Mattress-cide

Well, it’s not just the mattress that’s going out, the bed’s going out with it. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I own a captain’s bed which is basically one big hunk of pressed wood with drawers and a deep storage space.

The mattress cover debate is over, at least for me. I have waited too long to do this, perhaps out of reluctance to get rid of the furniture I had enjoyed for most of my life. And now the bed bugs have truly taken over. For the last two nights I have slept in my living room because I can no longer sleep in my own bed. For the last week or so, I had been sleeping in my bed with the lights on, and that worked only for a short while. Soon the bugs came out in droves on the mattress and pillow whenever I lied down on it, regardless of the time of day or whether the lights were on or not. And if I can longer sleep in my bed, there is no reason for me to have a bed. I also have to get rid of my headboard, which I have literally had since childhood. I don’t ever remember that headboard not being in my room.

In the last few days, as I open the drawers to get socks, underwear or shorts I see bed bugs. They have laid eggs numerous times on the bed sheets, so my mattress is now bare, sans comforter, sheets or pillow. They have laid eggs inside the drawers, on my socks, on my underwear. We called an exterminator who indicated that there is a large colony of bed bugs underneath my bed and this is most likely where they hide until, of course, the minute I sit or lie on the mattress.

As I lift the mattress, I see the top of the bed is dotted with bed bug feces, and through the tiny slits between the pieces of wood, bed bugs happily travel between the surface and deep within the wooden recesses of my bed. It is truly a sad day for me.

Fortunately, I have an armoire on the other side of my room, which to my observation and inspection has not yet been infiltrated by these monsters. It has enough drawers inside to accommodate the clothes I currently keep in my bed. The only challenge is finding a place for the various items which currently occupy those drawers. I think for posterity’s sake I’ll throw a sheet over my mattress and put on some covered pillows so I can take one last picture of my room with the headboard and bed in it.