We have a bed bug issue. When I found out several days ago I was totally disgusted and could hardly believe it happened to me!
I had noticed some bites on my son, a couple on my daughter, I’d get a few at night too, but my husband had none. At first I thought it was spiders because when we bought our house a year ago there were a lot of spiders and we ended up bombing the house to get rid of all of them.
But I saw one bed bug on my son’s bed in the early AM when I was getting him up for school. I left the lights dim while I was waking him so the nasty critter on the headboard had not hidden himself yet. I killed the bug and went on the internet where I was easily able to identify it as a bed bug. My husband and I stripped the kids beds and took the mattresses off (just for the record I change the sheets weekly). My kids have wooden beds. In the spaces between the wood and where the screws were on the beds we found them on my sons bed, it was disgusting. My daughters bed didn’t seem to have any but I did find a dead on on the floor under her bed (the exterminator said he saw egg sacks in the cracks of her bed). Our bed had three adults visible on the bottom, which I killed.
We called three exterminators and had them come out and give quotes. One said they would come out with a pesticide gas in three applications and charge us 0 (local company), another said they would use a freezing method with one application and charge us 0 (terminx), and the final one said they would use a steaming method with one application and charge us 00 (orkin). We decided to go with Orkin because the steam seemed like the best method and he seemed pretty confident he could kill them all with one application.
My husband and I were freaked so we took the kids mattress outside and put them in the garage, we also took apart their wooden beds (my husband took it apart and I steamed the bed and any bugs as he was doing it) then we wood the bed frames outside as well.
Our bed is still in our room but we haven’t slept on it. Our couch had no traces of bugs according to the exterminators so we left it in the living room. The used furniture we had in our family room we threw out just in case.
Tuesday & Wednesday night (we discovered them Tuesday morning), we bought an air mattress and slept in the family room (which is on the opposite side of the house as the bedrooms). Wednesday night something bit my ankle (only me). We moved our air mattress to the kitchen and slept there Thursday night. I woke up Thursday morning and something had bit my upper arm (only me). This whole time I had been emptying the bedrooms (without any help might I add since my husband had to work and my kids are too young to be of any help) and the exterminator couldn’t come until Monday. So I told my husband I couldn’t stand being here until they were gone so Friday I took the kids and went to a hotel where we had a good nights sleep. Then last night we stayed at my husbands parents house (don’t worry we were very careful not to bring anything with us).
Now I have been preparing for our extermination appointment on Monday this whole time which involves completely emptying the bedrooms of everything except the furniture. I have to rewash all the clothes that were in the dressers. Put all the kids toys and our possessions in plastic bags and take it out of the room until the treatment is done.
But here is my concern. I haven’t found any evidence of them being anywhere except in the beds (with exception of my son’s room I think they may have been in the guitar leaning up against his bed so i threw it out). I’ve inspected their toys, books, clothes as I’m throwing everything in bags and there is no evidence. There is no brown markings on any walls or baseboards.
I’m just worried I’m paying 00 for an extermination that I might not need. From cleaning the bedrooms it seems that as long as we either buy new mattress or put bed bug protection covers on the mattress they will be fine. I’ve already bought the kids new metal bed frames. But what makes me think we still need the extermination is the fact that I was bitten twice during the night in different rooms of the house. I know something bit me those two nights because I am allergic to bits from mostly anything, I had a white raised welt in the morning.
Anyone with experience with bed bugs please give me your opinion on this.
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