Bed bugs in my bed. I’m horrified!!

[BeLimeTiger]

We got back from holiday in Italy three weeks ago and my partner was complaining of bites (I thought he was being a bit of a hypochondriac). Anyway, I noticed bites today and specs of brown/red on our pillows.

I found one of the critters and took a picture of it… definitely bed bugs.

Has anyone successfully treated an infestation and if so how? I’ve put all the sheets and mattresses protectors in the wash. I’m so horrified!

Don't bother with diatomaceous earth. It does kill bedbugs but only slowly. It works by damaging their exoskeleton so they dry out and die but every time they moult they get a whole new exoskeleton and they moult quicker than the DE kills them. The adults will not live so long because they no longer moult but they live long enough to breed at least once. So the best that DE can do is slow down the population growth.

There's some stuff called cimexa which is a very fine silica gel powder which works on the same principle as DE but it works much faster so it kills them before they get a chance to moult. You can use it in conjunction with whatever professional treatment you are having, it won't interfere and it might mean one less repeat treatment.

Heat treatment is highly effective but it's not suitable for every kind of property. If you live in e.g. a victorian terrace it'll just drive them next door and they'll likely move back again once things have cooled down so you'll then have bedbugs and also really pissed off neighbours. I can't imagine any reputable company doing a heat treatment in those circumstances but there are probably some cowboys around.

I wish you the very best of luck, do look after your mental health, these little fuckers really mess with your head. That's the worst they can do though, the bites are annoying but no worse than mosquito bites.

Nah, the dust kills them off, they avoid it in future, the treatments are just nonsense, chemicals and coloured liquid sprayed about then they come back a few months later, you have to associate the human with their death then they don"t want that human any more.

We brought some back from holiday. We did manage to defeat them, it took a lot of effort.
Firstly add these blocks onto the legs of the bed. Ensure nothing touches the bed, so no curtains touching, no covers touching the wall.
We threw all pillows and duvet away and bought new.
We sprayed the whole bed. We added mattress protector.
We ensured nothing touched the bed.
Over time we washed all curtains and clothes on 60 degrees and tumble dried.
We steam cleaned the floor.
It eventually stopped, however we caught it very early and I think there were about 4 of them?

you have to associate the human with their death then they don"t want that human any more

Interesting theory. Bedbugs are clever in their own way but I don't think they recognise individual humans. The ones we had did not start preferring my husband when I was the one dismantling the bed and raining death upon them week after week after fucking week.

DE and Cimexa are both dusts which work mechanically rather than chemically - i.e. they physically injure the bugs and dry them out rather than poisoning them. This means they are less likely to develop resistance although there is now some evidence that they are starting to evolve thicker exoskeletons in response to exposure to these dusts*

Nevertheless, DE takes up to 14 days to kill adult bugs whereas cimexa takes up to 4 days.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5198222/

Juvenile bedbugs moult every 5-8 days. So cimexa will kill them before they moult whereas DE will not.

So with DE they moult, they get a new exoskeleton, the clock starts again. Only when they reach adulthood and stop moulting will their exoskeleton be exposed to the DE for the required 14 days.

An adult female will mate within 1-2 days of her final moult and 1-2 days after that will start laying up to 5 eggs per day. So she can lay about 60 eggs before the DE finally kills her. And each of those 60 babies will survive til adulthood + 14 days ...

https://www.vdacs.virginia.gov/pdf/bb-biology1.pdf
(contains pictures of bedbugs)

So that's why I say don't bother with diatomaceous earth. Use the stuff that kills them the quickest, before they get a chance to breed, before they get a chance to evolve further resistance.

To be clear, this is not a brand ad for cimexa, which is often difficult to get hold of in the UK. I learnt recently on another thread that there's a similar product called chinchex which is licenced for the UK. There may also be other brands available now, I don't know. Whatever it's called, the product you need is silicon dioxide in a very fine powder form suitable for pest control.

*It's quite likely we will also see some evolved resistance to heat treatments in the near future - these fuckers will be with us to the end.

Well they’re definitely on their way out. The pest control used Cimetrol super EU which kills them in three different ways. They’re affected by the nerve agent which is making them come out during the day. Ours was apparently a mild case

Really glad it was a mild case. I'm still inspecting the bed every day and praying we've been spared....

Hello everyone, replying to this in solidarity with the original poster - I too am going through this at the moment, perhaps a couple of weeks ahead!
My first sign was small black dots on my white sheets which were impossible to wash off- a quick google returned bed bugs but I thought surely not…
a week later I was washing my sheets again and found a bug attached to my fitted sheet as I was putting it into the machine.
Luckily; I was able to get a pest control visit 2 days later who reassured me it was likely an early infestation as he could not see any bugs or eggs on inspection. I had taken a picture of the bug which he was able to identify as a bed bug. My first treatment was steam and chemical spray. A 2.5 week gap before a second chemical treatment 4 days ago.
the way this treatment works is by forcing the bugs out of their hiding spots to cross the chemical and (hopefully) die. The experience has been hard to cope with as it feels like it’s getting worse not better, I now wake in the middle of the night to kill the bugs that are hanging out on my bed - mentally and physically challenging.
My reason for posting this is that I would highly recommend professional treatment without delay as the longer you wait the worse it will get. If anyone is in a similar position I would also advise to avoid deep diving onto online chat boards - Reddit on particular is horrendous and will only peak your anxiety. Although I am not out of the woods, I have chosen to “trust the process” and hoping a turning point comes soon. The pest control company I am using came recommended and have been treating these problems successfully for years.
Online you only read about the worst case scenarios. I am hoping to follow this up with a positive story of successful treatment in the hope it may help anyone who is struggling. I’ve actually found chatting to the Google AI function very reassuring and has helped me rationalise some of my thoughts.
The pest control company told me they are the busiest they’ve ever been with these cases, you are not alone and this can happen to anyone!

That's awful.

Did you get compensation from the accommodation provider?

@MustTryHarderAndHarder no, amd not a hope of any either. It's really put me off going away and really spoilt the holiday.

Yes, I have been worried about bed bugs since I first found out about them 20 years ago. My family used to think I was mad, but now understand my fears.

I actually put these around the legs of beds to catch bed bugs every time I go away so that I can deal with my luggage before I go back inside my house just like you did:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01CLG5ZSM?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1

Was it a hotel and what did they say?

I hope you got them. We found one after a holiday years ago and it was a total nightmare. Had to wash everything on hot and destroyed loads of things. Had the bed risers and the tape and the earth and everything. Thankfully they didn’t seem to make it to our daughter’s room but I was in a total panic for weeks with it all. Such awful bugs.

We had them after a holiday, the most horrific time, I still get flashbacks.

Don’t bother with home remedies, you need to get a professional heat treatment - just pay up ASAP - most good providers guarantee it so they will come back if it doesn’t work first time.

We had to have them come back twice but they haven’t come back so far and it’s been around a year 🙏🏼 good luck OP!!!

We used a company called British Bug Control and they were good.

My reality is that there were bedbugs, the dust was put to use and they never came back. They don"t need to know about individual humans, do you think they care that a different human is in a hotel bed every night? The dust pollutes their area of operation, they can no longer operate in that area, it doesn"t matter how they evolve or moult or whatever as soon as they come into contact with the dust again they are back to square one. It would be like you trying to open a chip shop in the Australian outback, you are not going to survive and the business is not going to survive.

When the chemicals wear off they come back, how else would the companies stay in business? There is a LOT of resistance on this thread to the very simple cost effective remedies, that is mildly suspicious IMO. Ask any builder if he/she ever found bedbugs on a building site and you will know what to do.

For those who have picked them up on holiday - the majority - what did you do next time you went away? I didn't spot them -and then only a couple of tiny ones on the headboard and one on the bed, no signs on the mattress or sheets- until three nights in and that was too late. The bites can take a couple of days to come up which is why I am still stressed a week after we got home.
We were careful coming into the house but doing that and hot washing and ironing everything was a nightmare. I really don't want to go away again anywhere ever, which I know is ridiculous.

Also, how do you handle visitors staying over, particularly adult children who’ve been away travelling!

Yes it is ridiculous, you probably won"t get the dust through customs but buy it when you reach your destination and dust the room!

You dust the room, welcome them to their doom!

We brought them back from holiday once. Grim. I steamed the little bastards to death which helped loads. And fortunately the council came and sprayed for free

Well, you said 'you have to associate the human with their death then they don"t want that human any more' which implied they knew about individual humans but I can't really work out the rest of your post or your other post about building sites so perhaps I have misunderstood.

For the first couple of years after we had them I would not sleep anywhere until I'd unmade the bed, checked under the mattress and if possible inside the bedframe, isolated my luggage when I got home etc., and I wouldn't sit down on public transport. But we never did work out where ours had come from anyway and it really sucks the joy out of life having to do stuff like that all the time. Like you, I stopped wanting to go away or travel anywhere.

So now I just leave a light dusting of Cimexa down all the time in the bed frames and under the beds. It stays active for up to 10 years so it's just a case of reapplying it on the rare occasions I hoover under the beds. That way if I bring anything home it's unlikely to live long enough to get established.

I dust all the seams of the suitcases with cimexa before I go away and use the suitcase stand if there is one, otherwise keep the suitcase in the bath or shower - never ever on or under the bed. Also bag up dirty laundry straight away as they can be attracted to that. If you're really worried you can get soluble laundry bags then when you get home you can put the whole bag straight in the washing machine.

Then I consciously decide to not worry about it. If we get them again then we'll deal with it.

What a helpful comment

"So now I just leave a light dusting of Cimexa down all the time in the bed frames and under the beds. It stays active for up to 10 years so it's just a case of reapplying it on the rare occasions I hoover under the beds. That way if I bring anything home it's unlikely to live long enough to get established."

Bingo. Somebody gets it.

And also incorrect.