Any advice experience with bed bugs?

[purpledaffodil]

I think we have bed bugs. My husband got big patches of bites all over a few weeks ago and went to the Dr. who told him it was an allergic reaction. Since then I have gotten a few as well (although mine are nearly as big as his and I don't have as many). We did spring cleaning and vacuumed everything (couch, matress, under everything, in every

Comments

[tatianne]

I was recently buying hypo allergenic covers at Target and noticed they have a mattress cover that zips around the entire mattress for bed bugs. If you thinkits isolated to the couch now, why not put the cushion outside for a while to be sure?

[webmiss_k]

Bedbugs can go up to a year without eating. They are particularly difficult to get rid of.

[fakeitenough]

yep, i got bed bugs at my apartment not too long ago. terrible. get the mattress cover the person above me mentioned for both your mattress & box spring. they make them for pillows too. also, go to home depot; in the bug section there is a bedbug & flea or something like that spray. it's safe for furniture, so you can spray the shit out of your apartment.

it is my understanding that if your landlord is taking too long to get back to you, you can call an exterminator & make the landlord pay for it. if they refuse, i personally would imagine that would be enough to get you out of your lease.

also, if there's someone else's house you go a lot, look out for them there too. they started out from my apartment, but they ended up getting brought over to my boyfriend's room at his parents' house. they even managed to get in the crack between the molding & the wall.

these buggers are ridiculous & SNEAKY. not trying to be a bummer, just trying to tell you everything i can think of :/

[bkmichele]

I work in a hotel and I gotta tell ya. First, bedbugs can come from almost anywhere fabric. My property regularly does preventative treatment but all it takes is for a guest to stay at a property the previous night, toss their suitcase on an infected bed, and boom. They come to our property and bring the bedbugs with them. Since they can go for so long without eating, you won't know if you have an infestation until everyone wakes up with bites. When that happens we quarantine the room and those around it (they can travel under the connecting doors) and heat treat the room. It's also good practice to get rid of the mattresses and sheets.

I wouldn't mess around. Call in the professionals. Let them douse your home in every cancer causing bug killing chemical that's legal in your state. It's worth it not to be itchy.

[coranne]

THIS! We got them after a hotel stay... blech! We had to clean out our ENTIRE apartment and take everything to a laundry mat to be washed in HOT water- then they had to bring in new furniture and steam all of our carpeting and then laid a bug bomb in the apartment... it was horrible!

[bkmichele]

Yeah. It's a big pain to properly eviscerate those guys. Knowing how much money and time my property spends on trying to keep bugs of all sorts out of the guest rooms and kitchens, I am so leery of everywhere I stay.

[cheeseydreams]

THIS!

I had bedbugs in one of my past apartments, the only way my roommates and I got rid of them was by throwing away all our furniture and moving. We took all of our clothes to the laundromat in between places and washed them all on the hot wash setting.

I still feel bad that we never let the landlord know to fumigate, but everything we tried on our own failed miserably. And to this day, 5 years later, I get paranoid about them being in my bed and do occasional checks.

[termofart]

If possible, you might want to consider getting the couch out of there ASAP.

And maybe just get rid of it.

The bugs are kind of insidious and can get into everything.

[butterface]

and if you put the couch on the curb, you should mark it so ppl know it has bugs and to avoid it!

[kitchen_poet]

Oh ick. My cousin and his wife had a bedbug infestation after they stayed at a motel and it was awful. They got in the carpet and it was almost impossible to get even the stuff the exterminators sprayed to work.

If you think they are strictly confined to the couch for now, would getting rid of it be a possibility? If they haven't spread to your bed, carpet, etc. yet, it might be worth the extra expense just to buy a new couch. But definitely have the place treated by a professional before bringing new furniture in, and mattress & box spring covers are a must.

Oh, and FYI: we rent and our place got fleas. It was horrible and our landladies refused to cover it. Of course, our landladies are awful, bitter, hateful shrews, but they claimed that since the fleas were brought in from outside, it wasn't their responsibility.