Bed Bugs

[boulderjohn]

Pain of equivalent of ant bite (or less ) never occurred to me

Having been through it, I can assure you that bed bug bites are well beyond ant bites. They are downright nasty.

My wife and I arrived in Florida in mid January that year, and I grilled dinner the first few nights we were there. I awoke on about the 3rd day with pronounced welts that were extremely itchy. I assumed some sort of super mosquito had nailed me while I was sitting outside, grilling in the dark of night. But I had never seen anything like those bites, and the painful itch was no joke.

I got some bug spray for the time outside grilling. Things got worse. Most interesting to me was that some of the bites formed a line, usually of about 4 bites, one after the other. A day or so later I was walking past a mirror and I noticed a small brown bug walking across my chest. I was able to capture it and examine it. I also visited a website that identified bite marks. The specimen and the bite mark website confirmed the bed bug diagnosis. The series of bites in a row is a tell-tale sign. They apparently eat, take a nap, wake up, move over a little, have another meal, take a nap, move over, etc.

What was also interesting was that for at least the first few days, my wife did not get bitten. That is what made us think I was being attacked while outside grilling. I was actually being attacked in my sleep. Evidently they prefer some food sources to others, and my sweeter taste saved her for a while.

Killing them all was a major effort. My landlord made the mistake of thinking he could do it himself with a bug bomb, but that barely touched them. He had to hire professionals, and they had to clear the condo of anything that could be damaged by heat (electronics, etc.) and use big heaters to turn the condo into a bug oven. The badly infested furniture had to be thrown away. We also had to wash all our clothes and dry them at high heat.

Once they were gone, though, they were truly gone. No reason to worry any more.

 

[cozcharlie]

Thanks for the

Having been through it, I can assure you that bed bug bites are well beyond ant bites. They are downright nasty.

My wife and I arrived in Florida in mid January that year, and I grilled dinner the first few nights we were there. I awoke on about the 3rd day with pronounced welts that were extremely itchy. I assumed some sort of super mosquito had nailed me while I was sitting outside, grilling in the dark of night. But I had never seen anything like those bites, and the painful itch was no joke.

I got some bug spray for the time outside grilling. Things got worse. Most interesting to me was that some of the bites formed a line, usually of about 4 bites, one after the other. A day or so later I was walking past a mirror and I noticed a small brown bug walking across my chest. I was able to capture it and examine it. I also visited a website that identified bite marks. The specimen and the bite mark website confirmed the bed bug diagnosis. The series of bites in a row is a tell-tale sign. They apparently eat, take a nap, wake up, move over a little, have another meal, take a nap, move over, etc.

What was also interesting was that for at least the first few days, my wife did not get bitten. That is what made us think I was being attacked while outside grilling. I was actually being attacked in my sleep. Evidently they prefer some food sources to others, and my sweeter taste saved her for a while.

Killing them all was a major effort. My landlord made the mistake of thinking he could do it himself with a bug bomb, but that barely touched them. He had to hire professionals, and they had to clear the condo of anything that could be damaged by heat (electronics, etc.) and use big heaters to turn the condo into a bug oven. The badly infested furniture had to be thrown away. We also had to wash all our clothes and dry them at high heat.

Once they were gone, though, they were truly gone. No reason to worry any more.

info. My point was just because someone feels bites in bed, it’s not necessarily bed bugs. Bed bugs obviously exist though. Oddly sometimes jellyfish stings come in a line of 3 or 4 also. Must be a thin tentacle

 

[Eric802]

My wife and I were the victims of a bedbug infestation a few years ago in our rental condominium in Florida. The previous tenants had evidently brought them in with them. In the process of getting them taken care of, we learned a whole lot about bedbugs. What we learned made us wonder why they aren't everywhere. They very hard to eradicate, and they can travel easily from one site to another through traveler belongings.

They do not, however, spread otherwise. No other unit in our condo complex was affected. We did not hear tales of any other places nearby being affected. The pest control company took care of things, which included throwing some of the furniture away and baking everything else (including our clothes) at high temperatures.

But once they were gone, they were gone. Period. We moved back in, and we have returned to the same place every year since, with no problems.

So, if a room in that resort was infected and properly treated, then there is no reason not to go back to it. There is no reason the other rooms nearby would be affected. I am sure most, if not all, such resorts have had such incidents in their histories. Assuming proper extermination, you would have no way of knowing, and no reason to care.

Just to echo the info about how they spread (or rather, don't spread) - we had a situation here at my office where an employee brought bedbugs in from home. They infested her chair, but no where else. She retired, probably shortly after bringing the bugs in, and the chair sat in her empty cubicle for a few months - no one used it, so it just sat there like a land mine. We had a new employee start and within a couple hours of her sitting in the chair, she started getting bit. One can imagine the kerfuffle that ensued; that's not exactly how you want to welcome a new employee into the office. The chair was bagged and tossed in a dumpster, and the pest service that came confirmed that the bugs hadn't strayed anywhere other than the chair.