Yes, I Still Have Bed Bugs

I see there's been a bit of a debate as to whether or not I still have bed bugs in my apartment. To respond to one slightly rude anonymous commenter:

The answer to the question "do you have bedbugs?" isn't yes and no. It's yes. I'm sorry, but if what you describe is true, then yes, you still have bedbugs.

There's been a reduction in the population in your apt. But you're still finding live bedbugs. Only some of the ones you find are dead. You either have bedbugs or you don't.

You're still getting bitten. You probably don't react anymore, but your girlfriend still reacts.

Since you're doing regular deep cleaning anyway, try steam on all your furniture and home crevices. Get a decent steamer. Read Australia's Code of Practices re: bedbugs. Deep steaming kills bedbugs.

Your blog's been around for a while. It might give people the wrong impression that it's acceptable to "live with bedbugs." This has gone on so long, you guys have probably spread them to school, work, public transit etc.

I know this sounds harsh, but wake up!

To second anonymous: your goal should be eradicating the bugs from your home. Don't settle for just getting bit less.-Anonymous commenter

Do I still have bed bugs? Yes. Is it a full-blown infestation? No. Even though it's been over a year since I had a full-blown bed bug infestation, I've found the experience to be so traumatizing that I clean and inspect my home as I were waiting for another large infestation to appear. When most people say they have bed bugs, they pretty much mean a full-blown infestation where they only feel uncomfortable sleeping with all the lights on wearing socks and sweatpants and long-sleeved shirts. That's also the mental image that I have when people tell me they have bed bugs.

Also, having this blog for so long is in no way a message that it is "acceptable" to live with bed bugs. This ignorant commenter obviously has never had bed bugs in their home, at least not for very long. Anyone who has ever had bed bugs will tell you that is a never ending ordeal and eradicating bed bugs is a long-term task that requires a significant amount of time, money and effort. If the commenter bothered to read the header at the top of the website, they will plainly see that Bugged Out was created to facilitate an online community for New Yorkers who are suffering or know someone who is suffering from bed bugs, not solely to chronicle my personal ordeal with bed bugs. I have no problem with non-New Yorkers or non-Americans relating their experiences, fears, tips, triumphs, etc., in regards to bed bugs. Perhaps I should create an FAQ page for people like the Australian commenter.

Anyone who thinks this blog or any bed bug blog that is as old as Bugged Out promotes the idea that it is acceptable to live with bed bugs is an idiot, and I suppose that includes the commenter who suggested such a ridiculous notion. I am by no means a bed bug advocate. It is not acceptable, ever, to live with bed bugs. When I say I live with bed bugs, I do not mean humans and bed bugs should live in peace and harmony. When I say I live with bed bugs, it is to me, like saying "I live with HIV or cancer". I do see bed bugs as a communicable disease that affects millions, and the only difference between living with bed bugs and living with HIV or cancer is that with cancer, at least you get sympathy. Is it acceptable to live with cancer? Of course not.

"Since you're doing regular deep cleaning anyway, try steam on all your furniture and home crevices. Get a decent steamer. Read Australia's Code of Practices re: bedbugs. Deep steaming kills bedbugs."-Anonymous commenter

Since the commenter seems to be quoting from Australia's Code of Practices (I thought you Australians spell it as "practise", or is that just the British?) I'm guessing they are from Australia. Perhaps the American use of passive-sounding language (i.e., "living with cancer" as opposed to "suffering from cancer") is confusing to foreigners. Yes, I am suffering from bed bugs, but I am still living nonetheless. Funny how Americans employ such passive-sounding language when you consider how warlike our government is. Perhaps like most non-Americans, the commenter thinks all Americans are outrageously wealthy. Yanks, when we're not gun-slinging and adjusting our cowboy hats, actually do make ourselves aware of the power of steam cleaners. I just can't afford one. I don't even own a vacuum cleaner.

As for spreading bed bugs around to work, school, etc., I am happy to say that this is no longer true for me. One of the other reasons I said yes and no as to whether or not I still have bed bugs is that I no longer spread them wherever I go. I know it sounds impossible, but I've always conducted a thorough inspection of my backpack before going out, always finding one or two bed bugs hiding under a flap or something, but in the last few months my inspections of my clothes, jacket and backpack have shown nothing.

What's more, M and I have been apartment-sitting my future mother-in-law's home for a few weeks last month. If I was spreading bed bugs, I would've seen one there after a few weeks. We're talking about a species of insect that can breed a few generations within one week. The absence of bed bugs in her home after four weeks, to myself and any other rationally-thinking human being, is clear evidence that I am no longer spreading any bed bugs from my home. M's mother is back home and she can be somewhat critical of me (and everyone else), so I'm sure if she finds any bed bugs, she'll have no problem letting me know. The fact that I don't seem to be spreading bed bugs anymore is another reason I said yes and no as to whether or not I still have bed bugs.

So do I have bed bugs? Yes. Am I still experiencing the typical symptoms that almost all people suffering from bed bugs endure? No. I thought I made that clear in my last post. Please don't take my little backlash as hostility towards Australians or any other nationality, for that matter, but rather my response to a single, anonymous and ignorant comment .

Bed Bug Sniffing Dogs

Many of you may have read or seen on TV stories about dogs that have been trained to sniff bed bugs. Now, Advanced K9 Detectives, a company that boasts a pack of bed bug sniffing dogs that can quickly, cheaply-and most importantly, effectively-sniff a room for bed bugs following an exterminator's visit.

It amazes me how dogs' powerful sense of smell-which can be as much as 2,000 times stronger than that of a human-can be capitalized on to detect so many different things. There are even dogs who can sniff out bootleg DVDs!

But I am not interested in hiring Advanced K9 or any other similar company; I want to know how a dog can be properly trained to detect bed bugs. I would love to buy a beagle or any other breed that could accurately pinpoint the secret locations of the bed bugs in my home, because although I haven't been bitten in a long time, I do occasionally come across a dead bed bug or two, which makes me believe they're still out there, like Al-Qaeda, silently waiting to execute their next great attack.

Would anyone know if this is possible for a civilian to own a detection dog? M loves dogs and I know a trained bed bug sniffing dog would be an incredible bonus to having a dog living with us.

Do I Still Have Bed Bugs?

I felt the urge to respond to this anonymous commenter who inquired:

Hey, are you actually living with bed bugs? I mean, are you doing anything to keep them from, like, taking over your place 'cause I read that they multiply very quickly. And, what about you and M's body and face? Don't you guys get a lotta bites from these suckers?

Respond when you can. Thanks

Well, anonymous commenter,

First off, thanks for keeping up with the ongoing saga between M and I. To be honest I've been deliberately vague about the actual current status of our bed bug situation, mostly because more and more people are becoming aware of this blog, and my other blog in which I am not so anonymous. What's more, M also has her own blog in an effort to promote her cooking career and we're being invited to more and more public events, and quite frankly, I don't want anyone to think we're cooking with bed bugs in the food or our home is overrun with bed bugs or we're walking around with some whacky "bed bug disease". You'd be surprised how many people still think that bed bugs carry disease.

To answer your question, do we actually have bed bugs? Yes and no. We still have them, but we're not actually suffering from them anymore, and we've kept them under control. We see maybe two or three bed bugs a month, and rarely are they still alive. I don't get bitten anymore, but M does, which makes me believe that females are more susceptible than males to bed bugs. Even then, the bites are just as rare as bed bug sightings.

But this peaceful scenario did not occur overnight. Yes, my apartment was once overrun with bed bugs, to the point where I was sleeping on the floor with the lights on and hatchlings were being born by the thousands only inches from my sleeping head. To wake up in the middle of the night and the first thing you see is scores and scores of tiny brown bed bug eggs and babies just inches from your retina is worse than any nightmare you've ever had. It's an image you never really forget, and I always remind myself of that image whenever I feel like slacking off from keeping my home clean.

I had a lot of wooden furniture, which served as the perfect haven for colonies upon colonies of bed bugs. I've had to throw out almost all of my furniture and replace it with plastic and steel furniture, which was not easy since I was broke and had to spend a few months in a relatively empty living space until new non-wooden furniture entered my home piece by piece. In short, I had to go through a dramatic lifestyle change in order to rid my home of bed bugs. And even then, the eradication is never 100%. No exterminator can guarantee 100% bed bug annihilation, which didn't matter to me anyway since I couldn't afford one. Most exterminators highly recommend their bed bug-infested clientele take the same drastic steps I've taken. Also, I don't like the idea of unknown chemicals (especially industrial-strength chemicals which are illegal for non-exterminators to purchase) being sprayed in a space in which I eat and sleep.

As I've discussed before, I use an eco-friendly approach to killing roaches (because roach sprays and foggers causes bed bugs to scatter and hide, making it harder to kill them all) and I advise people to do the same with bed bugs. The most eco-friendly method I've found of getting rid of bed bugs is to simply get rid of your wooden furniture (if you have a full-blown infestation, chances are good that you will find small colonies of bed bugs already living in your furniture). The other step is to replace that wooden furniture with furniture made of plastic or metal. The other step is to adopt a lifestyle of serious routine cleaning. I mean, cleaning your home has to become like a religion for you if you want to get rid of bed bugs. That includes clutter. Throw away any old newspapers or magazines you may have lying around. Store your books in plastic food containers. It may look weird to have shelves full of books sealed in Tupperware but a full-blown bed bug infestation and a body full of bug bites look even worse. M and I have a financial goal of making enough money that we can someday hire someone to do all the routine cleaning.

Everyone tells me to tell my landlord to take care of the problem or to call 311 or to sue my landlord, but this is wayyyy easier said than done, especially when the assholes giving me all this helpful advice don't actually have to do any of this themselves. As I had discussed in earlier posts, holding landlords responsible for a bed bug infestation can be tricky, and if the landlord has a lawyer and you don't (which is my case) they can convince the city that not only are they not responsible for your infestation, but that you may be held liable for introducing bed bugs onto the property. It's also difficult to expect the government to do anything about a bed bug infestation because bed bugs do not carry disease and therefore do not pose any kind of public health threat. However, you can argue that a bed bug infestation and their biting can cause mental anguish, but this is obviously much harder to prove than a physical injury.
I simply don't have the time or money to travel to and from court over and over, fill out forms, take photos of my apartment, etc. What's more, the landlord may retaliate by trying to find you in violation of your lease. And in New York City, the hometown of over-regulation, some leases have so many terms most tenants are unknowingly in violation of them in some tiny superficial way.

As for multiplying quickly, bed bugs can lay about 500 eggs in their lifetime. And those 500 bed bugs, upon reaching adulthood can each lay their own 500 eggs. So yeah, they can multiply quickly in a very short time.

I hope I answered your questions. For more details on my personal bed bug experience, I suggest you browse the rest of this blog.

Later.

Lavender Oil?

Could something as simple and common as lavender oil help ward off bed bugs while you sleep? I've heard stranger things. An article from last July in the First Post, a British online magazine included a personal testimony from a Briton who encountered bed bugs while on holiday in Germany and recommended lavender oil spray, although he didn't specify whether to spray it on yourself or in your room or bed.

Don't think that booking into a five-star hotel will offer you protection. Earlier this year, a US lawyer sued a luxury hotel in London after he and his wife had been badly bitten. A better - and cheaper - alternative is never to go anywhere without a lavender oil spray: apparently, it's the one thing the little bastards can't stand.-unknown bloke

How did this guy know to use lavender spray? Was this discovery simply the result of dumb luck, as was the case with the invention of the microwave ovens and silly putty? Perhaps his wife was burning lavender oil candles (you know how women love that aromatherapy stuff) from an oil lamp or something and they noticed how the bed bugs in their hotel room reacted to the scent. It has been well documented that bed bugs can smell each other's pheromones, fecal matter and even dried human blood; they very well could have smelled the lavender oil as well.

I will try burning lavender oil in my own oil lamp (it's actually M's oil lamp) to see exactly how well this works. However, I don't have nearly as many bed bugs as I used to (I see maybe one or two live ones a month these days) so if anyone else could conduct this little experiment in their own bed bug-infested homes and share the findings with the rest of the class, I would very much appreciate it.

By the way, I did receive my new mattress from Sleepy's the day after ordering it, and to my surprise I did not have to wrap it in a plastic drop cloth. The mattress came sealed (with a small air pocket, unfortunately) in a tough plastic whose durability is similar if not superior to that of a plastic drop cloth. They really are the mattress professionals! However, I do remember the salesman telling me that all mattresses sold by Sleepy's have a 10-year warranty; I suspect that 10-year warranty is considered void if that protective plastic seal is broken.

I really did like the inflatable mattresses, but it's much nicer to have worry-free sex on a conventional mattress secure in the knowledge that the mattress won't spring a leak and break down.

Happy Valentine's Day, by the way!

The Hell With Air Mattresses!

I've had it. I'm through with inflatable air mattresses.

The tenth or eleventh air mattress I've bought in almost two years just sprung another leak. Ever since I threw out my bed bug-infested mattress, bed and headboard two springs ago, I've placed my faith in inflatable mattresses in the fear that if I bought a new conventional mattress would only become infested and promptly thrown away. Besides, buying all that laundry detergent and fabric softener to wash my entire wardrobe and ammonia to mop and scrub my home got rather expensive, making the purchase of even the cheapest conventional mattress even more of a pipe dream.

Air mattresses (especially the ones that are under $50) are basically camping equipment and only meant for occasional sleeping and not everyday use to be slept on day after day for weeks on end. And they're definitely not built to withstand a regular routine of vigorous sexual activity. Not to be terribly explicit, but M and I are both around 200 lbs. (she's gonna crucify me when she finds I out I blabbed about her weight!), we're in our 20s and we're horny and in love. I think what we do in that bed has probably led to the many, many sprung leaks which have appeared in the many air mattresses we've bought.

The air mattresses I've bought range from $20 to $45 and are either made by Greatland or Coleman, the latter being a much weaker brand of bed. I really don't have the money for an Aerobed or one of those fancy Eddie Bauer air mattresses and the widest variety is only available during the summer. During the winter, at least in New York, most stores don't sell air mattresses, and those that do barely sell any at all. Since August I think I've bought about five air mattresses, all of which have sprung leaks. These mattresses do come with patch-up kits, but even these don't hold for very long, and if they do hold another leak appears elsewhere. The mattresses are almost as much of a nuisance as the bed bugs themselves.

I finally broke down and decided to buy a conventional mattress on Sunday when M, after unsuccessfully trying to patch up a leak in our air mattress, declared that we've spent enough money on air mattresses to buy a conventional mattress. I couldn't agree more. So I went to Sleepy's yesterday and ordered a regular full-sized mattress for about $400. I cringed as the salesman kept pressuring me to lay down on the more expensive mattresses, afraid that a lone bed bug would somehow crawl out of my pants leg or something and onto the bed. And then he'd see it and make me pay like a million dollars for the bed. I cringed even more when he told me horror tales of buying mattresses from other retailers, who he claimed often pick up discarded mattresses from the curb, slap a new cover on them and then sell them as "new" mattresses. "Sometimes these discarded mattresses have bed bugs in them," he warned in his spookiest tone. "And then you bring them into your home!"

If only he knew, he wouldn't have even let me in the damn store.

Damn, I forgot how much money conventional mattresses sell for! Some of the more expensive ones (just the mattress, mind you. No frame or box spring) sold for $1,500 and even $2,500. I cut the salesman off in the middle of his pitch and told him I was looking to spend no more than $400 and he led me straight to the cheaper mattresses.

I really liked the inflatable mattresses, but I really need something that's going to last more than a month or two. I plan to cover and seal the mattress with a heavy plastic drop cloth, the kind painters use to protect the floor and furniture from dripping paint. Not to perpetuate stereotypes about Latinos and the tendency to work as day laborers, but in my apartment, we have a six-foot steel ladder, various work gloves, safety goggles, a tool belt and of course, a 100-foot roll of heavy plastic drop cloth. When my mother purchased a new mattress (her old one became infested with bed bugs) last August, we covered it with the plastic and closed it shut with duct tape. Obviously, there is a crinkling sound that comes from the mattress whenever someone climbs onto the bed but to me it is a small price to pay to sleep bed bug-free. And when you consider that a mattress these days can cost $400 and up, it makes sense to do whatever needs to be done in order to keep bed bugs out of it.

I sincerely recommend that anyone buying a new mattress do the same. The drop cloth is not that expensive, and is a rather smart investment considering how expensive mattresses can be.

Save Your Books

Been out of work for a few weeks, so I decided to take a break from the job hunt to do some cleaning up. I'm a writer and a reporter (although I haven't written for any real newspapers in about year) so I have a lot of news clips that I immediately put into plastic bags and stored in a large Tupperware-like plastic container to keep bed bugs from finding their way inside the papers. For those who haven't figured it out yet, bed bugs love paper. Newspaper, magazines and books make great hiding and nesting places for bed bugs.

Long story short, I was scanning my old news clippings onto my computer so I could still have the clips long after the original paper turns yellow and crumbles. I already have some clips from 2000 that are turning yellow. I think sealing them in plastic helps slow the degradation process but it doesn't stop it completely. As a writer, I am also a reader and I have a lot of books. Unfortunately, I ended up having to get rid of about half of my books when I discovered bed bugs inside them. This weekend, as I was scanning my old news clips, it occurred
to me that I should also store my books in plastic containers to keep any more from becoming infested.

So I went to the 99 cent store and bought several containers for the books. I made sure they were see-through so that I could see the spines of the books without opening the containers. I still have the books on the shelves, but they're in the containers now.

I figured I'd share this little tip for anyone who owns books, so that they won't have to toss half or all of their book collection in the trash. Sure, the containers may look a bit tacky on the bookshelves. But if they're worth saving, you won't hesitate to do the same.

Later.

Hillarious!

I could not make this up.

Occasionally I receive a comment from one of those automated comment spammer programs which makes a Google-like attempt to capture the essence of a particular post based on one or two words in it and then form a comment that offers a product or service related to my post (or what the software thinks is related to my post). Today I received a gut-busting laugh-out-loud comment from such spam software on a 2006 entry in which I complain about how the strange-looking bed bug bites on my arm are often mistaken for some sort of skin infection or herpes.

Got Herpes? Do not despair. You are not alone. 1 in 5 men and 1 in 4 women are living with herpes. Don't Let Genital Herpes Run or Ruin Your Life. Dating and relationship help for people with genital herpes now http://www.****************

Only a computer could do something this stupid.

I'll try to post again this weekend.

On the Bright Side of Bed Bugs, Part 2

I found another reason to be happy to live with bedbugs. At least they're not the Chagas, a South American insect whose bites induce a parasitic infection which feeds on the host's heart muscle and intestines and kills 50,000 people every year. According to the Times Colonist in western Canada, the infection caused by a bite from a Chagas, also known as the "blood-sucking assassin" can also be transmitted from one human to another via blood transfusion. The symptoms take 10 to 20 years to develop and are usually fatal.

Did I also mention that they can fly?

So be happy that bed bugs is all you have, because there is a far greater menace out there that make bed bugs seem like Girl Scouts in comparison.

Bed Bug Sunday News Spread

Happy New Year, everyone!

I did a lot of drinking, dancing and eating for New Year's Eve and was too busy preparing for the festivities to read last Sunday's New York Daily News, despite the fact that I had bought it. I finally got a chance to go through it today and in it was a two-page spread about bed bugs in New York City. Obviously it's too late to buy the Sunday Daily News if you haven't already, but you can still read the online version of that story. The article includes two personal accounts from New Yorkers living with bed bugs, including that of Caitlin Heller, a fellow bed bug blogger who has been reading my blog since its inception two years ago. Caitlin is also the founder and moderator of the Yahoo! bed bug support group, Bedbugger. Here's a brief excerpt of her bed bug woes:

"I was getting 15 to 20 bites a night, and it was driving me crazy," said Heller, who runs Yahoo's Bedbug Support Group where sufferers commiserate. "I suffered mentally. I couldn't sleep at night, and I couldn't focus during the day because I had itchy, painful welts all over my body."

Scary.

The article emphasizes the fact that New York City's poorest and wealthiest dwellings are equally vulnerable to bed bugs, listing recent breakouts of bed bug infestations in such locales as Ralph Lauren's design studio, the Thomas Jefferson Housing Projects, the Helmsley Park Lane Hotel, and the Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft law firm.

Check it out; it's a pretty good read, and check out Bedbugger as well.

Later.

"Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite"

Hoo boy. If you're like me and have perused the web endlessly for news on bed bugs, you've no doubt read "Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite" ad nauseam by clueless reporters who no doubt assume they are the first to ever use this adage in an article involving bed bugs. I am quite sick of hearing this saying in news stories about bed bugs, and I have no doubt in my mind that 2008 will be full of news stories that contain "Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite" in the lead paragraph if not the headline.

I came upon a news story about colonial America that actually tells from where this notorious adage originates. It's from the Norwell Mariner/Patriot Ledger in Marshfield, Massachusetts. The article focuses on MA state Senator Robert Hedlund, who accompanied a class of fifth graders on their field trip to a New England colonial museum. Apparently Marshfield is a microscopically sleepy town or this article was the byproduct of an extraordinarily slow news day. In any case, the origin of the phrase is revealed in the following quote:

It was later learned that colonists often had to cope with bed bugs because mattresses were made of straw; bed supports were tightened with a special device: hence the expression, “sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite.”-Mary Ford, "Oldest Fifth-grader Joins School Field Trip"

The fact offers some perspective when you consider all the technological advancements made since the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620, and despite all these advancements we still itch for the same reason the Pilgrims did. The bed bugs must've annoyed the hell out of the Native Americans.

Happy New Year, by the way. Next month will be the second birthday of Bugged Out.

Speaking of New Year, do any native New Yorkers actually go to Times Square anymore to watch the ball drop? It was all the rage when I was a kid, and by the time I was old enough to go by myself (since no adult I knew was interested in going), the whole hanging out at Times Square got real lame, especially after 9/11 when security was beefed up and everything from liquid containers (no booze?!?) to backpacks were banned from the area during the New Year's Party.

As far as I know, most New Yorkers attend private New Year's parties where they are free to eat, drink, smoke, snort, inject and swallow whatever the hell they want without being hassled by the fuzz. Times Square at New Year's is for squares, a.k.a. tourists. Let them be herded like cattle into a potential terrorist target area.

So be sure to stock on the alcohol tomorrow, especially if you have bed bugs. And for those who don't have bed bugs, you are cordially invited to my house for a slumber party! Then you can go home and watch your furniture and your sanity disappear.

Cheers.