Bed bugs - desperate for help

[goldengoddess]

I am at my wits end. I have had a problem with bed bugs for nearly two years now and am so stressed about it.
We have been using a professional company who claim to be world experts in the problem, and rather than using harsh chemicals, they use a deep cleaning strategy combined with that white earth stuff which slowly kills the bugs. However, I have spent thousands of pounds on treatment and the problem just doesn't go away. I cannot now sleep with the stress of it, and just as I am drifting off wake with a start imagining that I can feel bed bugs crawling on me. I am sorely tempted to get another company in who will blitz the place with some hard core chemicals, which the first company stress is not the best strategy as apparently that just drives the buggers underground/deep into the skirting boards/floorboards, and only kills those bugs immediately in the vicinity.

I feel like burning all the beds and moving house to get away from them, but then would be terrified of taking the bugs with me. HELP!! If anyone has managed to succesfully eradicate them I would love to know how they did it as I am now really desperate

We live in a Victorian terraced house so apparently it’s quite common for
Them
To spread from
House to house! There are loads of gaps they can crawl though not to
Mention all the adjoining cellars. Urgh I cannot stop
Itching and I know it’s partly psychosomatic.
I already use only white bed linen and am
Distraught at how many sheets and pillow cases have been ruined by the disgusting stains which are impossible to remove - unless someone has any amazing tips as to how to get rid of them .

Well I have found vanish pink good for blood/biological. A mix of dish washing detergent first, cold water (too late prob) soaking in the vanish and then the spray left on overnight. Dry in the sun. Heat can set some stains but vanish has been better than bleach for some things for me.

If you think they are coming in you need to seal the perimeter of the room with that Cimex (sp). I would personally make a 1 inch wide band of it around all of the skirting boards and leave it there. Forever.

If you go away I'd cover the floor in it and vacuum it up when you get home (careful of the vacuum bags! Empty outside into a bin bag, seal, and throw away.

But the whole house needs to be treated at once really. Ugh, ugh, ugh. I got off so lightly. I think I bought them back from a hotel and got rid so quickly they didn't have a chance.

Just steam the fuck out of everything too.

When we had bedbugs (and used D C’s company) it was hands down the most stressful episode of my entire life. We couldn’t even cuddle the children in our bed in the morning. Constantly on edge. Awful.

D C’s treatment did work for us though - took us several goes.

Vodka, your posts at Tue 18-Aug-20 12:18:28 and Tue 18-Aug-20 12:24:32 did very much suggest that one steam treatment would solve OP's problem. Those posts seem to contradict your other posts where you mention all the other stuff you did.

Steaming is useful but on its own will not solve the problem - as you know because you threw everything at it, and as OP knows because the company she is using use regular steam treatments.

Mattress encasements and interceptors can be useful depending on where the bed bugs are - OP says she has an infestation in the headboard and bed frame so her bugs will not be at all impeded by either of these.

The other things you suggest - DIY bug spray and especially bug bombs - are ineffective and can be actively harmful because they can cause the bugs to scatter and will also increase resistance. So if you then decide to hire a pest control company that uses chemicals it's likely to require more treatments to more rooms in your house, more pesticides (which are not harmless to human health), be less effective and more expensive.

Other people have suggested OP should throw out a load of stuff. There are two problems with this:

1. unless items are properly sealed before moving and disposed of very carefully, you risk spreading them.

2. as OP has discovered with her son's bed, unless the bugs are eliminated they are very likely to just reinfest the new stuff.

When I was dealing with bed bugs last year I found the Bedbugger site very useful. Unfortunately it disappeared at the start of this year but some (most?) of it is still available through the wayback machine.

This is a good place to start:

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181128232641/bedbugger.com:80/2007/01/20/faq-think-you-have-bed-bugs-some-dos-and-donts/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20181128232641/bedbugger.com:80/2007/01/20/faq-think-you-have-bed-bugs-some-dos-and-donts/

The recent bed bug resurgence hit the US about 10 years before it got going in Europe and some of the US university sites have a huge amount of useful info. Ohio State University has a good site with links to lots of resources from other unis:

u.osu.edu/bedbugs/

Absolutely I am invested in this, I never want to have to deal with those fuckers ever again. I haven't felt the need to tell anyone to fuck off though, or called them a nasty ablist term, or suggested they are drunk.

If you really want to see some overinvestment, here is world expert David Cain having a flame war with another world expert over whose bit of carboard is the most effective:

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20171226070309/bedbugger.com/forum/topic/new-monitor-available-independently-tested-by-richard-naylor" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20171226070309/bedbugger.com/forum/topic/new-monitor-available-independently-tested-by-richard-naylor

There was another thread where he got into a screaming fight about DE vs. Cimexa but it would be difficult to find now it's all just archived.

yes, our next door neighbours have had an infestation too and this is part of the problemm, made worse by the fact that it is a tenanted house and it was empty for a few months while the landlord refurbished it, meaning that the fuckers migrated in search of fresh blood. Fortunately the house is now rented out again and as far as I know the new tenants haven't complained to the landlord about a problem, but as I know from bitter experience you can have an infestation for months without necessarily being aware of it, especially, if like my son, you don't react to bites.

Ah, this explains a lot. Yes, they will easily find their way from one property to the one next door if their usual source of food is gone or if something has caused them to scatter. I wonder if the neighbours on the other side of this property have them too?

LangClegs yes, neighbours on one side of us definitely had an infestation, and will find out tomorrow when the BB company go and inspect the property whether that is still the case If it is then they can treat the neighbouring property as well. I've informed neighbours on the other side but they have checked their beds thoroughly and fortunately for them they don't appear to be infested.
I feel like I am becoming a one woman bed bug exterminator expert- an area of expertise I wish I hadn't had to acquire!!!

And to the poster who is paranoid about getting bedbugs, here is some advice.
Always wash all bedding at 60 degrees minimum.
Avoid sitting down on public transport if at all possible
Brush down your clothes before entering your house
When staying in hotels, AVOID putting your case on the bed, or even the floor. Either use the fold up frame thing that hotels usually provide, or put your case in the bath! Then there is no chance that lurking bed bugs can hitch a ride home in your luggage
If you're really paranoid, you can buy passive bed bug monitors online which offer the perfect refuge for bed bugs which you then check once every couple of weeks to ensure you don't have a problem.
Hoover your mattress, under your bed, and around the skirting boards at least once a month to ensure that any stray bugs are eradicated.
The occasional steam treatment would also be helpful around the matterss, bed frame and skirting boards.

If you do all the above then I think your chance of any bed bugs taking a hold will be minimal unless youre' really unlucky.

Vodka I think you need to take a breather.........

@goldengoddess Anyway op. I think as you have a basement I would be inclined to steam that too. A big/shit job so maybe just around the edges? I also don't know if it is possible but I would be inclined to then run some kind or tape (insulating tape? Waterproof tape? Around the cracks/edges where the properties meet and where the basement meets your floor. To kind of seal them off. They don't have super strong jaws and you could spray insecticide down first and let it all dry then tape over. That duck tape is pretty strong. Not masking tape or packing tape and you want one that won't lift.

And, because I am that much of a bedbug hater, I would think about lifting the skirting boards in the bedrooms (not that hard, i need to do it for my new wooden floor in bedrooms) and steaming them, sealing any gaps I could see and putting that cimex in, before putting them back.

Also after steaming floor boards, letting it dry and whacking a load of cimex down and brushing it so it goes down between the floorboards and into gaps.

There's killing the ones you have and there's making sure the little fuckers don't migrate. Steaming will do the killing and sealing will stop them coming and cimex will get any left. Oh and if you have any spray left over probably spray but I wouldn't want to steam over something I have sprayed. Not without a mask anyway.

Sorry I mean lifting the skirting boards and steaming into the gaps! Though you could steam the backs of the skirting boards too. Or maybe spray with insecticide.

@Brokensunrise

Vodka I think you need to take a breather.........

Why? I'm fine . I just don't like people accusing me of odd things. I stick up for myself. And I'm sitting on my bed relaxing having just steamed my pillows and put them on the line in the sun.

Now if you know anything about boilers that I could use help with! (Another thread)

Well you keep having your posts deleted because they’re so aggressive! So not sure who you think you’re kidding! Just be nice it’s not hard, honest

I feel like I am becoming a one woman bed bug exterminator expert- an area of expertise I wish I hadn't had to acquire!!!

YY that's one very good thing about David Cain's company, you learn a lot! I don't think I'd have had the confidence to finish the job myself without what I learned from them.

There was no treating the whole house, no bagging up all my belongings, no trying to seal up every tiny gap, no lifting floorboards and trying to steam underneath (!)

We treated 2 beds with fairly heavy infestations and the area 3 feet around each of them. The only thing I changed when I took over treatment myself was to swap the DE for cimexa.

Have you thrown the beds out had the place cleaned and it's still happening. Surely you haven't got the beds still. X

I’ve replaced one of the beds but that is not the long term solution. The bugs can hide in skirting boards, in floor boards in bed frames bed side tables, cracks in the wall, peeling wallpaper etc. They have to be completely exterminated! Which is harder the you’d think. I had a problem with moths in the past but that pales into insignificance compared to this!!

I hope you get it sorted. I have no idea how you’d ever sleep if you’re lying there as bait for the bugs.

How did the this resolve? We've got them and I'm freaking out 😞

Hi, well, after about three years of absolute hell dealing with these completely vile creatures, I am cautiously optimistic that we have got rid of them. But to be honest I have been so scarred by the experience that I am never 100% confident I've seen the back of them, and lying in bed at night I imagine that I can feel them crawling on my leg or face. So far it is all in my imgaination but I will honestly be hysterical if they made a return. I know it sounds over the top but until you have experienced the full horrror of being infested by the fuckers it's hard to describe how stressful it is.

Anyway, I think what really worked for us was using Cimexa which I bought from Amazon. It's a very fine powder which works in a similar way to the dia thingy earth stuff, BUT it is much faster working and killls insects far more quickly than the DE.

Every time I changed the sheets (washed at 90 degrees just in case), I applied a liberal dusting of cimexa around teh edges of the mattress, the head board, the skirting board and then when I made up the bed again I even put a dusting around where the sheet tucks into the mattress just to be sure. I still keep a dusting of it on the headboard and on the bed frame on all beds in the house.

Anyway, hope that helps, and if you have an infestation you have my utmost sympathy as it really affected my mental health, making me anxious, sleepless, exhausted and stressed. It was absolutely fucking horrible.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ROCKWELL-CXID032-CimeXa-Insecticide-Rockwell/dp/B0085HRWI8/ref=asc_df_B0085HRWI8/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=269038055427&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=6621217508299117135&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045901&hvtargid=pla-329402406914&psc=1

This is the stuff

https://bedbugs.solutions/diatomaceous-earth-vs-cimexa-which-works-best-for-bedbugs/

So pleased you are rid of the fuckers at last!

Thanks Langs clegg, you were an amazing source of help and advice and in fact I think it was you who suggested I use cimexa in the first place, so thank you thank you!!! As i said it was the most ghastly experience I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, and I am still nervous about what I find when I flip over a mattress or change the sheets. But I am super vigilant these days, so would notice a bug a mile off!!!

Totally understand the mental stress - I feel insane and I've only known what's going on for a few days. We've thrown a horrific amount of money at professional pest control but it comes with a guarantee (they come back and treat again for free as many times as needed if it doesn't kill them off initially) so I'm really hoping that it work.
So far they only seem to be in the one room but I'm absolutely paranoid they're going to turn up in our brand new sofa.

Good luck Yuko, hope you have swift success.

The mental distress caused by these stupid little bugs is something else, isn't it?