Im coming late to your thread Op. My mil found them in september 2019. It was hell. I think that was my september all gone. We had to help her sort it out. She had cognitive decline too so was moving things from the bedroom whilst i was going ballistic. She paid for private heat treatment, 1000s, i believe, for most but not all rooms, but it did work and so i believe it was worth it. Her bites had been ongoing 5 months. The gp said it was a cat allergy rash.
We think her source bedbug came from her elderly sister and brother staying in her bedroom in March. They had a large suitcase and were frequent travellers. I assume it was one pregnant one that crawled out and set up a giant family in her room. Funny enough the sister didnt get any infestation! Mil wasnt going to tell them but I insisted in case they had been scratching and suffering too and didnt know why.
We had to do a lot of washing which doesnt kill them, only mega high temps . Tumble drying does, dead ones in the lint ! Ironing kills them.
Her heat treatment was quite successful but the man had to come spray at no extra cost, after she found a slow big one in the drawer a month or so after heat treatment. He then left sticky pads under furniture. I read so much, and their procreation process was really the stuff of horror movies. I couldnt sleep and the infestation wasnt even in my home.
It sent me a bit crazy, I recall pulling my clothes off as soon as i entered my own house, after coming from hers, putting my clothes in a bag, emptying bag into machine. I wore knee length skirts, vest tops, bare arms and bare legs and flip flops, tied up my hair, thinking i would feel and see them better if they got on me. It was much worse than flea infestation which I've also been through!
Mil had to come to my house on heat treatment day.😵 I took her handbag and coat and shoes and put them in a giant pink garden tub in the bath, which i had dusted with talc, (cant climb out, no grip).
I hoovered every cranny and centimetre of where she had been sitting. I had laid doublesided sticky on the stairs to try to keep any potential infestation in my house downstairs. I put doublesided sticky round my hemnes bed frame which touches the floor at head and foot. I admit I had more than a touch of hysteria as I already knew they could drop directly on us from the ceiling to feed, having located us from our exhaled co2.
Anyway, she got rid. I had to hoover up all the dead ones and clean her room after the heat treatment and get rid of her mattress. She wanted me to have the pine headboard😱. "Too good to throw out". I hid it behind her wardrobe.
I have even slept in her house again, since 2023 although i admit i always hang my items up on the back of the door, not in a wardrobe and never throw my coat on the floor or a bed. I keep all the pockets of my winter coats zipped on trains, buses and cinema. There will be a better day coming when you are free of all thought of them. You wont look at every mark on your body and think, omg is that a bite?