Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

What could be biting me in the night?

16 replies

BiteyBiteyBuggeration · 04/01/2022 01:20

Like an insect or (eek and yeugh) fleas or bedbugs...

I have eczema it has taken me a while to realise that something else is happening too, intensely itchy tiny spots that scab over, but bleed if accidentally scratched, mostly on my arms and lower legs, but also sometimes on my torso, new ones every morning when I am here.

I have just been away for a week, not one of these 'bites' has happened... I live on my own, I don't have any pets and pretty much no-one has been here since March 2020, other than my cleaner.

What could be causing this, do I need to fumigate my bedroom and have my mattress removed by Hazard Control? Should I just burn my house down?

OP posts:
Scottishnewbie2022 · 04/01/2022 01:22

Surely bedbugs I hate to say!

Vapeyvapevape · 04/01/2022 01:25

Sounds like bed bugs , you need to burn your house down and emigrate !

I would get a new mattress and have the room professionally fumigated.

BiteyBiteyBuggeration · 04/01/2022 01:32

Oh my god... how on earth did they get here? Is it something I have failed to do in a housework/keeping things cleaned sort of way?

I will get a new mattress, what do I Google to find the correct sort of fumigator?

This is dreadful and disgusting and where on earth shall I emigrate to?

Also how do I burn my house down with fire without upsetting my (attached) neighbours?

OP posts:

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

Stripyhoglets1 · 04/01/2022 01:40

We got them probably from a hotel. H was travelling with work at the time and our pest control person said hotels have to regularly treat for them.
Get pest control in and they will know if its them.
They leave brown spots on sheets and mattresses. Often live by skirting board etc. Don't move out your bedroom - they will move through the house to look for you and spread elsewhere.

jewel1968 · 04/01/2022 01:47

Bedbugs. No point getting rid of mattress. Get professional pest control. I had them and after a couple of treatments from professionals they refused to come out again as they said living in a terrace meant it would be impossible to get rid. So, in desperation I bought a steam cleaner and steamed every inch of the bed and surrounding areas daily. Eventually it worked but the pest controller had done the heavy lifting and the stream just killed off the remaining few. Some tips:

  • always have white bedding as they leave little tell tale brown marks
  • you can freeze soft toys and the like
  • bag and double bag anything in the bedroom (things that are near the bed,,)you don't need and stored for a few months

You can pick them up from anywhere. Have you been in a hotel recently? Or a hospital? Or it could be neighbours

BiteyBiteyBuggeration · 04/01/2022 01:58

@ Stripyhoglets1 I have emailed pest control, I haven't seen any brown spots... now I have to sleep in there and get bitten until pest control can come don't I?

I bet COVID-19 means that pest control won't be able to come for months... maybe I should just move to a hotel!

OP posts:
AuntyBumBum · 04/01/2022 02:38

maybe I should just move to a hotel!

You might just take them with you in your luggage.

They can spread from one house or flat to another one adjoined. If you've not been away anywhere that might be how you got them. In which case as @jewel1968 suggests, it can make them harder to get rid of. Even if your house is thoroughly treated, they can just temporarily withdraw to the safety of nextdoor until the fuss dies down, and then they'll return.

Angelbaby1985 · 04/01/2022 02:59

Av had simaler but my partner who lives here full time has not sounds the same mostly legs ankles mostly and arms weridly mostly on my right side

Deathraystare · 04/01/2022 07:58

Oh God I remember this happening to me. But there was not only bed bugs but tick/flea type things too. I eventually moved out but told the housing association so hopefully they treated it. I chucked out all my bed linen (little brown stains all over it).

When I moved I only saw one bug (size of an apple pip) and killed it (smells awful when you crush them) and have not been bothered since (( regularly check the mattress).

BluTangClan · 04/01/2022 08:51

Have a look in the seams of the mattress and the nooks and crannies of the bed frame. They're beige/translucent if they haven't fed and red/brown if they have (full of your blood). You could try sleeping on the floor and put the legs of your bed in saucepans of water, so they can't get to you (this will only work if they're not living anywhere other than your bed).
I think you need to determine what it is, hopefully it's not bed bugs.

jewel1968 · 04/01/2022 10:03

A steam cleaner will kill them but it's laborious and slow. And you will need chemicals too if you have any chance of getting rid. If you can't get a pest controller it's probably worth starting with a steam cleaner. It's very satisfying too.

Pralinelatte · 04/01/2022 13:01

Oh poor you! Really sympathise here. We had a nightmare with a bedbug infestation a few years back; probably picked up from a hotel and brought back on luggage. By the time we realised what was happening we had a nasty infection and had to treat a 4 bed Victorian terrace house housing us and 3 kids! Bed bugs spread quickly!

We also had cats, so initially we wondered if the bites could be fleas and sprayed for fleas, but the bites kept appearing and got worse. Bed bug bites are fairly distinctive: often on lower limbs and torso, they were itchy and sort of 'flat', round and red, and often appeared in little rows of around 3 bites. We had bed bugs.

We had a quote from pest control firms but they were expensive, and all of them were pessimistic about reinfection, so we decided to tackle this ourselves. We wanted to stop reinfection as well as stop the current infection. This is how we got rid of them, though it took a while to ensure they'd all gone and was a messy process at times.

First thing to realise is that the bugs come out at night and are attracted to you, you are their food source, so you need to stop them from reaching you in your bed.

Bought special mattress/pillow zipped covers to completely enclose all the mattresses and pillows and stop any bugs hiding in them. Even if you threw away your current mattress/pillows and bought new ones, they would get reinfected quickly, so it's important to cover and enclose them to protect them from future infection. Wrapping in sealed plastic sheets is another cheaper alternative though unpleasant to sleep on. Before the covers went on we vacuumed all the mattresses/pillows first, then steamed all the seams (which is where the bugs hide), then when everything dried we enclosed them in the new covers. Bed bugs can survive for at least 12 months without food so the covers stayed on for 2 years! - only then did we replace the mattresses.

Then we worked room by room starting with the worst room where the infection had started, and was at its worst. Cleared as much as we could out of the room, we fully wrapped soft things like cushions or soft toys in sealed plastic (or threw them out), and completely wrapped upholstered chairs in sealed plastic. All the sealed soft items we kept went into the freezer for 2 weeks (had to clear this out first!) as bed bugs can't survive freezing.

Then cleared and vacuumed each room, and steamed/sprayed(with bed bug killer spray, safe for kids, bought online) all the skirting boards, around beds etc.Had to be very thorough as bed bugs can get in through impossibly small gaps. Next, put a couple of rows of double sided tape around all the doorframe and floor to that room as a physical barrier because bugs cannot physically cross sticky boundaries.

Finally the worst bit, but ultimately the most effective, was to sprinkle a very fine white powder (bought a huge tub online and used all of it) over all the bedroom carpets, using extra next to skirting boards and around the base of the bed frames. Again, the bugs can't physically cross this barrier. This was a really messy process and meant we were all covered in bits of powder while it was down - had to use a sticky roller on uniforms before the kids went out to school every day - and had to vacuum/resprinkle the powder most days, but after 2 weeks this had worked well. For the first few days we could see bed bugs which had been trapped in the powder (yuk!), but they'd stopped almost appearing after a couple of weeks. Mind you, I kept the powder sprinked along the skirtings and around the base of the beds for months, just to make sure they'd been defeated.

tbh it was a nightmare for a month or so, and added a lot of work but was successful in the end. You need to be determined and thorough to beat the blighters but it can be done. Good luck!!

LittleMouseOnTheFairy · 04/01/2022 13:04

Possibly need to rule out scabies too.

PomegranateQueen · 04/01/2022 13:08

Carpet beetle larvae leave similar spots and are much more common than bed bugs. One of the student houses I lived in had an infestation. Obsessive hoovering eventually got rid of them.

jewel1968 · 04/01/2022 14:51

@Pralinelatte wow very impressed. We did a lot of what you did (after the pest control guy would not return) but you deffo went the extra mile. Good to see it can be done by oneself. You should think about writing a blog or something to help others cos you clearly did your homework.

BiteyBiteyBuggeration · 05/01/2022 19:53

and the good news is, I have now been home for three nights without a single bite.

Looking at the picture of bed bug bites and reading all your descriptions of them, my bites weren't typical, more like a mosquito or midgie, maybe it died whilst I was away

Maybe I panicked, but I am so relieved that I don't have to move out and fumigate the whole house, but thank you all for your support and ideas about how to cope

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page