Saturday, October 29, 2011

Eww. Bed Bugs.

I've decided to sort-of document our recent nightmare as of late.

Bed bugs.

It all started about a week or two before our legal portion of our wedding--I woke up and saw an odd blister-like bump on my ring finger. "Great," I thought, "the ring pictures will look greeeat with this on my finger!"

Over the course of the next few days, we would wake up and find a couple of more blister-like bumps. Or mosquito-looking bites. Sometimes they were different. Sometimes they would appear at work or at school.

We scoured the bed. The room. The cats. Everything we thought to look at, we could. Nothing.
Bed bugs? Aside from the bites, we had no other proof.
Spiders? We've killed a few, but these did not look like spider bites.
Dust mites? They don't bite and cause more of an allergic reaction that what we are experiencing.

We slept in the living room once. No bites.
When we vacationed in Florida on our honeymoon, no bites.
We called the apartment and they checked--nothing.
They attempted to spray our apartment (if they had properly communicated with us before, we could have removed our cats so they could have sprayed.)

These bites was making me go crazy.

After nearly a month or so later, I frantically searched the mattress. I was ready to cut open the mattress and toss it out. And then: I found it. I found a small bed bug.

So we called the apartment. The next day, we vacuumed, alcoholed the mattress, walls, baseboard, chairs, couch, vents and whatever else we could. We washed all blankets, sheets, curtains, drapes, couch covers, dirty clothes, pillow cases, shower curtains, mats, rugs and anything else that could fit inside a washing machine. We bleached walls. Mopped the floors with pine sol.
I also purchased a mattress, box spring and 2 pillow cases covers---guaranteed to seal in bed bugs.

The exterminator has sprayed once now and this next week will spray again. We've gone to bed wearing long sleeves, long pants, socks, --trying not to expose any skin. Before we go to bed, we will spray the bed, pillows, blankets, sheets and each other down with alcohol.

Bed bugs themselves aren't quite so bad. They don't bother your pets. They don't transmit diseases. Their saliva numbs your skin and then they bite you. They hang out in your mattress and  come out at night.

The worst part of it is the mental damage they do. You feel like a stranger in your own home. Your home no longer becomes a sanctuary. Going to sleep is a nightmare. You feel violated. You become paranoid. You check the walls. Constantly. Every speck you take a double look at. You can technically see the eggs and baby bed bugs; but they are so tiny it's hard to. You start itching for no reason. You feel like there's thousands of these bastards on you.

We actually haven't gotten bit since the deep cleaning and spraying. We've seen 2 more since then so we aren't giving up. This makes you want to burn everything you own and take the cats and run.

These bastards have ruined Halloween for me. MY FAVORITE HOLIDAY OF THE YEAR. I'll make sure they all die.

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