warning: this blog may give you nightmares (at the very least it will make your skin crawl) (1/12/11)
Time heals all wounds.
It’s true. I believe it.
Arguments, slights, heartbreaks, hurt feelings, stubbed toes, cars dented with no note left, keys taken from the workout room and never returned, getting cut off on Wilson Blvd at 8 pm on Tuesday night (am I getting too specific?) – while frustrating and hurtful and hard at the times, most situations seem much less important or painful 4 years after the fact.
MOST situations.
One day I came across the following blurb in The Washington Times:
A Howard County couple has filed a $500,000 lawsuit over a bedbug infestation in an Ellicott City apartment. Orville and Rebecca Brown say they were forced to move out of their apartment and throw away most of their possessions, including all of their 3 year old daughter’s toys. The lawsuit was filed Friday in Howard County Circuit Court and names the owners and managers of the apartment complex. A representative of Hirschfeld Management Inc., which operates the complex, declined to comment. The lawsuit says the Browns were told that bedbugs had been found in an adjacent apartment and that their apartment would be treated as a precaution. They claim that treatment never occurred. All three say they suffered red, itchy welts, and Rebecca Brown is undergoing therapy to deal with the trauma of the infestation.
Now, there was a time in my life when I would have read this story and thought “Lawsuit? Therapy? For bugs? Are you people crazy?”, but instead my reaction to this article was, “Hmmm…I wonder where they found a therapist who specializes in bedbug trauma….and I wonder if they take patients who are recovering.”
You see, time does NOT heal all wounds...
5 years ago, I was aware of bedbugs. Having worked in an apartment building leasing office for a year (in a metro area experiencing a surge of bedbugs) I had encountered a number of residents with the problem.
I remember one girl in particular who was around my age and came into our management office every single day (sometimes twice a day) to complain about the problem. She yelled a lot, she cried a lot, she showed us the bites on her legs, she sometimes brought pictures of her mattress and once even brought a live bedbug in a plastic bag – as proof.
During one of her visits (somewhere between pointing out a new bite on her ankle and threatening to sue me, my boss, and everyone related to the company) she looked at me with pure frustration and cried,
“I know you all think I’m crazy.”
I responded, as politely as possible, “Of course we don’t think you are crazy.”
We totally thought she was crazy.
It’s not that any of us doubted there were bedbugs in her apartment – I mean, she had provided ziplocked proof (living ziplocked proof) – the crazy was not in their existence but in in her reaction to their existence. After all, they’re just bugs right?
Right…
and I truly believed that…
until one fateful March day 5 years ago when, while taking the sheets off my bed to wash them, I noticed a tiny spot on the mattress…
a spot which, on closer examination, was actually not a spot at all but a tiny bug…
a tiny bug that lived on my bed…
and looked a lot like the bug I had seen only 2 years prior…
in a ziploc bag…
a ziploc bag belonging to a girl who was crazy.
The finding led to the first of many terrifying (yet strangely addictive) google searches (“bugs in bed” “get rid of bugs in bed” “bug in bed solutions”) all of which boiled down to one definitive conclusion – no matter how I worded the search, I had bedbugs and was quite sure my life would never, ever be the same.
Here are some terrifying bedbug facts (from those early google searches) which were seared into the nightmare-inspiring corners of my mind (where they still reside today):
-Most of the online literature refers to a bedbug biting you as “feeding” and calls the act a “blood meal”. This is perfectly acceptable terminology…until you realize that this means you have been "fed"on and that you are a “blood meal”.
Oh, and you often find 3 bites clustered together because they usually bite you three times in one go – that’s referred to as “breakfast”, “lunch” and “dinner”.
Seriously, I’m not kidding - it's something straight out of the 1,252,208th installment of "Saw".
-Bedbugs hide in the crevices of your bed until you are most asleep (2-5 am) and then come out for their "blood meal". The ugly little blood sucking stalkers actually study and learn your sleep cycle.
-After a “blood meal” a bedbug can survive 6 months without eating again – 6 MONTHS. You could straight up abandon your apartment for 6 months and they would still be right there…waiting for you…hungry.
-A female bed bug can lay 1-5 eggs after a “blood meal”. So, by the time you realize that you have a bite (which is likely your first clue that you have bedbugs) there could be (and probably are) 1-5 baby bedbugs just about to hatch.
And that, my friends, was the beginning of my descent into madness.
For longer than I care to admit I slept in the bathtub…with the bathroom light on and the bathroom door locked.
Note: Sleeping in the bathtub, having the light on and locking a door do not in any way protect you from bedbugs.
When I realized that sleeping in a bathtub with the light on did not lend itself to actually sleeping, I bought a metal cot from a camping store. Absolutely sure that bedbugs couldn’t swim, it made complete sense that I could put each leg of the cot in a pan of water and they couldn’t get to me.
Note: This may actually work but it was not practical for a number of reasons.
I threw out 75% of my wardrobe.
Note: Bedbugs are small, but not microscopic. A visual inspection of your clothing is all that is necessary and a good spin through a hot clothes dryer will kill off any eggs.
I still miss that black skirt…sigh.
I took entire days off of work to meet the exterminator for his weekly visit.
Note: Exterminators work in empty apartments all day (as MOST people don’t take time off of work to see them) and are lonely. They like telling truly alarming stories…mainly colorfully describing the most disgusting bedbug infestations they have seen.
Talking to him actually made me feel worse.
I spent a lot of money regularly visiting all of the Targets in the great DC area to buy zip-able mattress covers in bulk – I had a stockpile of about 25.
Note: While zip-able mattress covers are extremely important in containing and ridding your life of bedbugs, you only need 1 (2 at the most). Yes, 20 layers of plastic between you and the bugs does make you feel better, but it’s just not money well spent (especially when you already have to replace your entire wardrobe).
I found myself uncontrollably telling complete strangers about my bedbug problem.
Note: Bedbugs make people uncomfortable and they will:
1) Look completely horrified.
2) Step a good 10-20 feet away from you.
3) Almost immediately, develop phantom itches on their arms and legs, which they will scratch uncontrollably throughout the conversation.
Trust me, just keep it to yourself until the bugs are gone.
I went to the management office every single day to yell, cry and show them my bites.
Sound familiar?
Note: It’s not their fault and there is nothing they, you, or anybody can do other than send the exterminator once a week until the problem is gone.
Also, they did not plant the bedbugs in your apartment just to make you crazy – and claiming that they did only makes them think you are even crazier then they already think you are (and they do think you are crazy).
So, after 3 months of madness I had no bed, no couch no clothes, no friends in the management office, and very, very little sleep BUT I also had no bedbugs.
Life slowly began to return to normal and now (5 years and an apartment later) I can look back and laugh…
sort of…
in a way…
what was the name of that Howard County bedbug therapist?
It’s true. I believe it.
Arguments, slights, heartbreaks, hurt feelings, stubbed toes, cars dented with no note left, keys taken from the workout room and never returned, getting cut off on Wilson Blvd at 8 pm on Tuesday night (am I getting too specific?) – while frustrating and hurtful and hard at the times, most situations seem much less important or painful 4 years after the fact.
MOST situations.
One day I came across the following blurb in The Washington Times:
A Howard County couple has filed a $500,000 lawsuit over a bedbug infestation in an Ellicott City apartment. Orville and Rebecca Brown say they were forced to move out of their apartment and throw away most of their possessions, including all of their 3 year old daughter’s toys. The lawsuit was filed Friday in Howard County Circuit Court and names the owners and managers of the apartment complex. A representative of Hirschfeld Management Inc., which operates the complex, declined to comment. The lawsuit says the Browns were told that bedbugs had been found in an adjacent apartment and that their apartment would be treated as a precaution. They claim that treatment never occurred. All three say they suffered red, itchy welts, and Rebecca Brown is undergoing therapy to deal with the trauma of the infestation.
Now, there was a time in my life when I would have read this story and thought “Lawsuit? Therapy? For bugs? Are you people crazy?”, but instead my reaction to this article was, “Hmmm…I wonder where they found a therapist who specializes in bedbug trauma….and I wonder if they take patients who are recovering.”
You see, time does NOT heal all wounds...
5 years ago, I was aware of bedbugs. Having worked in an apartment building leasing office for a year (in a metro area experiencing a surge of bedbugs) I had encountered a number of residents with the problem.
I remember one girl in particular who was around my age and came into our management office every single day (sometimes twice a day) to complain about the problem. She yelled a lot, she cried a lot, she showed us the bites on her legs, she sometimes brought pictures of her mattress and once even brought a live bedbug in a plastic bag – as proof.
During one of her visits (somewhere between pointing out a new bite on her ankle and threatening to sue me, my boss, and everyone related to the company) she looked at me with pure frustration and cried,
“I know you all think I’m crazy.”
I responded, as politely as possible, “Of course we don’t think you are crazy.”
We totally thought she was crazy.
It’s not that any of us doubted there were bedbugs in her apartment – I mean, she had provided ziplocked proof (living ziplocked proof) – the crazy was not in their existence but in in her reaction to their existence. After all, they’re just bugs right?
Right…
and I truly believed that…
until one fateful March day 5 years ago when, while taking the sheets off my bed to wash them, I noticed a tiny spot on the mattress…
a spot which, on closer examination, was actually not a spot at all but a tiny bug…
a tiny bug that lived on my bed…
and looked a lot like the bug I had seen only 2 years prior…
in a ziploc bag…
a ziploc bag belonging to a girl who was crazy.
The finding led to the first of many terrifying (yet strangely addictive) google searches (“bugs in bed” “get rid of bugs in bed” “bug in bed solutions”) all of which boiled down to one definitive conclusion – no matter how I worded the search, I had bedbugs and was quite sure my life would never, ever be the same.
Here are some terrifying bedbug facts (from those early google searches) which were seared into the nightmare-inspiring corners of my mind (where they still reside today):
-Most of the online literature refers to a bedbug biting you as “feeding” and calls the act a “blood meal”. This is perfectly acceptable terminology…until you realize that this means you have been "fed"on and that you are a “blood meal”.
Oh, and you often find 3 bites clustered together because they usually bite you three times in one go – that’s referred to as “breakfast”, “lunch” and “dinner”.
Seriously, I’m not kidding - it's something straight out of the 1,252,208th installment of "Saw".
-Bedbugs hide in the crevices of your bed until you are most asleep (2-5 am) and then come out for their "blood meal". The ugly little blood sucking stalkers actually study and learn your sleep cycle.
-After a “blood meal” a bedbug can survive 6 months without eating again – 6 MONTHS. You could straight up abandon your apartment for 6 months and they would still be right there…waiting for you…hungry.
-A female bed bug can lay 1-5 eggs after a “blood meal”. So, by the time you realize that you have a bite (which is likely your first clue that you have bedbugs) there could be (and probably are) 1-5 baby bedbugs just about to hatch.
And that, my friends, was the beginning of my descent into madness.
For longer than I care to admit I slept in the bathtub…with the bathroom light on and the bathroom door locked.
Note: Sleeping in the bathtub, having the light on and locking a door do not in any way protect you from bedbugs.
When I realized that sleeping in a bathtub with the light on did not lend itself to actually sleeping, I bought a metal cot from a camping store. Absolutely sure that bedbugs couldn’t swim, it made complete sense that I could put each leg of the cot in a pan of water and they couldn’t get to me.
Note: This may actually work but it was not practical for a number of reasons.
I threw out 75% of my wardrobe.
Note: Bedbugs are small, but not microscopic. A visual inspection of your clothing is all that is necessary and a good spin through a hot clothes dryer will kill off any eggs.
I still miss that black skirt…sigh.
I took entire days off of work to meet the exterminator for his weekly visit.
Note: Exterminators work in empty apartments all day (as MOST people don’t take time off of work to see them) and are lonely. They like telling truly alarming stories…mainly colorfully describing the most disgusting bedbug infestations they have seen.
Talking to him actually made me feel worse.
I spent a lot of money regularly visiting all of the Targets in the great DC area to buy zip-able mattress covers in bulk – I had a stockpile of about 25.
Note: While zip-able mattress covers are extremely important in containing and ridding your life of bedbugs, you only need 1 (2 at the most). Yes, 20 layers of plastic between you and the bugs does make you feel better, but it’s just not money well spent (especially when you already have to replace your entire wardrobe).
I found myself uncontrollably telling complete strangers about my bedbug problem.
Note: Bedbugs make people uncomfortable and they will:
1) Look completely horrified.
2) Step a good 10-20 feet away from you.
3) Almost immediately, develop phantom itches on their arms and legs, which they will scratch uncontrollably throughout the conversation.
Trust me, just keep it to yourself until the bugs are gone.
I went to the management office every single day to yell, cry and show them my bites.
Sound familiar?
Note: It’s not their fault and there is nothing they, you, or anybody can do other than send the exterminator once a week until the problem is gone.
Also, they did not plant the bedbugs in your apartment just to make you crazy – and claiming that they did only makes them think you are even crazier then they already think you are (and they do think you are crazy).
So, after 3 months of madness I had no bed, no couch no clothes, no friends in the management office, and very, very little sleep BUT I also had no bedbugs.
Life slowly began to return to normal and now (5 years and an apartment later) I can look back and laugh…
sort of…
in a way…
what was the name of that Howard County bedbug therapist?
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