Blog This! by Bekah Wilcox

10:34 pm | 0 recommendations | 1 comment

Why is my laundry so darn clean?

Two words: Bed Bugs.

New York City, 2008. The city is crawling with the pests that were all but eradicated in the 50's. And so was my apartment. If you don't know about them, and the impact they have on one's finances, mental health, social life, and the environment, then read up on them. Because they will be coming soon to an apartment building/park bench/movie theater seat/taxi cab/hotel room/fellow commuter near you. And you will start to wonder, like me, how this can be happening in 2008.

Since you're not likely to heed my advice and research them yourself, here is some basic info I've learned during my 3 month ordeal:

• Bed bugs are small but visible pests that feed on your blood at night while you sleep
• Not everyone reacts to bites, but some people get itchy bumps
• They are commonly transported in luggage and used furniture, especially mattresses
• They harbor in hotel rooms and hostels worldwide
• They easily travel for a meal between rooms and even floors of apartment buildings
• The reproduce at exponential rates and are a HUGE ordeal to get rid of, including laundering and bagging all clothing, decluttering the home, and multiple exterminations that coat your home with pesticides which the bugs are highly resistant to
• They are indiscriminate in choosing their host and have nothing to do with class or cleanliness

But the resurgence is not just hitting NYC, check out the Bed Bug Registry for a bigger picture. Go ahead, click on your region. Zoom in. Look up your building. Or that hotel room you have booked. And while you try to tell yourself that there aren't that many cases, think about the slim percentage of the sufferers who are reporting there.

So to catch you up on my story, in case you weren't following it over at BedBugger.com, I've been battling them for a few months by compulsively doing laundry, living out of plastic bags and nearly losing my mind turning the entire apartment upside down to prep for treatment 4 times.

The main curse in this, though I know many sufferers would consider it a blessing, is that I don't react to the bites. Everything else that comes into contact with my skin, yes. Laundry detergent, lotions, soap, deodorant, mosquitoes, spiders, etc., YES. Just look at it cross-eyed and I'll get a rash. But a creepy bug that feeds on me when I sleep, NO.

At least this was my assumption. I was holding onto this fantasy where they had somehow not infested my bedroom or my brand spankin' new couches (roommate's room was the source), and that I had miraculously never been bitten.

It was time to find out once and for all.

Last week, a few weeks after our 4th treatment, I found a tiny critter crawling on my bed. Not wasting any time, I brought the but to the Museum of Natural History for identification the next day. Nothing to panic about, just a book louse. Phew.

Then the entomologist showed me his frightening jar of live bed bugs, so I could see the nymphs up close & in person. I'd read about this guy on the Bedbugger Forum, and how he's let people offer themselves for a tasting. And of course, I've seen the photos of his massive arm feast. I wasn't quite up for that, but I signed on for a nibble.

The feeding went like this: I couldn't feel the bugger walking on my hand, but I did feel it puncture my skin. Just a slight tingle, then nothing. It took a surprising amount of time to fill 'em up, seemed like 4-5 minutes. Then I anxiously awaited a reaction. C'mon skin, you can do it, FREAK OUT like that time I tried dryer sheets!

Nothing. No itch. No mark distinguishable from the usual culprits. So I have my answer. I cannot be confident that they are gone until enough time has passed for the population to become visible again. Greaaat. Nor can I be comfortable doing anything that seems risky. Which is pretty much everything, ever.

Of course, I could always hire a bed bug sniffing dog and shell out a couple hundred bucks for temporary piece of mind. (Yes, I'm serious, there are bed bug sniffing dogs.)

I'm curious as to how many of our readers have suffered from bed bugs? Most people I talk to haven't even heard of them, or think they are a myth, ala Don't let the bed bugs bite.

Do you see bed bugs as a growing problem in this country? What do you think the solution will be? Should the government step in, or does there need to be some great innovation in the pest control industry that can put them back in check?