Monday, June 19, 2006

Resurgence and Vigilance

It appears to me that once one acquires bed bugs, they never really get rid of them.

After trashing my bug-infested bed, mattress and headboard, washing every single piece of clothing I own and throwing out countless pieces of paper, I was shocked last night to find a bed bug crawling on my inflatable mattress. I quickly scooped it up, deposited it into a tissue and squeezed said tissue into my fist until I saw the brownish stain of its squashed guts.

I’d been sleeping in my own room, on an inflatable mattress for a few weeks now, and the first night in my bedroom was spent with M on my bedroom floor with only a thick blanket separating us from the linoleum. I had bought the mattress already, but stupid me neglected to notice the box the mattress came in said “Pump not included”. Another trip to Target.

The mattress kicks ass by the way. The brand is called Air-Tek. It’s a queen-sized mattress (a new venture for me since my previous bed was only a twin) which claims to support up to 600 lbs. It was on sale for $30 at Target, and the pump was another $10. It’s kind of hard getting used to an air mattress when you’ve slept on conventional mattresses your whole life, but it still makes for a comfortable night’s rest.

But I digress.

Even after the whole aftermath of committing bedbug genocide, and losing my mattress, bed, headboard, gallons of detergent and even more gallons of hot sudsy water in the process, I was thoroughly annoyed to see that they were still here. They’re like the Iraqi insurgents: the many, the scattered and the persistent.

So the fight still rages on.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi....new on the "scene". In Astoria. Dealt with a lot of biting, but very few sitings of bugs, bug dung, eggs, etc. Thouroughly cleaned, removed mattresses, all of your experience and have had exterminator in 3 times in the last month and a half. Quick questions:

How long did you wait before getting an exterminator once you knew it was bedbugs?

How often have they treated, and what did they use?

Having seen one on the 19th, have you been getting biten?

This is the suckiest of the suck...

Anonymous said...

Oh yeah...and how fast do they move? We thought we were killing a baby cockroach because of how fast it moved, but it's definitely an apple seeded blood-sucking vermon....we think....THANK YOU!!!!

Bugged Out said...

Hey Hmello,

Thanks for posting.

To answer your questions, I had to wait a month or so because my family couldn't afford anyone for a while besides my building's exterminator, who is actually one of the super's newphews. He is unlicensed and seems to know no more about insects than I do.

The one we hired brought nothing, we could only pay him to check around. We figured it would be cheaper to purchase and apply the sprays ourselves. We have a maintenance crew in our building, but they charge so much most tenants find it cheaper to fix stuff around the apartment ourselves or by paying someone else to fix it.

I have not yet been bitten since seeing that one bed bug, thank God.

Yeah, they do suck...

And yeah, they do move fast. You try to pick them up and they start running upside down on your fingers....ewww.

I'll never look at apple seeds the same way again after seeing a bed bug!

Bugged Out said...

Sorry guys,

Forgot to mention that the newest post is all about exterminators, and the following entry is about a very sensitive issue to me and hundreds and thousands of other New Yorkers.

Later.