I actually wonder how people manage to get rid of these bugs, and why they aren't more spread considering how resilient they are. It's so hard to get rid of them that they should be literally everywhere.
I moved to an apt in NYC that had bedbugs. Probably not that many because I cleaned the place inside out so many times and I could rarely spot one. Eventually, I called an exterminator but the bugs were back a couple of months later. I eventually left this place. I'm super paranoid since then.
My brother, ever the cheapskate, decided to buy a used couch. I guess you know where this is going...
The $500 or so he saved didn't come close to the cost of full apartment treatments, the headaches, and being basically outcast by the family for a month.
Protip: Unless you're really hard up, don't buy a used couch or mattress. And if you have to, figure out a way to deep cleanse it first.
The bugs themselves are really easy to kill! Spray them with rubbing alcohol and they're dead. They walk over diatomaceous earth and they're toast. Reach 115 degrees for 30 seconds and they're done. But yes, infestations can be resilient because they scram at the first sign of trouble and hide really well if they're forced to live somewhere other than your mattress/box spring/bed frame. They will hide in electrical outlets, clothes, cracks in trim, in furniture, under carpets, move to different apartments, etc. However, they need a reason to leave your bed-- e.g. the mattress is too crowded with other bugs, has been treated with insecticide, etc.
The situation you had in your apartment would never have gotten better. Without treating the whole building, spraying insecticide will just push them into adjacent apartments. Many jurisdictions distinguish between infestations local to one dwelling to be handled by the tenant and infestations that are building-wide which landlords have to treat. If they just keep pushing them around, they never have to shell out for a building-wide treatment and they always look like a hero because technically they didn't even have to pay to get your apartment treated.
Step 1 is to clean every tiny little crevice of your bed frame, bedding, box spring, and mattress and if possible, get a mattress bag.
Step 2 is to put bed bug traps under each leg of your bed-- they can't jump or fly, only climb.
Step 3 is to make sure no part of your bed or bedding is touching the wall or floor.
Step 4 sprinkle diatomaceous earth around the base of your bed and the edges of your room.
That's actually enough to stop you from getting bit right there and if your infestation is really minor, is probably enough to entirely eradicate it. Unfortunately, they can go 70 days without feeding, so you'd need to keep that diligence up for quite some time. That's why a proper extermination will be building-wide and happen at least twice with the second treatment being after the eggs should have hatched. The best method, IMO, is tenting the building and heating it to 115 degrees for a few days. Not cheap, though, and obviously very disruptive.
Diatomaceous earth seems to bother/deter them, but it really doesn't kill them very quickly.
During an infestation about five years ago, I was curious if what I'd bought and sprinkled everywhere was any use at all, so I captured a bug in a glass and absolutely covered it.
It continued wandering around in there for 4 more days.
But I agree with a lot of the rest of what you're saying :)
Also:
- double sided carpet tape is difficult, if not impossible for them to cross, so wrapping it around the leg of a chair or bed in addition to a trap can be a big help
- you can measure the heat of a dryer with an instant thermometer by putting a few towels in the dryer and pulling them out right at the peak, before the cool cycle at the end, and tossing the thermometer right into the middle of them. Most dryers are suitably hot, but you should check before relying on it -- you should look up the temperature needed to ensure the eggs are destroyed, and always do a dryer run without washing first, so the heat applies directly and isn't just evaporating water! But after all that: lots and lots of stuff can be put in the dryer, and tied off safely afterwards in bags / taken away from a place it can be reinfested.
- putting books or electronics in an oven, even set very low, is usually a bad idea.
> It continued wandering around in there for 4 more days.
For a bedbug, dying in 4 days is quick! They can live for up to a year or more normally. I think you'd normally want to combine a steam treatment to kill the bulk of them with diatomaceous earth to mop up the stragglers
The big idea with the diatomaceous earth is that newcomers will hopefully die before they reproduce. They live quite a long time otherwise. For a nontoxic treatment it's not bad.
> Step 1 is to clean every tiny little crevice of your bed frame, bedding, box spring, and mattress and if possible, get a mattress bag. Step 2 is to put bed bug traps under each leg of your bed-- they can't jump or fly, only climb. Step 3 is to make sure no part of your bed or bedding is touching the wall or floor. Step 4 sprinkle diatomaceous earth around the base of your bed and the edges of your room.
I can confirm this through personal experience. I had a bad bedbug infestation two years ago, did the first three steps and haven't had a problem since (I didn't use the diatomaceous earth in Step 4).
You basically turn your bed into a castle. No bedbugs currently in your bed + defenses so they can't get onto your bed = no future bedbug problem in bed.
One good trick I used is that you can make "bed bug traps under each leg of your bed" yourself by putting little plastic containers under each leg that you fill with an inch of baby oil. The bedbugs can't get passed it.
Nice. Good call with the oil. I immediately thought "hmm I hate the smell of baby oil-- wonder if you could use vegetable oil instead of baby oil" but then you'd attract cockroaches. Unscented mineral oil it is.
>Eventually, I called an exterminator but the bugs were back a couple of months later. I eventually left this place.
I am very glad that the exterminator I called was honest with me despite my desperation and told me bluntly that no one could permanently solve the issue without treating the whole structure.
There are horror stories about bedbugs in luggage making it into your home but from researching when I thought I might have them its a pretty low probability. There seems to be a critical mass needed and most infestations where people are getting bites every night there is actually a huge disgusting colony somewhere around the bed that is never cleaned. With your apartment I bet there was a pretty unsanitary tenant before you.
I had an experience where I believe a single bed bug somehow made its home in my home. I was getting occasional bumps on my skin that looked like bites. At first I got worried and threw a bunch of my possessions out and inspected my bed area but then I just wrote it off to mosquitos.
A few months later I was outside my house and felt something on my neck. After slapping it I came to the conclusion it was most likely a lone bed bug.
Not everyone reacts to the bites severely so some just write it off as mosquito bites or a rash like me. Also in order to get an infestation from a hitch hiking bedbug one of the following conditions must be met:
1. A male and female bedbug must both hitch a ride together and later successfully reproduce. OR
2. A pregnant female must hitch a ride. OR
3. There must already be a single bedbug present at your address and the hitchhiking bedbug must be of the opposite sex. These two bedbugs must go on to successfully reproduce.
Keep in mind also that the hitchhiker must make it all the way home to the residence and not wander off somewhere before hand.
Hotels and people who travel to decent hotels are quite aware of bedbugs too so the chance of encountering bedbugs and taking them home from there is quite low. e.g doing simple stuff like not leaving your luggage on or near your bed mitigates a lot of risk.
> Not everyone reacts to the bites severely so some just write it off as mosquito bites or a rash like me
Some people don't react to the bites at all. Which is one reason why it can be hard to get rid of them. It's hard to even tell if they're there if you don't react to the bites.
Yeah, despite how hard bed bugs are to get rid of once you have them, that Airbnbs aren't constantly plagued with bed bugs shows that spreading them probably isn't as simple as just moving luggage through a place that has them.
You probably have to not just get some passengers in your luggage but also park the luggage in a place in the infected location where they actual fester, sleep, and lay eggs.
I moved from a bedbug infested apartment to a cockroach infested apartment once. When I left, I made sure to do it during the summer. Anything I kept (clothes, etc) went into black plastic bags and then into my car during the 105F+ degree summer heat. All the furniture made it into the trash bin.
I'd take the cockroach any day above the beg bugs. Cockroaches can be controlled to a point they could either be entirely harmless or at least live in some sort of symbiosis with you.
Bed bugs are the absolute worst of the lot. Mosquitoes feel like welcome guests compared to them.
Short of nothing less than setting everything you know on fire, there are 0 ways to get rid of them.
I only lived in a mice infested apartment and as gross as it was, at least mice are easy to see, satisfying to kill and don't follow you anywhere or lay eggs.
I've had some in my van and had the opportunity to try a large variety of things, including essential oils, various pesticides, cleaning, etc.
What worked for me and was quite radical was steam cleaning. It takes a lot of time to be thorough, but it kills them very quickly, includes the eggs, and can safely go almost anywhere (except on my poor books)
I moved to an apt in NYC that had bedbugs. Probably not that many because I cleaned the place inside out so many times and I could rarely spot one. Eventually, I called an exterminator but the bugs were back a couple of months later. I eventually left this place. I'm super paranoid since then.