I hate these things with a passion and had many sleepless, tear-filled night because of them. When I initially got them it was just in a singular room and I had brought them home with me somehow, my friend told me to put baby powder all in the mattress because it would dry them out. It would dry out the big guys but the eggs would not be killed and so for about a month I'd be happy and bite free then they would be back. It ended with me telling my landlord after fighting them for months (and keeping them from getting anywhere else in the apartment, woo!) and my landlord calling me dirty and gross and continuing to yell at me (at this point I was beyond done and already hated my landlord, so I told him he can fix it now or I can call my lawyer). When I went through my research it continually said heat was the only sure-fire way to kill them, so if you find an exterminator with flamethrower (joke), or an industrial carpet cleaner or something thats what will kill them. BUT if you moved into the building and they were already there without your landlord doing anything about it then it's a lost cause, they've taken the building and will not give it back.

-from the 21 year old in Brooklyn

My friend bought a $200 mattress cover when she got them and it RIPPED!! Keep pushing the landlord for an exterminator (remind them they these things spread fast so the quicker he/she gets someone in, the less suites will need it) and that exterminator may have to come more than once.

After they are truely gone, id move. Dont want to get them again from a neighbouring unit and you dont want to bring them with u to a new place

HorseMullet is right that the only real cure is heat. Using a hair dryer on high in mattress and cushion corners can help spot-kill them, but the best way to be sure is to get a hotel for a week, and crank the thermostat into the hundreds.

A friend of mine had them and diatomaceous earth was what finally killed them. Heat and spraying did not help. Thankfully DE is non-toxic, so you can put it around your bed without worries and it is safe for pets.

People act like bedbug are this huge mark of shame since most bugs are closely correlated with messiness. Not so for bed bugs, you could be a neat freak and still bring them home from work, a school etc. and then in a few weeks have a very bad problem. It certainly what happened to me.

I didn't bother to bag all of my clothes, I just focused on the bed, I turned it over and searched, I turned over the bookcases as well eventually I found their "nest" under a book case next to my bed. I killed them with a steamer ... a steamer is a wonderful tool, kills eggs and bugs and it's just water.

Then I bagged the mattress washed and bagged the sheets and pillows and used that cinnamon spray they sell at bed/bath and beyond. I think it's a decent repellent and it's not expensive.

I don't think professional exterminators can do much to help, honestly. Get a steamer ($30 on amazon) and start steaming all over the place.

Also FIND THE NEST... as long as they keep coing back there's a homebase someplace, behind a picture frame near the bed... under furniture... in the boxspring... find it.

Godspeed.

We haven't seen any bugs for 3 years now. But it was a two weeks from hell.

My partner and I discovered bedbugs late one night-what a horrifying discovery!!! We have spent a lot of time and money getting rid of them. How we dealt with it was-we notified our landlord right away and had our apartment sprayed. In conjunction with this, we washed all of our bedding and clothing - just like it was mentioned in the article. It took two more treatments over the next three months from the exterminator plus after the third treatment, we also vacuumed our mattress and furniture as well as our baseboards every TWO days for a whole month. This was the worst, but the only thing that finally got rid of them. Persictence is key when trying to rid yourselves of these awful little creatures. I wouldn't wish this problem on my worst enemy, and I hope this advice helps!

We moved from one apartment in our complex to another one. We hired a mover and must've picked them up in the truck. We started noticing the bites about a month after we moved in. We told the landlord, threw away our box spring (it was old anyway), and got a cover for the mattress.

We received three free treatments from the exterminator, who sprayed the entire bedroom, especially around the entrances (outlets, windows, etc.). We threw everything we could into the dryer and ran it on the highest heat.

It's been 11 months now, and no bugs, knock on wood.

I had them, and lived to tell about it! I actually had an amazing experience. After waking up with bites, I found two bugs on my box spring (luckily a very small infestation.). I ziploc bagged them and my landlord called someone for me, no questions asked, who came out within an hour. It took two weeks for them to treat, but my landlord paid for all of it. I believe the extermination business was called "an ounce of prevention" (chicago based) and they were wonderful to work with! That was almost a year ago and the bugs have not reappeared!

Why do I suddenly feel itchy??!!

Almost one year plus ago, I found out that we have bed bugs in our flat. Since we live in Hungary, the options are really limited. So, we searched local forums for a solution, and came upon Bio Kill. I sprayed all over our flat as well as go through the process of throwing , washing and bagging etc. All our clothes are still in bags! But the spraying helped. Every few weeks, I still respray the flat to keep any bugs away. I know the bugs are still l around but at least I could sleep at night.

The link I'm providing belongs to the Hongkong office but we managed to get Biokill in Hungary.
http://www.biokill.com.hk/

I had them last month, in Minneapolis. Luckily, my rental company is incredible, and they took care of everything. They did a heat treatment, in which the apartment is heated up to 120 degrees or something, and the bugs die. Then they vacuumed up the bugs. I had to remove perishable food, candles, and aerosol cans from the apartment because of the heat. It was 100% effective. I'm not quite sure what the treatment is called, but they have all these big machines and they turn the apartment into a sauna.

The worst part was all the bed bug poop. My apartment is old, so I thought all the little black specks on the wall were thumbtack holes and chips in the paint. Not so. Bed bug poop is incredibly hard to clean, and I scrubbed so hard I damanaged the paint, so my rental company repainted my bedroom. Like I said, they are fantastic.

The infestation was very contained to the bedroom, and to one corner in particular, where the wall met the ceiling. The exterminators found bed bugs behind pictures on the wall, which was surprising.

My advice--pay for the heat treatment, and you'll be bed-bug free.

Among other things we did was to put our bed up on plastic risers and surround the risers with diatomaceous earth so they couldn't get to us at night. Also, don't forget to throw out your vacuum cleaner bag after each time you vacuum!

On an optimistic note: We have two kids and I went on a tossing binge, getting rid of toys they never play with anymore, sorting books and tossing some of those, etc. We had been living in our place for a long time, and although we weren't total pack rats, it was great to throw so much stuff away. Plus we ended up refinishing our floors and painting so that in the end, after it was all over, we had a much nicer apt than we started with before bedbugs. It was a nice way to end a rather traumatic experience.

I was an apartment complex manager over the winter who didn't know she'd inherited a building with a BAD bedbug problem. Once the source of the infestation was dealt with, I was still left with pockets of resistors. Combining advice from both the health inspector and pest control, I had all my tenants in that building place double sided tape around their front door as we knew the bugs were traveling through the hallway. Everyone was advised to vacuum their suite completely, including behind and under furniture, at least once a week. If someone got the bugs, a mattress cover, a thorough vacuum of the suite, and full laundering of clothing and linens sufficed to keep the bugs at bay until we could spray. We looked at heat treatment, but it's very expensive and not always effective as the core of the building needs to reach a temp that can be destructive to the apartments. As for the folks with the bad infestation who lived with it for years? We had to gut their apartments and they lost *everything*. The most important thing the health inspector told me is that, yes, bites itch, but bedbugs are not a health hazard.

My sincere sympathies to all of you!
I've never experienced the whole bed bug ordeal but did live in an apartment complex with a roach problem. The problem wasn't the landords, they would spray whenever I called, it was the adjoining tenants who didn't care about the roaches and would not allow extermination but would call and complain if their rice or grain had weavils (sp?) or moths...not much a landlord can do there.
20 years later if I see a bug I immediately think "ROACH!!!" Still can give me the heebie jeebies.

We became managers of a small building, and ended up with a pretty severe infestation in our unit after moving in. My husband and I are self-proclaimned "neat freaks," so the fact that we had bedbugs was very embarrassing. For a week or so we suffered in silence, awaking with our legs and arms absolutely covered in bites. We finally contacted our higher-up, and he thankfully had experience with heat-treatment after being in the building management business for so long. First, the exterminators brought in a bedbug sniffing dog... no joke. They are specially trained to find bedbug nests and "alert" when they find them. We later found out it was our tenants in the neighboring unit that had the biggest infestation, so we had inherited their "roommates" as well. Thankfully none of the other units had been affected.. just us and our delightfully messy neighbors. We had to evacuate both units for the day while the exterminators brought in giant heat blowers and cranked the temperature to over 100 degrees F. After this was completed, we still washed all of our clothing/bedding and got a specially designed mattress cover with Velcro tabs along the zippers for bedbugs. We caulked all of our baseboards and vacuumed every nook and cranny. Even after all of this, we still will find a random bug about once a month. We flip our mattress and spray it with rubbing alcohol every week and vacuum daily. We never allow any clothing/clutter to be on the floor. We haven't had any bites for months... so I think the nightmare is over. The constant worry, however, is still there. Especially since we have a toddler and we are very paranoid about him ever getting bitten. Even though bedbugs don't carry disease or anything scary like that, it's still hard to sleep when you know there are bugs crawling on you... :P

I live in abject terror of getting bed bugs in my apartment in NYC. I've had a few friends who had them and didn't sleep. One friend left his apartment with nothing more than the clothes on his back (which he then bagged outside the door to his new apartment). He left his furniture, TV, computers, clothes--everything.

We have an upright freezer that can hold our rolling, carry-on luggage after trips, but we try to use duffel bags that can be washed. If it is a warm, sunny day, wrapping items in black plastic or black garbage bags, and leaving them in the sun for several hours, is supposed to be effective. I also heard double sided tape around the legs of your bed frame is great, as long as your linens never touch the floor. We recently were looking to buy a condo and found a pest control company that would do an inspection for free, since they were counting on the more traditional WDO inspection at a later date.

I lived in a house in the country and inherited a bedbug problem because of the bats that lived between the ceiling and the roof, then came through the wooden ceiling and ate me alive. My mattresses, furniture and clothes were never inefested. We caulked every single crack in the ceiling and it helped tremendously, I can't remember if I ever saw a live one again after that. And when I moved a year or so later, just to be sure, I got rid of my sofa, mattress and boxspring, and all of my other things were in storage in a unheated facility, so I figured that too was extra insurance. Since then I've been living in a city and have been lucky that this has not happened again!

Ugh, these sound horrible! My sympathies to those of you that have/had to deal with these particular creepy crawlies. I can empathize with runswithscissors, I left an apartment after a few months for a similar roach issue. The landlords refused to spray the building, but would set off foggers in each unit. The roaches just moved each time one unit was fogged, into the next one. Shudder. I've also battled fleas, which are about as bad as bedbugs - one has to vacuum, launder, etc. constantly for over a month to get rid of them completely. Still, give me fleas over roaches any day. Ick.

Let me echo a few things.

I had bedbugs three years ago and I must admit I ended up moving out of that apartment, neighborhood, and even city, I had to get all my belongings -- ALL of them including my car -- treated with Vikane gas before I moved. I moved to a much smaller building that doesn't touch/share walls with another one. 3 years and 1 month bed bug free.

I would echo that for DIY, try Diatomaceous Earth, you can buy the food-grade kind at most garden or hardware store. Be sure to wear gloves and a mask while laying it down.

I also suggest a steamer.

And trying caulking all around your walls and any holes. I swept DE into the the crevices and then sealed them up.

Talk to your neighbors and see who has them or might have them. If more than one of you do, it might help your landlord be more cooperative.

For future travel, consider bugzip.com.

For treating things you currently have that can't be laundered, or for future purchases (I use mine for used books, I bring them home from the store in ziplocs, and then 'cook' them until they are safe), there is the paktite device.

Make sure you don't bring your stuff to a green drycleaner. I know, that's best normally, but it won't kill bedbugs. You might try to request that they keep your stuff sealed and seperate until right before cleaning, to try to prevent any you DO have from mixing with other people's stuff and spreading the problem.

Professional extermination, chemical or heat or a combo of both is most effective. But of course it's hard to pay for.

Finally, www.bedbugger.com is the best resource. It can also make you crazed, freaked out, and traumatized, but it has plenty of information about what works and what doesn't. (Ie, putting your stuff in garbage bags in the sun does nothing; freezing your clothes or books or whatever does nothing.).

One final note: if you need some chemical assistance from your physician to deal with the anxiety, do it. Ativan saved my life during this time. I would NEVER have been able to sleep or function at all without a little help.

My sincerest, sincerest sympathies. I hope this resolves quickly for you. Best of luck.

My husband does pest control and I HATE when he comes home and tells me he's been doing a bed bug job. There was one nursing home that he serviced that they were brought in on a resident's couch. The entire nursing home ended up with them. I've made him strip outside our house by the garbage cans before and throw his clothing away when he's had a particular bad instance that he's treated for. I can only imagine what the neighbors think or what a cop driving by would think of him streaking into the house naked! But I really really don't want them in our house with our toddler or with us.

Just know that you're not alone. And they've gotten worse because it seems they've gotten resistant to most treatments that have been used for them. That's why things like heat work, but a lot of the rest of it is ineffective.

After traveling and staying in a hotel, we leave the suitcases in the garage and bring clothes directly into the washer - no sitting in the house for a few days before washing. Then wash or wipe out the suitcases.

Thorough, easy and cheap, extermination?
It's called (food grade) Diatomaceous earth (DE). You can find it at garden centers. Non food grade is hazardous to you and your pets.
Here's the action plan for serious infestation:
-wash and machine dry on hot, ALL bedding.
same for cloths and what not on the floor.
-dry on hot cycle all other fabric in the room.
now bag these in sealed garbage bags.
-trash: magazines and books and piles of papers that are on the floor. Seriously de-clutter your bed room.
-examine the mattress if it's very spotted in blood and your problem has been going on unchecked for 3 month+, trash it and the box spring too.
You need to wrap them in saran wrap to bring them to the curb. Slash them with a utility knife so no one else picks them up or write BED BUGS on them.
-To salvage the mattress and box spring- vacuum thoroughly, that means rip off the backing on the box spring to get to the inside.
Now treat theses with DE, all over. Put no more of a thickness than you would put baby powder on your self.
More is not better, it's dirty.
-Vacuum and wash the whole room.Everything in it and ALL surfaces. Spray your bed frame and head board with bleach (especially) in cracks and corners.
-Now the easy part, lightly powder your floor and baseboards. scatter it with a rag or duster.
Don't wash and sweep the floor for ten days.
-Put your bed back together. place a thin large piece of plastic over your mattress for ten days. Make your bed now, over the plastic. Use dark bedding.
-put your stuff back in your drawers and closet.
In a few days you won't have them any more.
If after the tenth day you still have them trash, the mattress and box spring, wash the bedding and do DE again.
After that if the problem persists it's time to call the exterminator or move. Your problem my be under the floors and behind walls.
Treat the sofa and chairs in your house with a light powdering of DE and cover with a plastic too.Treat along side of base boards in whole house with DE for prevention of spreading.
Did you know? Roaches are the natural enemies of bed bugs. Respect! DE kills those too.
After the clean up and treatment, a stiff drink is in order.
Cheers and courage to you.

I brought bed bugs home with me from a hotel a few years ago. The problem was, I didn't realize that it was bed bugs for nearly two months! I thought I was having an allergic reaction to something. I went to the doctor and got all kinds of steroid shots and medications and never once did they consider bed bugs. It wasn't until I caught one run across my bed did I realize what was happening and I definitely had a melt down. As a few other people have mentioned, bed bugs have nothing to do with cleanliness. They are nocturnal and attracted to carbon dioxide and heat...aka a sleeping person. The worst thing aside from the awful bites is that some of the side effects actual include insomnia, anxiety and paranoia. Yikes! It's an awful experience I wouldn't wish on anyone. Washing clothing in high heat and bug bombs worked for me, along with large amounts of anti-itch creams until the bites went away.

You can use DRY ICE to battle bed bugs rather effectively

http://www.continentalcarbonic.com/dryice/remove-bed-bugs-dry-ice.php

About a year ago, living in the rented house we just recently vacated, I started seeing these little red bugs in the master bathroom or around the bed at night. At first I thought they were just carpet beetles, but started getting suspicious when i tried to catch one and it POPPED with RED LIQUID! Shortly thereafter, while vacuuming one afternoon when my wife was at work, I lifted up our box spring and found the little buggers crawling on the underside. I don't like any sort of creepy crawlie in the house, so I pretty much had a meltdown that night and had to take a xanax to get to sleep (in another room).

Thankfully, the BBs were confined to our bedroom and there weren't any signed throughout the rest of the house. We called in a local Seattle-area exterminator and for almost $1000 they came in and treated the whole house 3 times over the course of 6 weeks. They drilled into the wall at the baseboard and treated behind the baseboard, and sprayed all the furniture and carpets. We bagged all our clothing and linens in that room and took them out to a laundromat with industrial grade machines. Took all of an evening, but we washed (and sorted) everything we owned, and stored anything that we didn't need to wear in vacuum bags until after the last treatment. We also pitched our box spring and frame, bought a new frame and matress bags for every mattress in the house, and I spread diatomeceous earth in every crack and crevice I could find.

Since then, nothing but a small scare when we found a hitchhiker that one of us brought home, and after a night spent searching the whole house, couldn't find any of its brothers or sisters.

My advice after suffering this is to act FAST if you find an infestation. 1) A professional exterminator is an absolute MUST, and they are worth every penny. The ones we used specialized in bedbugs and did a thorough job. 2) Get everything out and washed PRONTO, in the hottest water and on the hottest dryer setting you have available. If clothing has special care instructions, follow those, but once dry, NUKE it in the dryer for at least an hour until it comes out too hot to handle. 3) Diatomeceous Earth works wonders, and not only on bedbugs but ants, beetles, and most other insects. The small particles slice through the waxy coating of their exoskeletons and dessicates them, and they can't develop a resistance to it because it is a physical process, not a chemical one. 4) If you have a nutty, as I did, take something to help you get through the first night, and make sure you get out of that room. I didn't calm down and get a game plan together until I had rested and gotten my brain around the problem.

I went through this a few years ago too. Reading all of your stories makes me want to cry because I know how terrible this can be. Don't wait too long to get a professional in there. They are expensive, but well worth getting back your piece of mind in a few months rather than battling them for a while only to see them return. Also, do everything the writer of this article says to do. It works!

I am a HUGE proponent of spreading (ha!) information about these, because knowledge means you don't do something stupid like throw out your bed without it being covered (which is illegal in NYC.) Apologies in advance for the length, but there's no one magic bullet for these things.

First, for those who might go thru this in NYC, it's the law that your landlord treat these. If you feel that your infestation is small (bed only) then you can probably self treat. If you're finding blood spots in other rooms, get an exterminator that wants to spray or heat.

To self treat, bag your bed in a bed bug proof mattress cover. Be very very careful with your box spring as that is one of their favorite places to live. Pull your bed away from the wall, and make sure nothing touches it except your bed clothes. Don't let any fabric hang to the floor and make your bed an island. Grab a can of BedLam and spray the seams of the mattress and box spring (can also be used in furniture seams or on baseboard joints.) BedLam (and all other chemicals the pros use) are available at most pest supply stores. But be advised, if you decide to self treat with chemicals, be very careful about when and how much are used.

Then, start the laundry machines. You don't need to wash the clothes, but a 45 min. low heat cycle should kill both eggs and adults. You only need to get to 120deg to kill everything. I ended up storing all our clothes in extra large Iris airtight storage bins I bought online at Target.com. If you have a big infestation in books or art or other things, or are just worried about the possibility of it, I'd recommend a Packtite. It's made for sanitizing luggage, and looks like a overly large duffle bag with a shelf and a heater inside. It's not cheap (but cheaper than having all the expensive clothes dry cleaned), but as someone who's been thru this, and doesn't want to accidentally bring them home again when I shop for clothes or traveling, this thing is a miracle. For dirty clothing, I recommend a airtight bin (we use a really large one made for dog food) that you can easily keep clean (it ain't the prettiest, but for those who worry about bringing them home, it's a lifesaver.)

DE works wonders, and is pet safe. It dries out the exoskeleton, and when ingested it poisons them. However, this is a long term solution, since it takes a week or so to be effective on them. We put it in outlets and switch boxes, and baseboards, pretty much anywhere we could reach. Just remember that a little goes a long way, and they'll avoid patches of it, but crawl right thru a fine layer.

They're not big fans of the kitchen or bathroom, so outlets and vacuuming should be all that's necessary.

The worst part of it is being paranoid about it. Take a very close look at how bad you think the infestation is, and make a judgement call about getting professional folks in there. With a spray (the more economical option) you have to essential move out of your place and into garbage bags for two weeks. All furniture and pieces need to be empty to be sprayed. Then you wait two weeks (their breeding cycle) and spray again. Heat costs more, but other than taking out anything that melts, you shouldn't have to move anything. Most professional companies will ask to see a sample of them, so save at least one (and an egg sack (ew) if you can find it) for them.

Take a deep breath and know that you are not alone, and all of the grossest stories you read on the internet are from people who didn't pay attention and let it get waaaay out of hand. Be knowledgable and be calm and this too shall pass (that's what I kept telling myself...)

I'm feeling so much better about the rats scampering around in my ceiling now.

I found these round sticky discs at the $1 I think you are supposed to tie them to a hook and they are for flies. Anyways I keep them under the feet of my bed to spot check for bed bugs. I live in a condo and I see alot of people coming and going. So bed bugs is something I worry about.

I have a massive phobia about getting bedbugs. (I live in NYC). I sometimes wonder if my phobia of getting them might be just as bad as someday actually having them. One friend of mine got them from going to the movies (she saw one on her purse that was on the floor of the theater, and killed it on the spot. But upon returning home, she noticed an infestation begin soon thereafter. She blames the theater). As a result. I'm now afraid to go to the movies. I am in love with a certain bed from a furniture store in Manhattan, but the headboard is upholstered linen. I'm too scared that bedbugs might get into the padding of the headboard and breed there, so I refuse to buy my dream bed. Whenever I go to a hotel on a trip, I'm so nervous we are going to bring any bedbugs home, that I keep all of our luggage inside the bathtub the entire time. (I heard that can prevent them from getting into your suitcases). I get really anxious when buying furniture, and I no longer will buy anything second hand. Actually, I buy nothing from thrift stores anymore. I only use white sheets so I can spot anything. If I see any lint, I pounce on it to see if it's alive. I own a carpet steamer/shampooer, and I steam my carpets regularly. Especially if we have had friends over, because I don't know what they are bringing in with them. I never allow guests into our bedroom, and I make them hang their things up on hooks far away from the bedroom (but I don't tell them why. I just say that's where guest's things go). I'm anxious about going to other people's apartments, and won't put my purse down on anything. I'm tormented by these things, and don't even haven them. I constantly think about bed bugs, and try to figure out how to guarantee I will never get them. It's not healthy for me. I do have a therapist I see for OCD, so this has just become another thing for us to talk about and work on.

I just wanted to put it out there for people to know that you can be tormented by them and not even have them. It's important to try to not let them run your lives. Easier said than done when you live in a big city. I'm still working on it myself. To those of you battling these tiny blood-sucking demons, best of luck to you all.

My building had them. It was because of a neighboring building and in particular a person with mental issues in the neighboring building. When that person was treated, our building was finally able to be rid of them. If they are coming in from another source, heat will not work in the long term, it will kill what's there, but not anything that comes later. What works is a combination of pesticides (in our case, particularly around the perimeter), DE, caulking, and heat treating/steaming your possessions. We had two treatments and in between I religiously steamed the couches, chairs, rugs and bed with a carpet steamer, and I put all of our clothes in the dryer to treat and kept "clean" and "dirty" clothes separately. I kept doing this for a month after the last chemical and only much later was I convinced we were cured. This was 3 years ago and I still have some clothes in giant plastic bags. It was a horrible experience that took a toll on my physical and mental health. I found myself taking sleeping pills (or drinking several glasses of wine) just to get rest, because I was so creeped out. You are not advised to sleep elsewhere in your place because you will just lure them there. So I had to sleep in my bed. Awful. I still have a few scars from the bites - if you are the type that has reactive skin it can be awful. At one point I was seriously considering moving to the middle of nowhere so I would not have to deal with the issue. But unfortunately it is a fact of life, and I am vigilant now with traveling (put your clothes in the dryer after a trip and spray down your luggage with alcohol).

ALSO: get rid of your box spring and buy a bed that doesn't need one. Box Springs with their wood and nooks and crannies are BB hiding places. I kept the mattress - put two layers of mattress covers on it (overkill probably but rather safe than sorry).

Wow... I haven't heard of anyone where I live having a bed bug issue, luckily enough... but we adopted a cat a while back that came with fleas. Yeah. Fun times. :'( With three cats and two dogs, was a nightmare. And we once had a horrid mouse problem living above a restaurant (ewww) but no bed bugs. Knock on wood. I'd lose my mind.

In your situation, I might panic and flee, a mistake that probably would unintentionally spread the vermin. It's better to hit them hard and fast. Don't let people or pets inhale the dusts used. Nontoxic or not, I think they're bad for the lungs. The evaporated alcohol also can irritate breathing passages, so consider opening windows to freshen the air. Bedbugs can't kill a person, but their bites can become infected and leave disfiguring scars, plus they can wreck a person's home life. Like some other commenters, I'd consider moving somewhere no neighbors' infestations could reach me after the current bedbugs are gone. Good luck!

Diatomaceous Earth! In addition to everything your already doing, this will stop them dead in their tracks, and it's all natural. I had a similar freak out and the DE actually stopped the problem... by the time the exterminator got there the problem was already gone! Put it along baseboards, between box springs and mattresses and anywhere else you can think of!

Get your entire house sprayed, inbetween floorboards, cracks in walls – everything. Throw out any rugs you don't want to keep. Don't move to another room to sleep, because they'll follow you and then infest that room as well. Don't go to other people's homes to sleep because the infestation will more than likely spread there too.
It cost me about £2,000, 9 years ago now. Two months of the home being sprayed once a week, every week.
mine came from a (5star!) hotel in Bruges by the way.

Oh, and if possible, tak your bed apart – because they live in the teeniest of places. There were colonies of them inside the legs of my bed.

You have to put an mattress bag on your mattress. This traps the little bastards inside, where they, and their offspring die. Gross, I know, but necessary.

Unfortunately, there love upholstered furniture, too.

Diatomaceous earth is great at killings bugs, including fleas.

Memory foam mattress are impervious to the beg bugs. Dust mites, too.

Consider replacing your mattress. You can get them cheap from Walmart online.

It will likely take you several months to get rid of the bed bugs and your apartment will need to be sprayed several times. The only way I survived bed bugs was by keeping all my clean clothing in giant ziplock bags (http://www.amazon.com/Ziploc-Double-Zipper-X-Large-4-Count/dp/B003U6A3EY) that I used in lieu of a dresser for several months. If you don't keep all your sanitized fabrics from your dirty (potentially bed bug egg infested) fabrics you could end up washing everything again. That was one mistake I made. Call the Department of Health and print out the city code pertaining to bed bugs and give it to your landlord. Good luck!

Nobody is mentioning 20-Mule Team Borax. I've had excellent results spreading this laundry product over my carpets and onto upholstered furniture and mattresses when I've wanted to get rid of fleas or stale odors. It works similarly to diatomacious earth except it does not have the same sharp properties (which are not harmful to people or animals). It is a very fine boron salt that poisons the critters that crawl through it or eat it, and it dries out eggs and larvae. It is the primary ingredient that "Flea Busters" used to treat houses for $300 a number of years ago. A box at the grocery store costs less than $5.00 and you can spread it with a cup (as you would feed chickens) for free. I

I vacuum EVERYTHING well, then I distribute this fine salt on the floor, carpet and every soft surface. Then I leave it in place for 10 days and then vacuum again. It's incredibly effective on sand fleas, so why not on bedbugs?

Here in the central valley of CA we have lots of 100 degree days in the summer, so I suppose that's why it's one bug I haven't seen here - yet.

Just one more vote for Diatomaceous Earth. You definitely want the food-grade kind, not the TOXIC kind they sell for swimming pool maintenance. Amazon.com sells a large container that will last forever for about $15. Sprinkle it in every crevice, & on rugs (work it in with a broom), on bedding, etc. I usuallly try to leave it for 2-3 days before sweeping / vacuuming to allow it to do its thing. It is completely harmless for people & pets (try not to breathe it in). The sharp, microscopic shells of these little fossils physically destroy & dehydrate the bodies (and eggs, larvae) of insects... bed bugs, fleas and probably other hard-shelled bugs. I sprinkle it on my animals & their bedding during flea season and it really helps. It's not instant, but it DOES work to kill & interrupt the life-cycle of these pests!

I had them in college, and I spent months covered in bites before we finally realized what was happening. My university tried to blame the fact that I was from across the country and flew home, but a few years later I finally found out that it was my roommate's brother. He'd picked up a couch from the side of the road, and bam! The strange part was that while I reacted horribly to them (I must be allergic or something), my roommate at the time never had a single bite appear and our beds were less than a foot apart. It was an awful semester, and I've been paranoid ever since. Why in the world would you ever get furniture second hand? Even books scare the bejesus out of me. You just never know what those buggers might be hiding in.

Of course we now have an infestation at work. I keep my coat and purse in a sealed plastic bag in my desk. Paranoid? Yes. But there is no way that I am ever dealing with those things again.

@stephaniemojo
... why dark bedding? o.O

I'm a former member of the bed bug club. My cat pounced on one while I was reading in bed late one night. I didn't know why I had been waking up with itchy fingers. There you go... After my initial freak out, I went to war. You CAN beat these without the help of an exterminator. Others have mentioned diatamaceous earth. It works! Be sure you buy FOOD GRADE. There is another type that is used for pool filters and it is toxic. Food grade is safe for you and your pets. As the article mentioned, alcohol in a spray bottle kills on contact. Beware though - I treated my wood furniture with the alcohol spray and the drawers don't close smoothly anymore.

Everyone has covered the other tactics (laundry/ dry high heat, leave possessions outside in black plastic on a hot day, etc.), but one that hasn't been stressed is the bed bug traps you put on the legs of your bed. First, move your bed away from the walls so they can't crawl up into your bed. Make your bed an "island". After you clean and seal your mattress and box spring, you put these traps on each leg of your bed. The outside is rough so the bugs can grip and crawl up, but the inside is smooth and they can't get traction. Put some DE in the reservoir and it's a great indicator of whether you've got the problem under control or not. YOU are what they want. Your blood is their food. They will not survive without you (well, after 18 months they won't) so they will be coming for you. If your traps are clean consistently, you've probably gotten rid of them. I sympathize. I got them from a neighbor in my apartment building and my landlord told me it was my problem. I don't live there anymore...

Thanks, Apartment Therapy, for useful information and the guaranty of no sleep for me tonight!

I have yet to come in contact with bedbugs, but I am reading this article and all the comments just in case! I hope I remember these ideas :-D And now I am insanely itchy.

@michey That is a great idea - in my family we keep our bags outside after returning from a trip. We have a big "family party" shaking out our bags and putting everything straight into the washer/dryer. This can help prevent any unwanted travelers (including roaches, bedbugs, etc) from entering your home.

Now a day’s sniffer dog is one of the best way to get rid the problem of bed bugs but it is a little bit expensive too.

bed bug mattress protector

i work with a lot of people that get bed bugs...today i walked into a building with an infestation not knowing that they have them. The apartment i went into does not have them, at least not as of last night. I did not sit down and tried not to touch anything. is there anyway that I could have gotten the bugs on my clothing and had them bite be during the day? I went there at 10am and I know that most sites say that they bugs only come out at dawn. I'm concerned because I don't want to bring them home with me.

My husband first noticed the bug! Just one about 6 months ago. Being the freak he is he googled it and up popped bed bug info after an entire month of not seeing anothing single bug and him still persuing the fact these dumb misquito bites on his legs were from these "bed bugs" i found MY first one on my side of the bed! It made a gross pop noise when i squished it and left a horrid brown stain on my sheet :( so still being the sceptic I am I never persued anything! We had been in transition to move out of state so stuff was everywhere, boxes packed randomly in rooms, some in storage, it was too caotic to start worrying about A BUG! UNTIL I found one in my youngest sons bed! Then mommy FREAKED! After tossing my sons room with now evidence of squat I quit and gave up! Having been now two months since the first bug sighting my husband found a squal of black poop spots on our mattress one day while putting fresh sheets on, yeah after that we both FREAKED n went PSYCO on our room, which with three kids, moving, and working full time jobs, was your typical clothes ridden junk piled parents clutter. Anyways the mattress n boxspring both got tossed and we moved into our sons room on the floor to "starve" the bedbugs! After the start of month three we moved into my moms for a few weeks till our new home out of state was all done! It was then when we had a bed bug erruption! Now the five of us moved into my 6yr old nieces room n my twins went into pack n plays n my two yr old bunked with us in the bed, after a few nights I started noticing the spots on my youngest two and, im sad saying this, I thought it was just exsama bc of the amount of bites and the dryness n small swell that their skin had! After a trip to the pediatritian n excsema cream the spots had NO CHANGE! Seeing as how we moved n basically brought nothing with us I figured WTF n never thought it was bedbugs till my husband found poop on the walls n rust spots all over our sons sheets, i mean it was like 40 spots all over the place! After a month and still rust spots n still bites we flushed the room and everything went out side! It was then that I found the worst ever infestation in the folds of my sons pack n play! I tear up typing this bc I wonder how did I get this bad how did I never see ONE BUG at my moms??? How did I let this happen to my kids??? After lots of reasearch and now THREE MONTHS im only finding infant bedbugs maybe one or two a week on the walls, no bites and well no pack n plays either :( they r now in a landfill some where STARVING TO DEATH (i hope)! If there is one thing i learned it LOOK LOOK LOOK! Everynight I got out my flash light n i toss my kids bed, while they sleep, i lift my mattress, i look inside my pillow case! I litteraly went crazy in search for bugs KILL KILL KILL! I bought all new pillow case and all new spot free sheets and havent seen any spots (thank you God) i still find infants walking the caulked up walls searching for a place to hide, a crack, a nail hole ... But nope my bedrooms are all sealed now! And NO, I will never ever go to bed with out chking for bugs, altho i have lightened my hunt, i still hunt!

Sleep tight

We started out by hiring an exterminator. But after a while we just couldn't fit it into our budget. We started going to the dollar store every week and buying about 5 bottles of rubbing alcohol and a putting it in a spray bottle and spraying every crack and crevice we also bag all our clothes and we have had them in the shed for about two.months expect for one basket for each of us that we keep by the dryer and constantly rewash and dry. I wash our blankets and sheet once a week and I dry them about 3 times I also do this with my pillows. We vaccuum the furniture and the floor about every other day. We also went out and bought a bissel steamcleaner and I steam clean the floors and couches once a week. We also have allergen protectors over my sons cribe mattress and over my stepsons mattress and ours we plan on getting two more for my our box springs. I also take the steam cleaner to the inside of the drawers then blowdry them with a hair dryer. To prevent the wood from getting ruined.

I found them a month ago, I was having severe bites and didn't know what was biting me, but I killed them all, first I started 3 electric heaters, be careful not to touch anything, and get extension cords to different rooms in a different circuit braker, by a small termostate to check the room temperature, they are under 10 dollars. you need to heat up the room at over 116 F. move things around while you heat, don't stay in the room more than 5 minutes, keep the heat for 2 days, when you are done you will still find some a life, put a bed bug cover for mattress and spring box, buy glue rat traps and put one in each bed frame legs so they don't comeback to feed, look under the bed to make sure you cover all legs. keep you bed away from head board and any furniture were bedbugs could clim to the mattress, I had some trap in the glue :)
They are nothing for us, we are smarter than dose little bugs, :) good luck

Signed up for exactly one reason.

Rubbing alcohol is flammable. A post that advocates its use in combating bedbugs without mentioning this is irresponsible.

Fire and flames burn your house down.

I am very tired of these things. I feel so sorry for anyone who has gone through this. I started having bites come up on my legs last year around this time. I thought it was from chiggers, but, when I stopped going out at night, I realized it was not that. One day, my friend noticed the bites and asked me if they were bed bug bites. I said there was no way they could be because my husband had none. But, not even twenty four hours later, the land lord called and said the neighbor had bed bugs and if we had any problems with them. after washing loads of laundry (my husband, myself and my four kids), moving furniture around and going through alot of pain...the exterminator came and fixed the problems. he put covers on the mattresses, we threw ours out. he put bed bug catchers on the legs of the beds and came back and looked a few weeks later and there was not any problem. well, my bites cleared up and everything was going good, until yesterday when i picked up a folder off of the coffee table that belonged to my daughter and noticed a bug on it. I killed the bug and did not think anything of it until I realized that it could have been another bed bug. I looked up the picture on the internet to refresh my memory and yes, it was. I called and told my husband and sitting down on sofa yesterday afternoon, i felt something on me and it was a bug. last night, i found another one on the floor down stairs, we have tile flooring so they are easy to spot. we had to throw my favorite chair out due to it being covered with them and threw out a bed frame. i have vacuumed the bedrooms and swept several times down stairs. I found two in my bed today and it is strange because they come out during the day time! I am about to move into a new house on the 14th and I am so scared they will travel with us. I am going to try the DE that everyone on here has talked about because it seems to work and I would like to be rid of them and not have the nights full of worry at the new home. Someone mentioned in a post above that bats carry them? Is this true? If so, I think I know where they are coming from. The landlord refuses to kill off the bats in the attic above our condo because he says they kill the mosquitos. if bedbugs travel with them, then they are coming from the vents and such. i am a mess over this. i hate them and want them gone. i feel for anyone that has or is going through this issue.

Please help! I've just moved to NYC. I got two bites a night ago and checked a new rug beside my bed and it seems to have those blood stains everyone is talking about on it. As you can see from the time this has been written I'm not sleeping tonight and have found another bite...a small part of me is trying to think positively, maybe they're not bedbug bites, maybe I'm just going insane and googling too much!! But this last bite has made me less hopeful. I've been given the number of the exterminator from the super so I'm hoping he will be able to tell if I have them. I haven't come across any actual bugs yet. I didn't realise they would have to be retreated by the exterminator and that a reinfestation could very possibly occur. Will he be able to tell easily if I have an infestation or the beginning of one? Thanks any comments welcome

Wow.. most of the people who have commented need to chill the heck out! Do your research on bed bugs and you'll realize the following:

- they draw blood the same as a mosquito; they do NOT have teeth
- they are not drawn to filth like cockroaches; they exist in the cleanest of houses
- YOU ALONE CANNOT get rid of the problem it MUST be dealt with by a professional - no if's, and's, but's or exceptions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There's no need to panic, there's no need to leave all your stuff behind and just move apartments (that's probably the dumbest idea/thing I have ever heard of!) just do your research, contact your landlord ASAP and demand it be dealt with immediately! Follow the proper procedures for getting ready to be sprayed (laundry on hot only etc. the pest control company will provide you with the necessary steps to prepare.

Here in Canada it's 100% the landlords role to arrange and pay for the extermination process and it has to be done in a reasonable amount of time (less than 2 weeks).

Because I live downtown and because my city is very popular with tourists and visitors, bed bugs have come-up about 2 or 3 times in my building in the last 4 years. It was contained to 1-2 units, dealt with immediately and gone within 3-4 weeks (they spray once, wait 2 weeks and spray again to catch any hatched eggs).

Simple and easy but I realize obviously a bit stressful.

I must must must comment again that the notion you can get rid of them yourself is RIDICULOUS!!!

Don't follow any of the stupid steps and recommendations yourself because IT MUST BE DEALT WITH BY A PROFESSIONAL!!!!!!

I noticed the terribly itchy and annoying clustered bites over 2 months ago and I assumed they were either dust mites or BBs. I googled BBs at work and called an exterminator who tried to carry out a risk assessment over the phone and since I work as a secretary in an open plan office with a lot of computers, faxes, telephones and other electrical equipments, my office space had synthetic carpets, I had a desk with metal legs, I wore rubber soled shoes and nylon tights to work and at that time, I seemed to be getting electric shocks from everything - the lift buttons, windows, light switches even the traffic light button, you name it. The poor man over the phone assumed it was cable bug! I did my research and got my boss to approve spraying the office with anti-static sprays and in the mean time I went to work very early everyday to spray down the space with soapy water before people resumed.

I went on holiday and came back and the itch stopped and on the monday when I got to work, my body was covered in bumps again. Then I noticed that my husband started getting the rashes, so I bought antistatic wipes for our tv and laptops and scanner-printer. After that I noticed my son who was 2 had rashes all on his arm!!!!! Aaaaargh! I took him to the GP and the GP gave us creams and gave me a non-drowsy anthistamine tablet which knocked me out completely and I did not take it after the first dose - which was at night.

Then one day, we were shopping and I saw the bug on my son's jacket!!! I thought it was a baby cockroach I brushed it off him and squashed it and on the white tiled floor, I saw blood (I have killed a cockroach or two in my lifetime and never remembered seeing blood). I saw another bug on me one afternoon on my way to starbucks and I realized it was a bedbug! I told my husband who laughed at me and asked when I became a bug expert.

At that time, we decided to move my son to his room, so I did that night and slept off while putting him to bed and I continued to sleep on his bed. I didnt have any more bites, neither did my son!

During that time, my husband had terrible bites and marks and things all over his body. They were apparently on my side of the bed and since they are such lazy buggers, I got most of the bites and he got one or two.

One day, hubby dearest decided that he had had enough phoned the landlord and complained that we had bedbugs. The landlord said he would pay for they treatment if it was his fault. How could it have been our fault, (we had lived there for over 3 years), when he replaced our beds and mattresses 3 months ago. My husband received the delivery as I was at work when they came. I noticed that one of the beds and mattresses looked used and I was upset with him for accepting used furniture, but he being very trusting and agreeable dismissed my worry.

He phoned up the City Council and the next day, the exterminators were in my house to do a consultation and that's when they found them! Ewwwwww! They said we were lucky that we reported it on time as our case was not serious at all. they came in 2 days later to spray the whold house and then after 2 weeks. They phoned again and I told a wee lie that I was three bugs when I didnt see anything.

I shall now go and look for DE, cos I dont want them in my house again. We have equested for metal bed frames&the landlord said they would not give us as they did not stock them! STOCK??? Now I do not know whether to go out and buy metal frames and deduct the cost from our next month's rent or just take what he brings!

It is now 3am in the good Ol' City of Brotherly Love and I am petrified with anxiety and awake due to a recent bedbug rediscovery. Oh the hellish nightmare all over again. I lived in a beautiful row home in Society Hill but was plagued in a violent relationship. After 6 years of THAT hell...I have soon discovered something worse....these migraine's and benzodiazepine inducing bugs. When I finally got the courage to leave him, and basically everything I owned, I temprarily stayed with a friend till Domestic Protection could find me a suitable, safe living arrangement. Well I was grateful to be safe but my friends forgot to infirm me about a little problem of their own....a bedbug infestation. Being one who ALREADY suffers with anxiety this could not have came at a worse time. Luckily I oly had a bed and dresser . I started getting bit and was very freaked out. I studied these pests online and dud EVERYTHING to keep them away or at least at bay. When I finally moved into what I thought was my new safe haven I started getting bit within the first month.In the past 6 months I have found a total of 4 adults and have been bitten mostly on feet and angles. I've searched high and low. Vacuumed, laundry, steam, taped, alcoholed, sprayed...you name it. Landlord swears that I BROUGHT them....funny. I cannot afford an extermination...but I try everything. I even had an estimate done and the man came with a pinky sized flash light in the daytime, shined it around and claims there are no bugs.The anxiety is getting worse and I keep , on occasion, finding them. If someone who lives in Philadelphia and has a charitable solution PLEASE PLEASE HELP.

I'm afraid I don't live in Philadelphia. The only thing I can offer you is an article on bedbug issues and landlords that might help. Good luck
bed bugs