Anyone ever had BED BUGS??????

[Bushnels]

Changed my name for this one. Can't believe it. We have been getting bitten but thought it was Mosquitos but then found a bug on DS's bed and lo and behold it is a fucking bed bug. Got a specialist pest controler coming in but I just can't fucking believe it.

DP did spend a night in a hotel in Feb and apparently it is the likely cause.

Apparently they are increasing at a rate of knots and are difficult to eliminate.

Why did I feel the need to change my name?????

[shouldbedoingsomethingelse]

why indeed?

[LilyLoo]

i thought we all had some type of bug in our beds that feed off our dead skin [bleeeugh] emotion

[Spidermama]

Yes my mum had them. Her mattress was quite new too and she's pretty clean.

I'm not sure how they arrived as I don't know much about them but I suspect that unruly, stinking hound of hers. She had itchy bumps all over.

[Bushnels]

Well I think I changed my name cos I have always associated them with filthy living conditions and whilst I am not Kim and Aggie I live in a fairly clean environment.

[earlgrey]

H told me he heard on the radio that there's a worldwide epidemic of them. We have some nasty bites on our legs but we put it down to mosquitoes since our dog doesn't seem to have fleas. Aren't they notoriously hard to spot? What doe they look like? How do you recognise one?

[pooka]

I've posted this before, but I heard fab advice on radio. When you visit a hotel under no circumstances leave your luggage on the floor of your room. Often hotels have those wierd frame thingies, metal tubes with webbing over. they are specifically designed for your luggage to rest on, because bed bugs canot climb up metal.

[moondog]

Really Pooka?
How mad...

[moondog]

I mean what is mad is tacit assumption that bedbugs will be in hotel room so all one can do is take preventative measures.

[Rachmumoftwo]

I am sure it is just like nits, no-one likes getting them but they are an unfortunate fact of life and not worth beating yourself up about.
We haven't had bedbugs, but if I forget to say 'don't let the bedbugs bite' after 'sleep tight' I get told off- even if I think DDs are asleep!.

[pooka]

I think that's why they don't tell you what the specific function of the stand is - if they do it's like saying "yes, we may have bed bugs".
The radio item I heard followed that american couple suing the Hilton or the Savoy because of the horror and distess of importing bugs back to the US. At first I scoffed, but when I heard how difficult it is to eradicate them I was more sympathetic.

[Blandmum]

They don't tend to live in the bed, they live in the walls, and come down onto the bed to feast upon you as you sleep

[Blandmum]

I correct myself, they can live in walls etc

Wouldn't like to give duff gen

[Rachmumoftwo]

martianbishop- that sounds like the stuff of nightmares!

[suedonim]

Is that so, Pooka? I thought they were to stop me getting backache from bending down to the floor.

[besidetheseaside]

LilyLoo - there are dust mites which are everywhere but you can't see them, but bed bugs are very obvious - maybe half a centimetre long, and give you evil itchy red bumps.
We had them once in a crappy student flat. I got bitten to buggery but dp wasn't affected at all.

[besidetheseaside]

but yeah, they were hiding in the walls so you didn't see them most of the time.

[pooka]

I think so - but then I am particularly credulous/gullible.
Once you have an infestation is really hard to shift the buggers apparently - massive extermination required. Have made a mental note to use the stands whenever I next go to a hotel (probably 2011).

[Bushnels]

It's going to cost us £125 a room to treat and probably extreme measures like washing EVERYTHING at 6O degrees and I mean everything.

We have to leave everything as it is for now in case we remove any evidence and part of the treatment will consist of bagging everything and then washing.

[besidetheseaside]

Is that through the council Bushnel? When I first discovered them I freaked and got totally conned by a company who charged us £300 to treat, but when that didn't work I contacted the council who only charged about £40 I think, and dealt with it in one treatment.

[kookaburra]

They live in cracks in walls and furniture and skirting boards , not matresses - we had them once in a flat we rent out. A tenant left a bed behind and one of DH's business associates used it for the night and found some He sqaushed one and showed it to DH and they googled it & saw a pic.
We chucked the bed out, ( I felt itchy in my car fopr weeks after transporting to the dump till I forgot about it)fumigated all the cracks we could see in that room with insecticide. (I also got the carpet steam cleaned and scrubbed with bleach around the skirting not becuase it was effective but becuase it made me feel less itchy going into that room...)
Since then no-one has spotted one - about 5 years later (various other friends and family stayed there before we finally got round to renting it again)

[Bushnels]

Council were going to charge £265 and that was for 1 treatment. The private company seem a lot better and it is for 2 treatments. For example they want us to leave everything as it is so they can assess the level of infestation and treat according to level. Thye will then help bag everything. The council wanted us to wash and bag everything first and to move all furniture away from the walls. Againt he priate co will move all the furniture.

[bundle]

please make sure whoever does teh treatment is thorough - a friend found them in the posters (even under the blutack) and in shelves in her boys' room. they literally chucked the beds out of the window to avoid infecting the rest of the house. they are HIDEOUS

ahem

[Bushnels]

Thing is other than the 2 we found crawling in DS's bed can't find evidence of them anywhere else. Hopefully a sign of a light infection

[bundle]

my friend can now spot them at 100 yards. she's an expert on their poo. try googling for their faeces, it can look pretty inocuous from what I remember.