Fortunately (though it certainly didn’t seem so at the time), we had had a close encounter with bedbugs the previous summer when we stayed at a hotel in New York City. That fairly traumatic event caused me to undertake a fair amount of research online to make sure we didn’t bring them home with us, as it turns out that getting rid of them is a bitch.

 

So when I was making our bed up at home one morning, still puzzling over what I thought was a spider bite on my back that simply was not going away, and I spotted an insect the size of a sesame seed scuttling across the sheet, I was alarmed. I nabbed the bug with a tissue and crushed it, and blood—my blood—squirted out. I had a terrible sinking feeling and called a pest management company (a different one than the one who had given us the rotten advice mentioned above. Do not—I repeat, do NOT, ever hang a bat house on your home! And don’t allow them to roost on or in your home, either—say, in the attic or under your eaves.).

 

At first they didn’t believe that we had bed or bat bugs. They told us that they had never seen a case of bedbugs in Shasta County the entire time they had been in business. But I kept the crushed insect for them to inspect, they took it back to their lab and examined it, and they came back with the bad news that we had bat bugs. Since treating for bat bugs is the same as treating for bedbugs, this is what we had to do to get rid of them: Dry clean, launder in hot water and dry at high setting, or place in black plastic garbage bags and set outside in the Redding summer heat for three days every scrap of fabric in the house. (We ended up with a $600 dry cleaning bill.) Take off every outlet cover and switch plate cover so that the pest control guys could dust inside them with pesticide. Empty every cabinet and drawer so that they could be dusted as well. Encase our mattress and box springs in an allergenic mattress cover designed to discourage dust mites for eighteen months (that’s how long bed and bat bugs can live without a meal). The weave in these mattress covers is tight enough that bed or bat bugs can’t escape. Pull all furniture away from the walls so that the baseboard could be treated. We pulled our bed platform away from the wall, too, and wrapped the base with carpet tape to trap any new bat bugs that might try to climb into our bed. I caulked and sealed every single crevice in the platform.

 

Then the wonderful guys at Upstate Management came and treated our house. They used a pyrethrin-based insecticide to kill the adults. They also dusted along all the woodwork with a cornmeal and ground limestone combination which attacks the insects’ exoskeleton, and they sprayed with a hormone that keeps the juvenile males from maturing. They did this three times spaced three weeks apart. We were unable to move anything back into our home during this entire time, to avoid getting anything re-infested. So that meant for nine weeks—over two months—we were living out of plastic bags. As you can see, it’s a major hassle and ordeal, not to mention the expense. And it was months before we could get a good night’s sleep.

 

Here’s the worst part: The last time Upstate Pest Management came to treat the outside of our home (which we’ve been doing every month since this happened), they told us that the number of bedbug cases they’ve had to treat in Shasta County has risen exponentially. Travelers are bringing them home unwittingly from motels, hotels, homes, and apartments that are infested. Bedbugs are on the rise in every major city on the planet, and some not-so-major ones, too. It is now thought that one major factor in the increase is the switch from spraying for roaches in urban dwellings to using baits (The belief that the increase is due to the discontinuation of using DDT is older info and may not be correct). Bedbugs don’t respond to bait. You’re the only bait they’re interested in.

 

So here are some tips to help you avoid this plague: When you travel and you check into your motel or hotel room, lift the mattress up from the box springs and take a look to ensure that there are no bedbugs in between them. That’s their favorite place to hang out. You can also check behind any picture frames near the bed. That’s another place they might be. If you find any, check out of your hotel immediately and go stay some place else. I wouldn’t risk taking another room in the same hotel. But they might be in the light fixtures or switch plates or baseboard, in which case you probably won’t know they’re there. Just to be safe, do not unpack your bags even if you don’t find any bugs. Leave your clothes in your suitcase (though it’s probably safe to hang clothes in the closet; try to make sure that the clothes don’t touch the wall or floor) and place your suitcase on the luggage rack, if there is one. The metal ones are best, too slippery for the bugs to crawl up. Travel with a couple of plastic garbage bags and ties. If you don’t have enough luggage racks for your suitcases, place them inside the garbage bags and seal them tightly with the ties. Bedbugs have been known to crawl up into the wheel wells of suitcases. They can also secrete themselves in the seams of the fabric.  

 

 

 

The above travel suggestions might sound like paranoia or over the top behavior, but once these creatures are in your home, there’s no way to get rid of them without going to an unbelievable amount of trouble. Believe me, you do not want to have to go through this! And you want to be able to sleep without wondering if some blood-sucker is making a meal out of you.

 

Some additional casualties: I no longer find, “Sleep tight! Don’t let the bedbugs bite!” to be in the least amusing. And neither do I use the expression, “Snug as a bug in a rug.”