apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I would want to be sure before spending the cash....that said, there is the old adage that if you see a bug, there are probably 20 more in the vicinity that you dont see. So given that you have seen (and caught!) one.....

Good luck!

There's no such thing as one bedbug. She needs to get bags for her clothing and linens and start washing.

She also needs to address the larger issue of the rest of her apartment building. She may get the bed bugs out of her apartment only to have them come back in from the surrounding apartments.

How she handles the situation now may affect the eventual outcome: being safe and happy in her present apartment or abandoning it (and everything in it) for new digs.

If she owns her apartment, that complicates it even more because she has to reveal to the buyer that the apartment has bedbugs or risk a lawsuit.

If she leaves her apartment and all of her belongings, she has to go to a gym with new clothing in a sealed bag, treat herself with insecticide, wait, then shower and put on the new clothes. She will walk away from her old, infested life into a new, clean, bed bug free life. Family photographs and anything else that is absolutely irreplaceable may be placed in sealed plastic bags in storage for two years and then retrieved.

The only problem is she could have spread them to her office ...

This reads like a Choose Your Own Adventure story. A really creepy one.

Anyway, "Amanda" must have nerves of steel if she can go to sleep knowing she is an offering to bedbugs. I've heard of putting packing tape on the legs of your bed and the floor around your bed, sticky-side-out, to catch any bugs and confirm their presence. Can she do that and crash at a friend's?

I think, if she's already had a bunch of bites, for over a week, there's sure to be more than one bug. Assume the worst.

If you're sure it's a bed bug, go forward, it isn't going to get better. If you have doubt, then wait.

Maybe a good opportunity to go through the wardrobe and dump lesser used clothes.

It's lucky the pest guy quit.

An honest guy would have answered her question with pros and cons.

Can't she get an initial inspection before treatment? If you caught one bug, what are the odds it is alone? It's not like a little roach which might have come in with a paper grocery bag in the wayback.

I think $1K is worth the piece of mind. And after you launder all those clothes and treat your place, purge like crazy. A $600 laundry tab is the clearest sign of too many clothes.

What an awful set of choices! Can't we just go back to Hot or Not?

But a wacky question, and one that I hope doesn't sound insensitive: is it possible for bedbugs to just be a managable nuisance, like cockroaches? Surely they've been stalking our species for centuries. Is there a way for us to get along with them without having to abandon belongings/spend huge amounts of money?

Bedbugs live on the blood of living beings. So they are not a manageable nuisance. The biting will continue...

I'd take all my sweaters and coats and use a dry cleaner than offers summer storage. Pick it up in October when this is all behind you.

I'd send my clothes out to a laundry service and not have them brought back until the pest guy says you're in the clear. Just keep a few things you'll need between now and then. I'd use a service that does bulk laundry/dry cleaning. There is a "Bubble Works" truck outside my window now (http://bubbleworks4u.com/). Not sure if they're any good but I'd use something like this.

You don't want to do it twice.

It wouldn't hurt to check in with your insurance person. I wonder if your home or renters insurance covers any of this.

Insurance doesn't cover bed bugs any more than it covers cockroaches. Medical insurance would cover any medical problems resulting from the infestation.

It's not enough to give your clothes to a laundry service. First of all, you'll just infest the laundry service and the other people's clothing. That's unethical.

Secondly, the infested clothing has to be isolated in plastic bags and positively BAKED in the dryer, then put in new, clean, sealed bags. In order to have this happen, she would have to TELL the laundry service. Unless they specialize in this, they will never take her laundry again.

She'll likely have to do it herself.

This is not a simple problem that you can just pay other people to take care of cheaply. It's an expensive, time-consuming process.

And being in denial about it is normal, but it won't make the problem go away!

It's important to avoid spreading the problem further... The public-spirited thing to do is ensure that the clothes are laundered on her own.

The bugs in the bag look to be one large bug and one small bug (parent and offspring?). If that's true, then there are very likely more than just 2 bugs. Plus, if the buggies can go 18 months without eating, then they can go until Tuesday without eating, thus misleading you that they've been eradicated. Plus, a good night's sleep is worth something... and I'd sleep a lot better knowing I'm not some nasty creature's midnight snack.

One girlfriend of mine encountered the bed bug problem a few years ago in her newly rented UES apartment. She decided to do the exterminating herself. She had to treat every little crack of her apartment with the chemicals she bought in the hardware store for 6 months. Thru her mattress out and had to buy a new one. Just a good mattress costs at least $1000, so I say go and hire a professional, but make sure that you have your bases covered, so there is a guarantee that you won't have another problem. I also would ask the neighbours that surround your apartment if they have a problem (if you could do that) that way maybe, they can all exterminate in one shot...

And don't your clothes have to be treated with a certain kind of chemical? I thought that just washing your clothes wouldn't necessarily kill them....

I had a bb scare (turned out I don't have them, phew!) but I called Positive Pest Control (1-800-294-3130) and Lyndell (516) 849-5268 and partner came over and did a thorough inspection of my apartment. They moved things around and used flashlights to examine every inch of my matress and box spring and elsewhere in my apartment. I think the inspection cost $65. It took about an hour. The reassured me that I don't have the bb. BUT in the process, they noticed how many cracks and holes there are in my place and I do have the occasional uninvited guest so they came back and sealed the place up. They also said that bb bites take a couple of days to show themselves.
I would go the inspection route first.

She needs to do it herself in her own machine? Does she have her own machine? Yowsa.

It's a shame about no insurance help. I'd argue it's a lot different than roaches since it requires all this special crap and you need to throw so much stuff away. It's more like smoke damage or something like that.

WaveryR, how much did they charge to seal the holes? I have lots of holes...

I'm actually in the middle of dealing with my own bedbug problem now. I've had one professional treatment (I used Metro Pest and would highly recommend them; professional, friendly, cheaper than the one she's booked--my 1BR was around $400) and will have the follow-up visit next weekend. Yes it sucks, but it's so much better to be aggressive right away than to let them get established.

Bedbugger is a terrific resource: http://bedbugger.com/faqs. It was hands-down the most helpful site I found.

OMG. I am so sorry. I can't imagine the stress that this would put on someone.

I had bed bugs at my last apartment in DC. It was a horrible experience. I had bites for MONTHS before I ever saw a bug, turns out they were hiding between the wooden boards of my futon frame (their excrement eventually formed a visible trail to clue me in to their hideout). But then I saw LOTS of bugs. I moved and got rid of my bed, and a couple of months later I saw a single bed bug on my new bed. Obviously, I freaked out and called an exterminator. When I explained the situation to an exterminator, he advised me to wait until I had seen more than one bug. I'm glad I did, because now it is two years later and I haven't seen another nor had any more of the horrible three-in-a-row bites (I would call the rows of bites "breakfast, lunch, and dinner.")

I'm all itchy just from reading the posts from the last 2 days!

My questions is: Aside from just being disgusting, is there any disease you caan get from bb bites?

Bedbugs (or rather, the fear of them) are the reason I don't buy used furniture off of Craig's list.

do everything you can to get rid of them now before it gets worse.

In answer to your question, GothamTomato: "Aside from just being disgusting, is there any disease you caan get from bb bites?"

Per Dr. Dickson Despommier of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, one of the experts I interviewed for my THIS OLD HOUSE article "Bed Bugs!" http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/interiors/gallery/0,25895,1548781,00.html:

“As far as we know,” he says, “they don’t have the capability of transmitting diseases. That’s important to point out, because it’s easy for people to overreact to these things.”

-D

Damn extra colon!

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/interiors/gallery/0,25895,1548781,00.html

Quick note: Bedbugs leave behind little black spots (I don't know what... waste maybe?). I always inspect craigslist items not only for bugs, but for the telltale spots.

I am about to move to a new place, and the landlord pledges that there are no infestations (bb or otherwise). However, all of this is making me a bit panicky. Has anyone done a preventative treatment of their new apartment? Does anyone think this would be wise?

I am going thru my own bedbug problem. I am absolutely COVERED in bites. I itch like crazy. I vacuumed the mattress, washed everything in hot water - pillows, duvet, clothes....dusted the bed frame with orange oil (we have a platform - no boxspring). I can't even sleep at night because I am sure they are crawling on me. for some reason, my husband has no bites. I was going to replace the mattress, but now I'm not so sure. Extermination? I've got a brownstone. Shit.

Do you seriously have to get rid of everything you own? Or are you exagerating? I don't think I could do that. I hope I'm never faced with it.

This won't kill the bugs, and most likely won't do away with the infestation, but it will minimize or prevent bites while you're trying to get rid of the bugs: pure lavender oil. Sprinkle it liberally on yourself and your bedding before you go to sleep.

I'm a budget adventure traveler, and I always carry a small bottle of lavender oil with me. I spent a few nights in a seedy youth hostel in Bombay (no other cheap beds or rooms available at the time). I was sleeping in a women's dorm. I sprinkled my cot every night with the lavender oil: no bites. All the women around me were munched on!

Amanda does need to launder everything, and she did find bed bugs (plural) and she does need a PCO that knows how to get rid of them. And she needs them to come every two weeks until there are no more bites or signs of bed bugs. (One statistic was that 94% of cases needed more than one treatment, and most need 3 or more, so she should count on multiple PCO/PMP visits.)

MrGreen is a wise man and he is right that sending the laundry out is not a good idea. Some of us may have gotten our bed bugs from folks who sent their infested laundry to our wash and fold places.

What's more, you do not have to get rid of everything you own. PCOs can treat most furniture. But they will know what needs to be tossed, and how to get rid of it without infesting others either as it goes out the door or sits on the curb.

Does Amanda own or rent her apartment? If she owns, she needs to talk to the coop or condo board. The bugs may have come from neighbors and treating one unit will not suffice if more than one is infested. What's more, some neighbors may have bed bugs and not feel the bites or see the bugs. They need to be educated about just how stealthy these monsters are. Many people do not react to bites. Imagine one is your neighbor--the bugs will keep coming.

Also, if Amanda is a renter, she must notify her landlord (who is obliged to pay for treatment and should have the PCO inspect all adjacent units: the one on the top, bottom, and on every side). Again, they may be coming from a neighbor who has not reported them or who hasn't even seen one or felt it. And they will keep coming if the other units are not treated.

I know it all sounds scary, but if people treat bed bugs swiftly and do what they need to, they can be gotten rid of.

http://bedbugger.com/faqs/

Oh, and even if it is just one bed bug, I'd still say, go all out.

An adult female can lay eggs each time she bites. Multiple bites in one week signal the presence of multiple bed bugs.

"Multiple bites in one week signal the presence of multiple bed bugs."

Very true, since bb only want feed around once a week. They spend the rest of the time digesting... that's what the dark masses you can see through their abdomens are.

I'll put in a plug for non-repellant chemicals like Gentrol, an "insect growth inhibitor" that sterilizes bedbugs, roaches, and other crawlies. There's an insecticide, too, which I think is called "Phantom". The concern is that bugs can often avoid treated surfaces if the chemicals announce themselves as irritants. That's one of the problems with the permethryn-type chemicals that are currently standard treatments.

I went on the bedbugger registry and two apartments on my block have bedbugs!!!! I don't have laundry in my building and have been going to a laundromat on my street. Should I start taking my clothes elsewhere if they could be transmitted through laundry or is that too alarmist?

JBtrfly28, just make sure you dry your clothes on high for 20-30 minutes. That will kill the bedbugs and their eggs. Going to a different laundry won't help, bed bugs are everywhere. Those apartments marked on your block are just the tip of the iceberg, the ones that got reported. Just be alert for signs of bed bugs. No need to panic. They won't kill you.

My cousin, who lives in a house in Brooklyn, says that neither she nor anyone else she knows in New York, has had problems with bedbugs. Is this an apartment phenomenon?

Deborah,

It's a house problem too. It's just that they're so much more of a nightmare when your neighbors are attached to you and may be sending the things over. Also, most homeowners are simply going to get help, whereas tenants and co-op owners have to wonder about who is to blame and who should pay.

The CDC website has an article which describes a study done in Toronto in 2003. Most of the cases (as you will see below) were in single family homes. This is really interesting, because you can assume those folks did not get them from neighbors (unless their houses were attached).

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol11no04/04-1126.htm

"Toronto Public Health documented complaints of bed bug infestations from 46 locations in 2003, most commonly apartments (63%), shelters (15%), and rooming houses (11%). Pest control operators in Toronto (N = 34) reported treating bed bug infestations at 847 locations in 2003, most commonly single-family dwellings (70%), apartments (18%), and shelters (8%). Bed bug infestations were reported at 20 (31%) of 65 homeless shelters."

Note the enormous discrepancy between what the city's public health dept hears as complaints (46) vs. how many homes and shelters pest control companies treated (847).

I would venture that the numbers of official complaints in NYC are similarly way off (NYC reported around 1100 official cases last year, but these were only the seriously desperate people who called 311 to report a violation to HPD, and not the majority, who called their landlord, or a pest control firm.

Finally, a lot of people just don't talk about this. That no one has mentioned it is not surprising.

MrGreen--beware, a recent report by Michael Potter clarified that laundry must be dried for 5 minutes once it is totally dry. 30 minutes on a wet load is not enough. Depending on the machine, it might be 80, or more. (I recommend people dry things until they are bone dry, and then add 5 minutes more.)

My husband and i are renters at a apartment we have been suffering from bed bugs. We advised the manager about it and she scheduled the pest control to check on it. They advised us to throw away our mattress so we did we got gid of it. So no more bed we are still sleeping on floor but i dont get no more bed bugs bits. But now they are charging us for the pest control service is that right?