Comments on: Harpy Seminar: We Buggin’

By: Adara

Adara — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 18:57:17 +0000

I’m pretty sure I had bedbugs when I studied abroad (alone, with a limited social network, in a country where people don’t even know what bedbugs are), and it fucked me up baaaad. I had a mental breakdown.
But um. Am I the only one who thinks Harpy Retirement Home is an AWESOME idea??

By: BeckySharper

BeckySharper — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:18:39 +0000

@Kathmandu: Oy vey, so I can get rid of the bedbugs by having more roaches? Talk about the devil’s bargain.

That’s a really interesting tidbit of info, though, because in my Queens apt, where I first got the bedbugs, there were a whole lotta roaches at one point, too. Maybe the reason the bedbug infestation wasn’t so bad is that the roaches were eating the bedbugs?

::shudder::

By: Kathmandu

Kathmandu — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 17:05:26 +0000

The other thing causing a rise in bedbugs, more recent than giving up DDT, is that we’ve had successful cockroach-eradication campaigns. New York in particular put in a lot of work getting rid of cockroaches. The catch is, cockroaches are predator insects. Besides eating crumbs and soap and plaster, they eat bedbugs. So once the predators were removed, the bedbug population soared.

By: craftydabbler

craftydabbler — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 23:32:32 +0000

I stayed at a hostel here in the states and encountered bedbugs. I didn’t know what they were when I saw them at the hostel, but I decided to look them before I brought all of my things back in to my house. I froze, threw out, or dried-on-high everything. They were in my knitting, and in my book. The seams of my sleeping bag were filled with the little bastards all lined up, one behind the other. And this was all after just one night in that place.

By: underbelly

underbelly — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:54:14 +0000

ugh, I am less than a week from moving to Boston and am starting to freak the fuck out about this.

By: clairedammit

clairedammit — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 05:22:01 +0000

If you’re allergic to dust mites, the same covers that keep them out of your mattress keep bedbugs out, too.

And if this were remotely due to immigrants, wouldn’t Houston (where I live) and L.A. be overrun? I hate misplaced blame and hate for the sake of hate. It doesn’t solve any problems, for one thing.

By: betterfishtofry

betterfishtofry — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 02:50:41 +0000

I lived in NYC for 7 years, and my first “grown-up” apartment got bedbugs. I was sooo mortified and annoyed at the roomie (she picked her bed frame up off the street.) The part that got to me the most, was when I put my mattress and boxspring on the street. I covered it in English and Spanish, “no, bugs, don’t take!” with pictures of bugs. It didn’t matter, 15 mins after I dragged it out to get rid of it, people pulled up in a van and took it. I felt so bad thinking they were getting an infested mattress

I haven’t had them since, and my mattress and box spring have been covered since I bought them. It definitely gives me peace of mind.

By: baraqiel

baraqiel — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 22:00:38 +0000

Aaaaaaieeeeee I am terrified of this happening to me. So not kidding. Eeeeeek. As MM said, the lice episode was *terrible* — I was ~11, I think, so my hair had to be like 2 ft. long at the time and it was just sooooo disgusting. I could feel them crawling around…eesh. And apparently bed bugs can just lie dormant for months until they find a new host. Blurgh.

By: BeckySharper

BeckySharper — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:37:51 +0000

@Penny: Once you’ve gotten them taken care of, what can you do to keep them out? Like, what if you’re exposed somewhere else and you inadvertently bring a new group home with you?

I highly recommend bedbug-proof casings for mattresses and boxsprings. I had one on my mattress—got it last year to keep out construction dust during a major renovation—and it saved the mattress from being infested. Now I have one on my boxspring as well. You can buy vinyl ones or for a little more money, get ones that are made of a tight-weave fabric.

I’m also careful about how I unpack luggage, since they can get into luggage in the luggage hold/baggage handling part of the trip. I have always brought my luggage to the kitchen when I get home (on the tile floor, where there are no cracks bedbugs can get into), and then I unpack and wash clothes right away (or stuff them in plastic bags if I’m not going to wash them right away), then vacuum inside and in the pockets. That way if bugs have hitched a ride, I might be able to get them before they infest my place.

I’m not sure how the bugs got into my home to begin with—could be I dragged them in with all my traveling, or that they were in a neighbors apt. and found their way into mine. There’s no real way of telling, and unfortunately there’s no 100% foolproof way to prevent them.

By: Penny_Esq

Penny_Esq — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:13:10 +0000

Ugh. Sorry you both have to deal with that. In Prague, my friends and I stayed in a cheap motel that apparently was infested. We didn’t know what the rashy-looking bumps were until several weeks after we returned – damn good thing because I probably would’ve had a fucking panic attack. It’s not the bites themselves – they’re not all that uncomfortable – it’s the icky creepy crawly thought of sharing your space with BUGS, letting them wander around your place in and munch on you in the night. I have the same phobia of cockroaches, which we really don’t have in the Northwest. I saw one, then a second, in my place in Nashville and lived in my bedroom with a towel stuffed under the door for a week. If I’d seen a third my ass was headed for the closest hotel. Just the thought makes me shudder.

Best of luck beating the infestation. Once you’ve gotten them taken care of, what can you do to keep them out? Like, what if you’re exposed somewhere else and you inadvertently bring a new group home with you?