish me. But it does feel like this particular storm might be passing, and that I might be on my way towards some better things in life. I hope you’ll keep your fingers crossed for me.
