Bedbug Q&As

I’m not a pest control professional, a lawyer, an entomologist, or otherwise any sort of expert. The advice below is worth precisely what you paid for it, and although to the best of my knowledge nothing below is untrue, I provide the information below “as is” without warranty of any kind, express or implied.

Where did I get them? In many situations, there is absolutely no practical way by which you can conclusively determine where the bedbugs came from. Bedbug infestations seem to most often center around domestic and international travel, but you may have to live without knowing. My gas stove or radiator could explode and kill me and/or ruin my stuff; any number of things is possible. You prepare for the worst and deal with it when it arrives, but by sheer force of will, you don’t let it kill your spirit or drive you batty.

Why is this happening to me? They’re not doing this out of any sense of malice or desire to hurt you. They’re not that smart. What do we want from life? Well, we want shelter, and we want food in our stomachs, and many of us want to procreate. That’s all the bedbugs are trying to do. They want to eat food, and our carbon dioxide and warmth sends the same mental signals to them as the smell of a good turkey dinner does to us. Now, if they continue to live, their life drastically interferes with our own, since they’re parasites; we can’t give them the luxury of letting them live their lives like they want. But they’re not maliciously chuckling and actively trying to hurt you specifically — they’re just trying to do their thing. Realizing that helped me feel a little better — it helped stop me picturing them as this massive evil force ruining my life. I will also say this: when I dealt with my infestation, an odd quirk of fate helped me — at the time I was dealing with my own bedbug problem, Katrina was occurring, and it helped me realize that as scary as this was for me, there were many more godawful things I could have been forced to deal with. There are soldiers in Iraq, for example, who would love to have their only problem right now be a bedbug infestation.

I’m moving out of my infested apartment. I see you moved without bringing them along. How can I do that? I do not think there is a way you can be 100% sure that you move and leave all your bedbugs behind. Luck is involved. You can, however, minimize your chances as best you can. Essentially, what I did was to do everything I could to maximize the chances of me getting away bedbug-free. What I did was ask my exterminator how long the poison would be effective. I then resolved to move before the poison “expired,” which for me was about six to eight weeks after spraying. Spraying for bedbugs usually involves emptying bookshelves and videoshelves, so that each crack and crevice of furniture can be sprayed. After the spraying, I unpacked everything (despite my upcoming move) so that any bedbugs that might’ve been in any of the things I packed up (between books’ pages, etc.) would hunger, seek me out as food, cross the poison, and die. I then, shortly before my move, repacked, left, and crossed my fingers. I was able to keep my clothes in another, supposedly uninfested apartment next door after they were cleaned, although I had to move them back before I moved. That is pretty much all I did. It is also going to be a function both of the size of your infestation and of luck. If you have a lighter infestation, it’s fair (I think, in my layman’s opinion) to say that your chances of moving without bringing them with you are better than if the infestation is, say, heavy. It also really is a matter of luck. From what I understand, there are people who have left behind everything they’ve owned — literally everything, even dressing in rather skimpy clothes — and still somehow manage to either (a) bring the bugs with them, or (b) have stumbled into a new infestation. That’s not something that happens each and every time, of course; in fact, my impression is that that sort of bad luck is a rare event. But I mention it only to convey that there is a certain degree to which you cannot control this.

Do I have to move in order to escape them? Well, it’s useful. But in 99.9% of infestations, it’s not practical for you. Most people do not move after their bedbug infestation. The key question is: how is your landlord treating the problem? If you live in an apartment, it is so likely as to be probable that you got your infestation from another infested apartment in your building. (Although, granted, pure common sense dictates that someone had to at some point bring them in from the outside.) Your landlord needs to not only be treating you but making sure the apartments of your neighbors — both vertically (upstairs and downstairs neighbors) and horizontally (next-door neighbors) are checked. If not, then you may end up being reinfested. If you learn that they’re not doing this and they balk at the other inspections, you might want to point out that catching infestations early via inspection is usually less expensive than building-wide treatments (although a pest control professional could no doubt give them more accurate pricing). (And beware the landlords who have a “friend” come in and spritz around with a keg of bug spray. Bedbugs are not a bug you want to leave to the amateurs.)

How can I prevent myself from ever being infested again? I don’t think you can effectively prevent bedbug infestations with a 100% success rate. Like any natural force, you cannot prevent tornados or hurricanes or floods. However, this Ask Metafilter question had some creative ideas, including putting your luggage in the hotel room’s bathtub. Often, if people have to deal with bedbugs at a hotel, they will complain on certain websites (TripAdvisor, etc.) about their experience, leaving a record of that infestation you can then discover prior to going there. (For example, you could look for bedbug-related articles on HotelChatter, or look in TripAdvisor’s hotel reviews or message forums.) It also never hurts to call a hotel and be frank with them: explain you’ve recently dealt with a bedbug infestation and have no desire to ever see them again. I wouldn’t just ask them “do you have bedbugs?”. No matter whether they do or not, they’ll almost certainly say “no.” I would instead ask them what measures they take to prevent their hotel rooms from being infested by bedbugs, and see if you’re satisfied by the answers.

How do I know if I have them? Adult bedbugs are brownish bugs roughly the size of an appleseed. Bedbugs, just like most any alive being, need to poop — except they poop in the form of dark streaks on bedding. If you’re not seeing their poop, or seeing molted skins, this is a good sign — not a surefire one, but a good one. If you need a bug identification, What’s That Bug? might be able to help, as well as the websites listed in response to this Ask Yahoo question. Keep in mind that they can hide in tons of things — they’re flat enough to hide in the pages of a book, if you can believe it. A professional inspection is the best route, in my opinion.

Can you detect a bedbug infestation by smell? With my particular infestation, I did not smell anything. However, crushing them produced a sickly sweet smell.

How do I deal with my bedbug bites? I can’t offer much advice on this, but I can warn you from my own experience that excessive scratching of those bites, no matter how badly they itch, can severely retard the healing process and can, I’m told, possibly lead to scarring. If you have access to one, consult a physician.

How do I deal with my anxiety? I’m going nuts! Should I be handling this better? It is perfectly acceptable, and even entirely natural, to be mega-spooked for quite some time about this. Bedbugs attack us when we are sleeping, and the caveman brain inside all of us associates sleep with us being at our most vulnerable. Thus, the caveman part of is profoundly unnerved by being attacked while we sleep, and that’s why I think bedbugs give all of mankind a case of the mega-shudders. It is a wise move to hook up with a therapist. They often can help with the excess situational anxiety that arises from bedbugs. They may not “specialize” in bedbugs, but anxiety arising from stressful situations is an extremely common problem for them, and they can help. The Anxiety & Phobia Workbook ain’t too bad, either. You may also want to try this trick: put a rubber band on your wrist. Every time you feel your anxiety going out of control, close your eyes, snap the rubber band against your wrist, envision a big red stop sign, and mentally shout “STOP.” Don’t do it to the point where you’re making your wrist raw, but it’s a useful technique for derailing the anxious thoughts.

Will they get into my hair? Are they in my pet’s fur? Bedbugs don’t like the scalp very much. From here: “Bed bugs can get in your hair but the good news is that they really don’t want to be there. Unlike fleas and lice that have bodies or claws that are specifically designed for navigating through hair, the common bedbug does not have these modifications. In fact, bedbugs need to set their front claws in a particular position so that they can insert their mouthparts into the skin just so, in order to be in the proper feeding position. Hair on the human head would make this very difficult. They would much prefer to feed on the bare skin. If they encountered your head first, they would most likely move to your face (many people suffer face bites) or some other less hairy area to feed. If you are bald, well, the head is fair game.” (To me, this also implies that furry pets may be relatively safe.)

What about this “worldwide epidemic”? That’s pretty damn scary! Remember that any news outlet loves to sensationalize. That’s not to say that there isn’t a worldwide uptick in bedbug infestations, but the news media is not trying to give you a straight news story when they report about bedbugs — they’re doing one of their usual routines: “A common household product in your cabinet could kill you and maim your kids! Which one is it? We’ll tell you at 10!” Also, keep in mind that the more widespread a problem bedbugs become, the more pressure there will be on the pesticide community and the exterminator communities to find more widespread, efficient, and easier ways of dealing with bedbug infestations. Given their spread, there is now real money to be made in finding more efficient cures and/or preventatives than currently exist. For the longest time, DDT took care of it, so there was no money to be made. Now there is, and I would not be surprised to find the pest control industries coming up with better, more efficient ways of exterminating the bedbugs.

What if I wake up and see them at night? You’re going to look at me like I’m batshit insane, but let me put it this way: they’re small, and icky, but they’re killable by even just your hands. Don’t be terrified by them, squish ‘em while saying “die die die die die die you fucker” (quietly if your spouse is asleep)! You’ll be surprised how pleasant vengeance can be.

I rent, and my landlord refuses to help. What do I do? Many states, counties, or cities have laws that address the rights and obligations of both landlords and tenants. Many of those laws require landlords to maintain a certain level of habitability, and if such a law exists in your area, it’s highly likely that one of the standards for habitability is that your rented space be kept free of infect infestations. You may want to consult your local public library, or your local government, to see if there are laws in your area that require your landlord to pay for bedbug extermination. Also, you may want to see if there is a tenants’ rights organization in your town; such organizations often offer legal guidance.

As an example, in Chicago, the way that I read Chicago’s municipal code (and it appears pretty plainly written) is that a landlord is required to hire an exterminator to get rid of bedbugs from your apartment. Section 5-12-070 of the city’s municipal code states, “The landlord shall maintain the premises in compliance with all applicable provisions of the municipal code and shall promptly make any and all repairs necessary to fulfill this obligation.” Section 5-12-110 of the city’s municipal code states, “For purposes of this section, material noncompliance with Section 5-12-070 shall include, but is not limited to, any of the following circumstances [...]” and goes onto list multiple circumstances, one of which is “failure to exterminate insects, rodents or other pests.” If you are a Chicagoan, you might want to contact the Metropolitan Tenants Organization, and see what advice they can offer.

They’ve sprayed, but I’ve seen a bug! AAGH! The spray that was laid down (assuming your exterminator did it right) is almost always a “barrier kill,” meaning that the bedbugs cross over the spray of poison and absorb the poison at the time of their crossing, which will shortly (but not immediately) kill them. This may not be relevant depending on what your exterminator has said and what type of poison he applied (and how he applied it), but you may wish to see if the number of live bedbugs you see tapers off over the following days before you conclude there’s a new problem.

How did you get them? I believe it’s possible that I brought them home with me from a sleep study performed at a downtown Chicago hotel in late February 2005. However, to the best of my recollection, I seem to remember being bitten beginning in April 2005 — which wouldn’t mesh with the hotel hypothesis, as I would’ve most likely been bitten beginning shortly after bringing them home, not two months later. (It’s for that reason amongst others that I won’t name the hotel.) In any case, my doctor identified bites which I had thought were mosquito bites on August 9, 2005. I went home that day and lifted my box spring out of my bed frame to find a large number of bedbugs crawling up and down the strip of the boxspring’s bottom which had formerly been shadowed from the sun by the metal of the bedframe.

Did they ever come back to your apartment? I moved as quickly as I safely could after my infestation, because I wasn’t convinced my landlady was going to adequately treat my apartment or building. I think they probably did reinfest the space or infest other apartments in that building, but if they did, I wasn’t there any longer. My landlady was originally going to treat the apartment by having a “guy” who worked at one of her other buildings come by and spray. She wouldn’t tell me what the insecticide was, and she used the word “fumigate,” which is not how you treat bedbugs. I offered to go halfsies on the cost with her if she let me choose the exterminator; she agreed. Afterwards, she indicated to me that she wouldn’t inspect the other apartments until nearly two months later, and that this would not be a exterminator’s inspection for bedbugs but merely her own inspection of units. I didn’t feel this would be sufficient to halt any spread from apartment to apartment, and so I asked her to let me out of my lease; she did, and I moved.

Where were your bites? They were on my back and arms, primarily.

Can you tell me more about your infestation? As I wrote about it here while I was dealing with it, yes, I definitely can do that. Here they are.

After reading the above and your blog entries, I still have a question. Can you help? I must admit that I am not wild about talking about bedbugs with people. It remains a very unpleasant memory. That having been said, since I went through the trauma myself, I know how upsetting and disruptive an experience it can be, and I can’t turn my back on someone in that situation who needs help. But I suggest you check a website called Bedbugger first. They have an excellent FAQ which provides much, much more information than I knew at the time of infestation, and they also have message forums. You may also want to look at Wikipedia’s bedbug article. But if, after you’ve looked over these, there’s still something I can answer for you, please go ahead and ask me — keeping in mind that as I said, I’m not a pest control professional, a lawyer, an entomologist, or otherwise any sort of expert, and just an average schlub like you. I’ll try to help you as best I can.

What’s the best advice you can give me? Remember that this is a finite problem. It will not last forever, even in the worst-case scenario that you need multiple sprayings. You will get out the other end of this, and there will be a day in the future where you are living life as you once did, except that this time, you’ll realize how sweet normalcy can be … and life will be all the sweeter, and you will be all the happier, thanks to that realization.

Any resources on the Web you can recommend for me?