apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Oy. The mosquito problem is one I can relate to (if not the bedbug one, fortunately). I have screens in all my windows and still, many nights in the summer, I lie there in the dark and hear the buzzing go past my ear...so creepy. And then wake up with little bites all up and down my limbs. Hate it.

Sigh. I wish to god I'd never clicked on these bedbug posts over the last few days. I have been seriously freaked out & I don't even have them (but now I feel like they'll be here any minute.)

Can Amanda split the cost of an exterminator with her neighbours? I'm sure they don't want the bugs either!

And screens are super-easy to make. Or, if for some reason that isn't viable, mosquito netting around the bed works really well! I think it looks wonderful too.

Bedbugs are terrifying....I had no idea that they were so difficult to get rid of, and my thoughts go out Amanda....as far as mosquitos, try buying a mosquito canopy. It hangs from hooks on the ceiling at four points and is completely enclosed...totally worth it....no bites in almost a year and we have TONS of mosquitos here in New Orleans. I got mine, the (Mombasa Majesty Functional 4 point) from buyhammocks.com.

I hate to put a damper on things, but my boyfriend had mosquitoes buzzing in his ear and thought his bites were theirs for a long time. But alas, it was more of a chomp combo. So it's entirely possible that "Amanda" also has bed bugs AND mosquitoes. Not to be ruled out.....

PS: I say this not to incite unnecessary paranoia, but to say that if there are still bites, to start taking care of bed bug business....

gotham tomato - my feelings precisely.

and that picture is really making my skin crawl!!

Maxwell can you cite this: "that bedbugs in NYC are not only on the rise, but they are increasing at such a rate that they are expected to penetrate a majority of the metro area over the next five years. " And what does that even mean?

in my experience, bedbug bites and mosquito bites are very different. (but it may vary by individual reaction.) i tend to have very fast and large and super itchy reactions to mosquito bites, while bedbug bites are small, somewhat less itchy, and EVERYWHERE. they are terrible. i would wake up with swaths of bites on my body, (usually a section on my midsection, on my leg, on my arm) and i would have anywhere from 20 to 40 bites. what did i do? i moved. (luckily i was living in another country at the time and was due to come home anyway.) and thank god none of the little buggers came with me.

It only seems reasonable to wait until Amanda's neighbors get back, and then get them involved in the act.

Poor Amanda - can a plague of locusts be far off? Seriously, good luck to her and it has certainly risen my consciousness on the matter. I read somewhere that dryer sheets placed in your bed (underneath topsheet) help to repel mosquitos.

Good luck.

Yes, I had heard that scented dryer sheets repel mosquitos, too. You could also try spraying your screens with some repellent. You'd have to re-apply it periodically, but it might help. If your screens are the kind held into the frames with spline, you might be able to get them re-screened with a finer mesh screening at your local hardware store, so the little buggers wouldn't slip through.

Isn't it possible to really close the path to the neighbours? Any hole will transmit sound (and small animals). Before I put my flooring in, I closed the gap under the wall and the floor with caulking. I used acrylate based caulking, cheap and effective. Just against sound ans smells - keeping living things out was not on my mind at that time.

Shat should keep crawly insects out. If there are areas where they have to crawl, I would spray those before caulking.

Ug, I just got a notice from my landlords that my building might have some bed bugs. None in my apartment yet, nor in my immediate neighbors', but what are the chances the infestation won't spread? We are on the top floor...

My brother was cursed with bed bugs for 6 long months, he waited it out, and they did go away. He started lathering his body in Revlon's Aqua Marine lotion every night before sleeping, they just stopped biting him and went away. He also vacumed his mattress really well everyday. He never paid an extermination company, used any pesticide, or replaced the mattress. He is still sleeping (now in peace) on that same old mattress.

Amanda has a landlord: she's renting. She lives in NYC. Her landlord is obliged to pay for the bed bugs to be removed. From all afflicted units. Period. It does not matter who brought them in.

The landlord should get the PCO to inspect all adjacent units. But the cost does not fall on Amanda (save that for laundry). It's in everyone's best interest that this be taken care of right away, though obviously, the neighbors need to be inspected and treated too.

A question about the bed bug epidemic. Is it perhaps the result of anti-pesticide paranoia that has plagued this country (and much of the West) for years? One thing that I have read is that scientists believe that one of the reason for the global rise in bedbug populations (aside from widespread travel) is that pesticides have gotten more specific. It used to be that exterminators sprayed some really awful stuff wholesale that would kill almost any living being smaller than an M&M. Now, when exterminators come to kill roaches, they use (perhaps are even mandated to use) specific pesticides that target only roaches. Thus, all other nasty critters can still live.

Perhaps we're just bearing the brunt of green/soccer mom paranoia. Next we'll stop vaccinating children because vaccines cause autism (cf. our favorite hysteria monger Robert Kennedy)... till the next smallpox outbreak in some nice suburb with good schools and pretty lawns. We already ban DDT despite the fact that it might save hundreds of thousands of children in Africa from dying from Malaria.

I'm not saying that the really nasty strong pesticides were necessarily a good idea (maybe they caused massive numbers of neuro disorders, I have no idea), but perhaps we should revisit the question of maybe starting to use these chemicals again.

Sorry, smallpox above was silly to use as an example given that currently, we don't vaccinate against it anymore as it was declared eradicated. Substitute something really awful like Rubella or German Measles or Polio, though someone who works on Polio told me recently that she thinks it's likely nearly eradicated.

The bed bug thing has seriously curtailed my trash-picking and yard saling for furniture. We have a bit of an epidemic here in Boston these days and I'm worried that I might pull something in from the street that might be infested.

There was a piece on NPR recently that explored the possibility that we may have gone overboard on banning some things completely, like DDT, instead of limiting use and/or applying in specific but effective locations and ways. This whole bed bug thing is one example: if we deal with bedbugs in apts and houses say with DDT -- it will not affect eagles way out in the mountains.

I say bring back DDT!!!

DDT was recently found (in a South African study) to damage the male reproductive system and hinder fertility in humans. I don't think all this hysteria about bedbugs at this point justifies bringing DDT back.

My opinion? We are neurotic New Yorkers who always have to have something to be hysterical about. All the articles on AT alone have kind of entertained me. It's good to be aware of the problem, and to try to figure out ways to curtail it, but let's keep some perspective, shall we? I'm sure it's horrifying when you have them, but it can't quite equate with malaria, which can KILL you. (And by the way, my dad grew up Africa, and had malaria and survived)

I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords...

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

I cannot imagine living with bed bugs for six months slathering myself with cheap lotion and waiting for them to just disappear.

My landlords suck and after I had a naughty roomate bring bedbugs to her room ( she had had them before in her old place and NOT told me !) , I got rid of them myself after she moved out by buying the right pesticide and slathering EVERYTHING in it: walls, any cracks, floors, etc.. letting it sit, then washing it off 24 hours later. It sucked to do but it worked, and I didnt have to rely on my lousy landlords or a cut rate and super expensive exterminator. The active ingredient is a stronger version of pyrethrin, same as RAID, which also will do in a pinch.. ( BTW Pyrethrin is also found naturally in dried crysanthenum flowers, which are a natural anti- roach solution ,you can buy dried crysanthenums in Chinatown as crysanthenum tea and keep them in your drawers to keep roaches out ...)
For those who think the solution is more chemicals, bear in mind NYC is a very chemical and pesticiade laden city- Probably if anything the bedbugs are getting RESISTANT to chemicals not needing more chemicals...

Back to my killing of the BB's : I also opened the window (it was wintertime) to let it air out. Freezing weather kills them.. so in wintertime if they are in furniture that can stand freezing weather you can put it outside and freeze them to death. This also means we can rummage through trash treasures in the winter with impunity, or grab cool stuff in the summer and keep it in the garage or outdoors until it passes through freezing weather to make sure it is safe!
(I imagine if you were super fancy you could somehow blast your house with freon to freeze them out of the floorboards, etc...but the defrosting might damage the wood?)
Another way they get of of bedbugs in matresses in warm climates is pouring boiling water in the matresses and letting them dry in the sun.

Another way _ which is nice and nontoxic- I have heard to trap the critters is putting duct tape on the legs of your bed to stickily them, or also putting the legs of the bed in dishes of water, so they drown on thier way to you. I have seen pics of both of these working well.
I got a few in my bed, washed all the bedding , treated the matresss, put it in a plastic matress cover and never had problems again.
Remember, it could be a LOT worse- they don't carry disease after all.. if you really want to feel lucky,read Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe about Black Death ravaging the land.. all over England old houses are built on these granite " mushrooms' which are wide at the top and narrower at the bottom, and designed to stop rats from getting in!
hope this helps!