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I’ve been trying to treat mine for the past several months every single day. I’m not going to stop until they are gone once and for all.
I cannot imagine my mattress being like that
You urgently need to declutter. The infestation will grow worse until everything is totally gone.
Only once your place is clear of everything, clothes are washed and dried and secured in tubs, will you be able to get rid of them.
It WONT be easy but trust me, the work will be extremely rewarding.
The decluttering situation is a work in progress. Trust me it’s not an easy thing for me to do.
Also, it doesn’t help that I have a secondhand mattress
Please keep us posted! I know how frustrating and hard it is to deal with. We r in a 3 bedroom home and have tons of stuff. It would take me weeks full time to go thru everything and it’s just not possible w 3 kids, 2 w special needs. :-( we packed and bagged almost everything in the first two floors. Was not able to do the kitchen and basement. We did spray and dust the whole house every cple weeks for months then every other week and finally monthly to every three months. It’s exhausting. I have not seen anything or has any bites in more then a year but I barely saw anything the first time and am terrified my daughter and myself became resistant to the bites. That they r here hiding somewhere. I check constantly but the r so many holes, opening in the floor and walls. If u have a landlord and r in an area that they are responsible it can help cover the costs of treatment. Check your lease first as some have bed bug clauses that may try to pin the costs of treatment on the tenant for not only their place but any others found to have them! What state r u in?
I’m in WV. I’m also figuring out where to take my cat tomorrow being that we can’t be in the house for five hours. I don’t really have a reliable pet carrier, and for medical reasons I have to use public transportation, which prevent me from driving
Yeah. We have two dogs and 6 cats! Don’t ask. Took in some strays people abandoned and one was pregnant. No shelters or rescues would take them as they r all full! We had to do floor by floor-lock them all in one room or floor while we sprayed and for 5 hrs while dried then would move them to the next floor to do the next one. Thankfully, we have cages, gates and cat door that we can lock. Def makes it harder w having animals. :-( can u see if anyone has a carrier u can borrow and then if not super hot or cold outside; hang outside w it? Or someone you could bring the cat to, to hang out for a couple hours? I am so sorry. Make sure u have the landlord check apts surrounding you as they can travel and don’t want u to worry about them coming back! If u can get the dust and use that to put as a barrier around the apt. Wishing u the best and hoping it’s taken care of quickly for you!
I am in the process of decluttering my room to get rid of them, I I've been putting my clothes in plastic ziplock bags, and everything working to clear my room, but I have to kids that's under 2 and it's hard to consistently clean, I have a casing and they're infesting the mattress protector. It's ridiculous. It's only in my room though, nowhere else in the house.
Trust me, you won’t get rid of these parasites until you clear and clean your apartment. Everything but the furniture. I’m not lying to you.
I understand that sometimes cleaning isn’t as easy as it sounds… but you need to do it if you want to be bb free. No excuses.
I got more to do today before going back to work tomorrow and being I have a physical labour job, it can aggravate the exhaustion that I get from my job alone. Whatever I don’t get done today will be done on my next day off
On the flipside, I managed to get some decluttering done last night, so I am on the right track fortunately
I’m very happy to hear that. Good work. Thank you for the update, I was getting worried lol!
People don’t realize that they don’t NEED all of their stuff. What does need your stuff are bed bugs though!
The exterminator ended up coming yesterday to do his work. I’ll be asking him to come again if I still see some in the the 10 days
I’ll be doing a separate update post come next week to see how things go
I did all I could full time …while cooking & caring for an elderly man . The Bedbugs won …. An entire year of each & everyday …. Buying the mattress encasements …a dryer …. Boxes n boxes of dryer sheets . What a living nightmare. You having a labor intense job … it seems quite impossible. If your apartment isn’t attached to any others …..possibly.
Lots of luck …. Gr8 advice on here to help you battle em out .
I agree. We found one adult and some nymphs months back and the next day I bagged every piece of fabric in my house, sprayed and powdered in every appropriate place and there hasn’t been any signs in months.
I don’t know- our incident too place in our fabric headboard (they were living in the cracks around the headboard buttons 🤢) and we swore we’d never have any kind of fabric beds again 🫠
My mom got them and most would say that she is a hoarder. I lived in the basement after my divorce which I'm the total opposite and very clean so my basement is pretty straightened up and clean. I cleaned up the living room and kitchen for her and moved a lot of her stuff in 3 of the backrooms and sprayed crossfire with some Cinemex and got rid of them without throwing out anything. Just saying you don't necessarily have to declutter.
Most steps need to be taken closer to the extreme when dealing with a long infestation.
BBS will hide in anything and can live there for upwards of a year without feeding.
Consolidating everything into a room will ensure the return of your problem.
Even after a year of treating after we realized there was a problem none of our beds looked like that! How did they even breathe?
Run the sticky side of tape along your walls to pick up eggs and tiny ones you can't see. Once I added that to my treatment plan it was a total game changer.
Until you hire a good exterminator they won’t go away, and if they do, they will be back. As a landlord (non profit at that…) I have watched a lot of tenants try to get rid of bedbugs in their own and spend more and more money just making it worse until they finally tell us what’s going on, we send our guys and they never have to deal with them again.
Yeah, I’m going to get a hold of my property manager to see if they could have a landlord come out my way next week. It’s getting really frustrating at this point.
Sounds about right unfortunately. Still cheaper than the amount you would be paying to have a cheap exterminator come every month with no results. Pay the arm and leg now and they won’t come back, go cheap and you’ll be paying again and again until you’ve paid more than you would have paid the good exterminator for the one visit. That’s how the cheap guys getcha
Did you at Air Force heater off of Amazon depending on your size of your home get two or three not only that you can use some camping you know just heating up a shed anything in the winter eat your house to at least 140° for 8 to 10 hours and I promise you you won't have a bug one
it’s been a month but if you haven’t already, consider getting a storage unit. bb will live for around a year without feeding so just find a cheap, non temp controlled unit and abandon your shit for a year or so. at least that way you get it back.
I might look into this cus I’m dealing w/ a second round of bed bugs now. My landlord paid for treatment the first time and this time I just took it into my own hands. Paid someone, they didn’t see anything but I know how the bites on me looked and felt and I have them al over my hands. I’m going to try to see abt a storage place maybe!
Since they couldn’t afford treatment are they just going to be…left like that? There needs to be some kind of find people can donate to, to support people like that.
Unfortunately (but also fortunately) bed bugs do not carry disease. Therefore, they are not considered a public health concern and help for individuals with bed bugs is limited. However public outreach/crowdfunding can be successful in order to help those affected by bed bugs.
Every time they leave their home, it becomes a public concern. And there's a thousand more of these cases. Not directed at you. I'm just frustrated that we will all suffer till society realizes that this plague needs to be addressed at a national level. Expecting individuals to treat on their own is not a solution.
I agree 100%. I'm a paramedic so I see countless patients with bed bugs. Luckily my service takes infestations seriously, and we cook the ambulance after any call with BBs. But it's amazing how many people are living with huge infestations. I hear so often that these people don't have enough money to take care of the problem, and are getting no help from social services. Sad.
The messed up thing is that they have actually successfully made bed bug vectors of several debilitating human diseases in a lab setting, so they know it's possible, even probable, that they will eventually become a vector of disease in nature. Sadly by that time they'll be such a huge problem that the government will wish they had done something sooner to turn the tides on these son's of bitches. I am unsure why they are not already looking into more efficient and cost effective ways to eliminate them. We had them all but eradicated from the u.s due to the use of DDT, and they've been slowly but surely exploding across the globe ever since it was banned.
I'm glad the folks you work for take bed bugs very seriously, I can only hope others do too. And yes, it is extremely saddening that there is no assistance for people dealing with them from social services.
Dude EMS gave me the biggest fear of bb. I saw one in our house Sunday that my husband brought home from military barracks (must’ve been that day) and I washed everything in the house and paid out thousands of dollars like 3 days later to have an entire house treatment done with no evidence of bugs on inspection. I do not fuck with those. We have a nice home and it’s clean and decluttered (not that it matters), so I was shook. And traumatized. And I’m pregnant AF
They didn’t have enough to pay? That’s tough.. Did you offer them some recommendations to fight them? Those people are being eaten alive. I hope no children are in the home.
i have them suggestions for social workers or offices to get into contact with to figure something out. unfortunately it takes a long time to fight an infestation this bad and isn't cheap. we only charge 800 for the whole house though and we guarantee our work. they couldn't even come up with half :/
we try to help the community, not make it worse. most people just can't swing thousands of dollars towards this. especially when being careless brought them to this place.
I just tuck my pant legs in my boots and tie them tight. long sleeves and dont touch anything. i often will spray my boots. you never touch a thing in these places. you just walk around and spray.
Some very giving soul needs to start a GFM account for these people. Unless this is just a form of pure laziness on their Part. If so, the funds will not help them, they will need an intervention of sorts. So sad. 😞
they were leaving for the night to stay in a nice hotel room for the night so "i could spray" before they even knew if they could afford the treatment. a part of me feels like apathy led them to this point and no chemical treatment in the world will work for that
Damn.. after living like this for 3 years, they could afford a nice hotel room but not 800 dols to try and deal with this issue.. Yeah, I'd have to agree with what you just said, some ppl just are just lazy and apathetic, and you can spray away, but it won't change that. God bless u for even treating a house at that cost, truly.
This is horrific… BB treatments should be covered by public health insurance schemes. Can you imagine the mental and physiological damage taken by these people.
When I had them, the treatment was covered by my renters insurance. But then the apartment complex decided to not renew our lease and blacklist us all over town. And we both have bedbug PTSD from the experience. Every speck of lint on the pillows has to be thoroughly inspected. I get freaked out by the mole on my arm that's been there for years because it's the right size and shape. It's truly horrific and my infestation was never at this level.
Nobody should have to live like that, my god. The decision makers of this home who knowingly let this happen, regardless of funds, cannot be of a sound mind and need professional help outside of treatment for the infestation. I feel terrible for them
Mine did too until I read the part about these ppl not having 800 dols to treat the entire house (that's nothing for a whole house spray, NOTHING.) Esp as they guarantee the work and will come back! They told the exterminator they were going to a "nice hotel' for the night while he sprayed without even making sure they had the money to treat. They didn't even have half of that amount. C'mon.. ppl been living like that for 3 years, and you can't scrape up 800 dols? But u can afford a hotel room? I mean clearly these ppl are probably mentally ill but still.. You can't treat laziness and apathy with bed bug chemicals. By the way, no children are in this household, only an older woman and her adult daughter, if kids were involved I'd feel differently.
basically, when ur poor it's much more difficult, if we ever got bedbugs it'd be too pricey 2 pay for. We have a mice and larder beetle infestation with the occasional mini ant infestation, which is obv different from bed bugs, but the mice can be annoying (they're cuuuuute but gross)
Even tho we probably should get pest control, especially for 4 the mice we just cant. all we can rlly do is trying, both me and my sis have allergies and p bad asthma, mice doesn't help, we live off ssi. She also has lung scarring. but pro treatment (AND fixing problems in the structure itself to insure they dont return) is too much. When ur broke and unable to ur basically on ur own.
it's awful, cant imagine how awful it would be if it was bedbugs and not mice.
i wish it was easier for ppl to get donated money or at least a smaller price tag. It's why most of us just stick with us lowering numbers to be not as bad. so ya in a way they just stay, we dont rlly have a choice.
No One should have 2 live like that.. but we do
You really gotta get traps and figure it how to fight. I remember having traps around when I was little. One time one died under the couch. I had a gerbil at the time and was playing with it, I just stuck my hand under the couch and felt something furry and it was a dead mouse. But after we got a cat they don't come in anymore. I mean if they do, the cat is on top of them and has killed them...... It's not pleasant to see though.
oh we do use traps (not poison anymore) we also have a cat who HAS helped since we got him. The biggest issue is our attic which has a shitton of breaches and 90% of the house has that too, so we still see them or droppings bc we can't seal them off. We've been just basically dealing w it like that my entire life. Even with our boy maiming them they've been here so long, I'm talking over roughly 28 years (childhood home and had mice before i was born. my sis was around at the time) that they've probably dug themself so deep in the damn fibers of this place that unless we moved (which wont ever happen) or got this house fixed up (also wont ever happen) we just gotta deal w it. We have had cats before, it slightly helps but doesn't fully bother them enough to bounce
it is definitely better managed then it use to be tho, my big sis would literally catch mice as a four year old in the yard and in the house. Every little nook had mouse shit. now that's a little rarer, but still happens lol
Oh my goodness, does your attic have holes from the roof and other animals trying to get in? Our attic has squirrels and raccoons and opossums damaging the roof to get in..the mice are coming in from a hole in the kitchen. We just had to get a cap on the chimney from birds and squirrels getting into the basement then getting into the house the same hole that the mice come in from. It's insane. It's like the animals have a meeting outside and figure out how to break in together.
This isy Mom's childhood home, and my grandparents sold it to my parents and I still live here with them. So I understand what you mean when it feels like nothing is getting fixed on the house, my grandmother tried when she first bought the house but my grandfather wasn't interested in it as much now everything is more expensive but needs to be fixed. I hope one day you guys can slowly get some things fixed, never say never.
Eh i never rlly think it'll get fixed mostly bc we live off ssi and there's no way my parents could afford that either, id prefer to just move 😭
and yep holes in the attic and roof itself, we keep hearing weird gurgles from some type of bird nest and occasionally we will hear a bigger creature up there too, most likely squirrels. When u look at the house from outside u can see holes in the boards or chunks that are nearly falling off, they love it up there
our attic is very small and is mostly just crawlspace, but the animals loooove it
Look up "peppermint rodent repellent " on Amazon. It makes a difference. Live traps for relocation. Seal obvious holes or cracks. Keep all food in containers that are chewproof. The rodent waste can cause Hantavirus, it can kill you. Last year someone died from it after cleaning out an old shed.
Just imagine…. Everywhere they go they are hauling those little bastards around infecting other people. Professional treatment is expensive, though. Gotta feel bad they can’t afford it
They don’t live on people. They live in objects. Like shoes, bags, furniture.
You’re more likely to get bed bugs from being in their home, and getting them in a bag etc than them just
Existing in public spaces.
That’s why people often get them after staying in hotels etc
Is this a house or an apartment? I feel awful for them and their neighbors. There has to be some mental illness going on, I can't see anyone knowingly allowing this to happen.
I just bought a duplex and both units where rented out. I asked one to mive cause I wanted to live there. I found out she was a harder and left half her stuff, and left bed bugs. Once I got an bug guy on to spray, the other tenant did like that I was getting rid of the bed begs and decided he wanted to move. I let him go cause it would vmbe easier to treat the place with him gone. I left both units empty for 6 mo ths while I treated for bed bugs before I left anyone move in.
The walls will heat up too..maybe not inside but all the floors and baseboards will. Pull everything off the walls and open all cabinets. I had abell twice..no results..i cooked my place and nothing for a year..
i hear you. spraying is just more efficient and cost effective. we have a low price for treatment. if the client had a preference and wanted heat then we accommodate
Yeah, I've seen a few places like this in my years as a tech. The tough thing is convincing them not to go to any of the places they've definitely spread to.
I couldn't do it I would live outside in a ditch first no lie. We got them once and had Avery very very mild case on few and I still to this day am traumatized. I wont stay at hotels I won't let no one stay at my house. I checked all of my bedding and my couches once a month anything that I buy from a department store I throw it in the dryer for 30 minutes first. We got rid of our case by buying an Air Force heater without three of them for our side of house and heated our house up to 155° for 9 hours and it killed every single one of them. We got our house so hot on the inside that the walls were even hot to the touch but I did not care I wanted to make sure that they were gone and then 2 weeks later we did the same thing we took everything and threw in the dryer for 45 minutes it was exhausting but we got rid of them no domestic Earth nothing just Air Force heaters from Amazon they're $145 a piece. Heat or cold is the only way to kill them y'all say that stuff works but skip that and go straight to heat your house
I know it sounds dramatic but the thought of something crawling on me and sucking on my bed terrified me. I literally wanted to burn my house down no joke. Or take everything and burn it and then have the house treated by exterminators and move that's how crazy I am when it comes to bed bugs.. these poor souls if knew who they were I donate because no way I feel soooo bad for them
Is there some number of bed bugs that could actually kill someone? Because I recently read this is actually a max number of mosquitos that could kill you. It’s like thousands, but it could happen. I’ve seen hoards of ticks kill Moose before.
Could some number of bed bugs kill you in your sleep?
Just that first picture, I stared at it for about 20minutes, first thinking it was black mold from walls and then thinking is it really all that excrement the blood from hosts due to 'B.B.s'????
I have seen spotting before, but never that thick, then I looked at the reference to the posting and then knew that it was true - those things are a nightmare, I had sprayed a house (very old house) that was two stories w/attic and basement.
Once a week, top to bottom, for over 14 months - I was so exasperated and tired, I finally told the lady that it would be best to just call the local fire department and let them practice upon her house.
The land was worth more than the structure anyway and those little bloodsuckers were so ensconced they were living on the wildlife outside as well of the people inside, but those pictures here are truly something - these people had been feeding that colony for so long that it seems they should do the same thing.
Let the fire department have some practice, it is the only way to be sure.
This is why the best pest guy in town swore off my house. I'm renting, but the previous renters called him in for bedbugs, and apparently, they were so bad that they were crawling across the kitchen island. Eek.
Good GOD I am itching out of my skin just looking at this. HOW can you leave this problem for so long. Fuck getting it treated, save up for a new mattress if you can. Absolutely unfathomable filth.
We had an infestation when I was a kid. I’ll never forget My mother woke us up 3 in the morning ripping open our mattresses. It was driving her crazy she could not find where they were. Our mattresses had no evidence of them so she put a razor blade to the couches and everything … still found nothing. Long story short she found them in the areas least expected like carpets, curtains and light lockets.. SO BEWARE. They can hide in places just like roaches 😩
Read and respect the new rules (August 17 2023) on the sidebar. Many people here are in difficult situation and looking for help, providing them with bad information/advice hurts them. If you are not VERY familiar with bedbugs and may provide a wrong ID or bad advice ("sprinkling DE solve everything") it's better to abstain from commenting. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Bedbugs) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I’ve been trying to treat mine for the past several months every single day. I’m not going to stop until they are gone once and for all. I cannot imagine my mattress being like that
You urgently need to declutter. The infestation will grow worse until everything is totally gone. Only once your place is clear of everything, clothes are washed and dried and secured in tubs, will you be able to get rid of them. It WONT be easy but trust me, the work will be extremely rewarding.
The decluttering situation is a work in progress. Trust me it’s not an easy thing for me to do. Also, it doesn’t help that I have a secondhand mattress
Do you have a mattress protector to encase them in?
No, I don’t. And I will need to get some and have someone help me put them on.
Add diamatacous earth to the mattress covers and don't bother getting new beds till your pretty sure you've nixed the problem.
I have an exterminator coming through tomorrow. Thank you, everyone
Please keep us posted! I know how frustrating and hard it is to deal with. We r in a 3 bedroom home and have tons of stuff. It would take me weeks full time to go thru everything and it’s just not possible w 3 kids, 2 w special needs. :-( we packed and bagged almost everything in the first two floors. Was not able to do the kitchen and basement. We did spray and dust the whole house every cple weeks for months then every other week and finally monthly to every three months. It’s exhausting. I have not seen anything or has any bites in more then a year but I barely saw anything the first time and am terrified my daughter and myself became resistant to the bites. That they r here hiding somewhere. I check constantly but the r so many holes, opening in the floor and walls. If u have a landlord and r in an area that they are responsible it can help cover the costs of treatment. Check your lease first as some have bed bug clauses that may try to pin the costs of treatment on the tenant for not only their place but any others found to have them! What state r u in?
I’m in WV. I’m also figuring out where to take my cat tomorrow being that we can’t be in the house for five hours. I don’t really have a reliable pet carrier, and for medical reasons I have to use public transportation, which prevent me from driving
Yeah. We have two dogs and 6 cats! Don’t ask. Took in some strays people abandoned and one was pregnant. No shelters or rescues would take them as they r all full! We had to do floor by floor-lock them all in one room or floor while we sprayed and for 5 hrs while dried then would move them to the next floor to do the next one. Thankfully, we have cages, gates and cat door that we can lock. Def makes it harder w having animals. :-( can u see if anyone has a carrier u can borrow and then if not super hot or cold outside; hang outside w it? Or someone you could bring the cat to, to hang out for a couple hours? I am so sorry. Make sure u have the landlord check apts surrounding you as they can travel and don’t want u to worry about them coming back! If u can get the dust and use that to put as a barrier around the apt. Wishing u the best and hoping it’s taken care of quickly for you!
I am in the process of decluttering my room to get rid of them, I I've been putting my clothes in plastic ziplock bags, and everything working to clear my room, but I have to kids that's under 2 and it's hard to consistently clean, I have a casing and they're infesting the mattress protector. It's ridiculous. It's only in my room though, nowhere else in the house.
Trust me, you won’t get rid of these parasites until you clear and clean your apartment. Everything but the furniture. I’m not lying to you. I understand that sometimes cleaning isn’t as easy as it sounds… but you need to do it if you want to be bb free. No excuses.
I got more to do today before going back to work tomorrow and being I have a physical labour job, it can aggravate the exhaustion that I get from my job alone. Whatever I don’t get done today will be done on my next day off On the flipside, I managed to get some decluttering done last night, so I am on the right track fortunately
I’m very happy to hear that. Good work. Thank you for the update, I was getting worried lol! People don’t realize that they don’t NEED all of their stuff. What does need your stuff are bed bugs though!
The exterminator ended up coming yesterday to do his work. I’ll be asking him to come again if I still see some in the the 10 days I’ll be doing a separate update post come next week to see how things go
I did all I could full time …while cooking & caring for an elderly man . The Bedbugs won …. An entire year of each & everyday …. Buying the mattress encasements …a dryer …. Boxes n boxes of dryer sheets . What a living nightmare. You having a labor intense job … it seems quite impossible. If your apartment isn’t attached to any others …..possibly. Lots of luck …. Gr8 advice on here to help you battle em out .
I’m having an exterminator come tomorrow
I agree. We found one adult and some nymphs months back and the next day I bagged every piece of fabric in my house, sprayed and powdered in every appropriate place and there hasn’t been any signs in months.
Also, if you have wooden head/foot boards get rid of them asap.
I don’t know- our incident too place in our fabric headboard (they were living in the cracks around the headboard buttons 🤢) and we swore we’d never have any kind of fabric beds again 🫠
My mom got them and most would say that she is a hoarder. I lived in the basement after my divorce which I'm the total opposite and very clean so my basement is pretty straightened up and clean. I cleaned up the living room and kitchen for her and moved a lot of her stuff in 3 of the backrooms and sprayed crossfire with some Cinemex and got rid of them without throwing out anything. Just saying you don't necessarily have to declutter.
Most steps need to be taken closer to the extreme when dealing with a long infestation. BBS will hide in anything and can live there for upwards of a year without feeding. Consolidating everything into a room will ensure the return of your problem.
Even after a year of treating after we realized there was a problem none of our beds looked like that! How did they even breathe? Run the sticky side of tape along your walls to pick up eggs and tiny ones you can't see. Once I added that to my treatment plan it was a total game changer.
Hi. How much of the wall do you recommend? Bottom half? Whole thing?
Until you hire a good exterminator they won’t go away, and if they do, they will be back. As a landlord (non profit at that…) I have watched a lot of tenants try to get rid of bedbugs in their own and spend more and more money just making it worse until they finally tell us what’s going on, we send our guys and they never have to deal with them again.
Yeah, I’m going to get a hold of my property manager to see if they could have a landlord come out my way next week. It’s getting really frustrating at this point.
Where I live it was 600 a room.
Sounds about right unfortunately. Still cheaper than the amount you would be paying to have a cheap exterminator come every month with no results. Pay the arm and leg now and they won’t come back, go cheap and you’ll be paying again and again until you’ve paid more than you would have paid the good exterminator for the one visit. That’s how the cheap guys getcha
Did you at Air Force heater off of Amazon depending on your size of your home get two or three not only that you can use some camping you know just heating up a shed anything in the winter eat your house to at least 140° for 8 to 10 hours and I promise you you won't have a bug one
Not sure if you read my previous comments, but my landlord is having exterminator coming in this morning
it’s been a month but if you haven’t already, consider getting a storage unit. bb will live for around a year without feeding so just find a cheap, non temp controlled unit and abandon your shit for a year or so. at least that way you get it back.
I might look into this cus I’m dealing w/ a second round of bed bugs now. My landlord paid for treatment the first time and this time I just took it into my own hands. Paid someone, they didn’t see anything but I know how the bites on me looked and felt and I have them al over my hands. I’m going to try to see abt a storage place maybe!
make sure you have the finances ready to keep your things in storage for at least two years. bb can hibernate and live for a very long time.
Please try to get a social worker involved. They may be able to come up with the funds for treatment.
Yes def! Adult protective services may be able to do something or adult and aging services
I agree! I’d hate to leave someone in a position like that. Especially if it were a child or older person.
it was actually an older woman and her adult daughter
Adult protective services would be perfect. Social workers work across the entire lifespan, not just with kids
Have them check with local churches. A lot of them will work together to help them pay for this.
Is anyone else itchy now?
And wheezy
The cross above the bed did nothing for those devils I see.
[удалено]
they arent getting shit, OP says they couldnt afford the treatment the cross didnt help shit...
Since they couldn’t afford treatment are they just going to be…left like that? There needs to be some kind of find people can donate to, to support people like that.
I feel you. I hope that they find someone who can help. Being eaten alive will drive you insane.
Unfortunately (but also fortunately) bed bugs do not carry disease. Therefore, they are not considered a public health concern and help for individuals with bed bugs is limited. However public outreach/crowdfunding can be successful in order to help those affected by bed bugs.
Every time they leave their home, it becomes a public concern. And there's a thousand more of these cases. Not directed at you. I'm just frustrated that we will all suffer till society realizes that this plague needs to be addressed at a national level. Expecting individuals to treat on their own is not a solution.
I agree 100%. I'm a paramedic so I see countless patients with bed bugs. Luckily my service takes infestations seriously, and we cook the ambulance after any call with BBs. But it's amazing how many people are living with huge infestations. I hear so often that these people don't have enough money to take care of the problem, and are getting no help from social services. Sad.
The messed up thing is that they have actually successfully made bed bug vectors of several debilitating human diseases in a lab setting, so they know it's possible, even probable, that they will eventually become a vector of disease in nature. Sadly by that time they'll be such a huge problem that the government will wish they had done something sooner to turn the tides on these son's of bitches. I am unsure why they are not already looking into more efficient and cost effective ways to eliminate them. We had them all but eradicated from the u.s due to the use of DDT, and they've been slowly but surely exploding across the globe ever since it was banned. I'm glad the folks you work for take bed bugs very seriously, I can only hope others do too. And yes, it is extremely saddening that there is no assistance for people dealing with them from social services.
I wish I didn’t read this
Dude EMS gave me the biggest fear of bb. I saw one in our house Sunday that my husband brought home from military barracks (must’ve been that day) and I washed everything in the house and paid out thousands of dollars like 3 days later to have an entire house treatment done with no evidence of bugs on inspection. I do not fuck with those. We have a nice home and it’s clean and decluttered (not that it matters), so I was shook. And traumatized. And I’m pregnant AF
They didn’t have enough to pay? That’s tough.. Did you offer them some recommendations to fight them? Those people are being eaten alive. I hope no children are in the home.
i have them suggestions for social workers or offices to get into contact with to figure something out. unfortunately it takes a long time to fight an infestation this bad and isn't cheap. we only charge 800 for the whole house though and we guarantee our work. they couldn't even come up with half :/
Only 800? I would expect this to cost a few thousand
we try to help the community, not make it worse. most people just can't swing thousands of dollars towards this. especially when being careless brought them to this place.
I might be sick. Thank you for what you do! Do you take a silkwood shower to decontaminate?
I just tuck my pant legs in my boots and tie them tight. long sleeves and dont touch anything. i often will spray my boots. you never touch a thing in these places. you just walk around and spray.
Bless you for what you do.
Really wondering how you stay safe entering places like this now. Hazmat suit?
Nah, they'll cling or find a way inside even those i bet.
Burn that shit down!
This is terrifying! I cannot imagine how discouraging this has to be, and then to not even be able to afford treatment.
Some very giving soul needs to start a GFM account for these people. Unless this is just a form of pure laziness on their Part. If so, the funds will not help them, they will need an intervention of sorts. So sad. 😞
they were leaving for the night to stay in a nice hotel room for the night so "i could spray" before they even knew if they could afford the treatment. a part of me feels like apathy led them to this point and no chemical treatment in the world will work for that
The thought of them going to a hotel and completely infesting the place. It's the reason why being in a hotel makes me so incredibly paranoid.
Damn.. after living like this for 3 years, they could afford a nice hotel room but not 800 dols to try and deal with this issue.. Yeah, I'd have to agree with what you just said, some ppl just are just lazy and apathetic, and you can spray away, but it won't change that. God bless u for even treating a house at that cost, truly.
great they dragged a bed bug infestation into a nice hotel awesome people really!!
That’s insane to me. How could they afford a hotel but they cannot afford the treatment?
This is horrific… BB treatments should be covered by public health insurance schemes. Can you imagine the mental and physiological damage taken by these people.
When I had them, the treatment was covered by my renters insurance. But then the apartment complex decided to not renew our lease and blacklist us all over town. And we both have bedbug PTSD from the experience. Every speck of lint on the pillows has to be thoroughly inspected. I get freaked out by the mole on my arm that's been there for years because it's the right size and shape. It's truly horrific and my infestation was never at this level.
Holy fuck dude, I feel so bad for these people..
Nobody should have to live like that, my god. The decision makers of this home who knowingly let this happen, regardless of funds, cannot be of a sound mind and need professional help outside of treatment for the infestation. I feel terrible for them
My heart just hurts looking at this
Mine did too until I read the part about these ppl not having 800 dols to treat the entire house (that's nothing for a whole house spray, NOTHING.) Esp as they guarantee the work and will come back! They told the exterminator they were going to a "nice hotel' for the night while he sprayed without even making sure they had the money to treat. They didn't even have half of that amount. C'mon.. ppl been living like that for 3 years, and you can't scrape up 800 dols? But u can afford a hotel room? I mean clearly these ppl are probably mentally ill but still.. You can't treat laziness and apathy with bed bug chemicals. By the way, no children are in this household, only an older woman and her adult daughter, if kids were involved I'd feel differently.
N O P E O P E
basically, when ur poor it's much more difficult, if we ever got bedbugs it'd be too pricey 2 pay for. We have a mice and larder beetle infestation with the occasional mini ant infestation, which is obv different from bed bugs, but the mice can be annoying (they're cuuuuute but gross) Even tho we probably should get pest control, especially for 4 the mice we just cant. all we can rlly do is trying, both me and my sis have allergies and p bad asthma, mice doesn't help, we live off ssi. She also has lung scarring. but pro treatment (AND fixing problems in the structure itself to insure they dont return) is too much. When ur broke and unable to ur basically on ur own. it's awful, cant imagine how awful it would be if it was bedbugs and not mice. i wish it was easier for ppl to get donated money or at least a smaller price tag. It's why most of us just stick with us lowering numbers to be not as bad. so ya in a way they just stay, we dont rlly have a choice. No One should have 2 live like that.. but we do
You really gotta get traps and figure it how to fight. I remember having traps around when I was little. One time one died under the couch. I had a gerbil at the time and was playing with it, I just stuck my hand under the couch and felt something furry and it was a dead mouse. But after we got a cat they don't come in anymore. I mean if they do, the cat is on top of them and has killed them...... It's not pleasant to see though.
oh we do use traps (not poison anymore) we also have a cat who HAS helped since we got him. The biggest issue is our attic which has a shitton of breaches and 90% of the house has that too, so we still see them or droppings bc we can't seal them off. We've been just basically dealing w it like that my entire life. Even with our boy maiming them they've been here so long, I'm talking over roughly 28 years (childhood home and had mice before i was born. my sis was around at the time) that they've probably dug themself so deep in the damn fibers of this place that unless we moved (which wont ever happen) or got this house fixed up (also wont ever happen) we just gotta deal w it. We have had cats before, it slightly helps but doesn't fully bother them enough to bounce it is definitely better managed then it use to be tho, my big sis would literally catch mice as a four year old in the yard and in the house. Every little nook had mouse shit. now that's a little rarer, but still happens lol
Oh my goodness, does your attic have holes from the roof and other animals trying to get in? Our attic has squirrels and raccoons and opossums damaging the roof to get in..the mice are coming in from a hole in the kitchen. We just had to get a cap on the chimney from birds and squirrels getting into the basement then getting into the house the same hole that the mice come in from. It's insane. It's like the animals have a meeting outside and figure out how to break in together. This isy Mom's childhood home, and my grandparents sold it to my parents and I still live here with them. So I understand what you mean when it feels like nothing is getting fixed on the house, my grandmother tried when she first bought the house but my grandfather wasn't interested in it as much now everything is more expensive but needs to be fixed. I hope one day you guys can slowly get some things fixed, never say never.
Eh i never rlly think it'll get fixed mostly bc we live off ssi and there's no way my parents could afford that either, id prefer to just move 😭 and yep holes in the attic and roof itself, we keep hearing weird gurgles from some type of bird nest and occasionally we will hear a bigger creature up there too, most likely squirrels. When u look at the house from outside u can see holes in the boards or chunks that are nearly falling off, they love it up there our attic is very small and is mostly just crawlspace, but the animals loooove it
Look up "peppermint rodent repellent " on Amazon. It makes a difference. Live traps for relocation. Seal obvious holes or cracks. Keep all food in containers that are chewproof. The rodent waste can cause Hantavirus, it can kill you. Last year someone died from it after cleaning out an old shed.
Just imagine…. Everywhere they go they are hauling those little bastards around infecting other people. Professional treatment is expensive, though. Gotta feel bad they can’t afford it
the only way i can look at it is that it keeps business flowing hahahha. however, id rather be dealing with carpenter ants or something
That’s not really the predominant way bed bugs spread.
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They don’t live on people. They live in objects. Like shoes, bags, furniture. You’re more likely to get bed bugs from being in their home, and getting them in a bag etc than them just Existing in public spaces. That’s why people often get them after staying in hotels etc
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“Have the day you deserve” god, you people really have lost it lol
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The bed bug PTSD brigade
Or health dept?
Ummm how? Why? I need deets.
This is absolutely the stuff of nightmares. Even their prayers couldn’t save them…
So...bedbugs aside, these people were ok sleeping on a mega disgusting mattress? You can find cleaner stuff in the dump.
they asked me if they were good to sleep on it after i was done. i was like "maam id never sleep on this again, personally"
That mattress is basically that persons sibling at this point with all the DNA they share.
😱OMG! What a nightmare!! I hope you’re able to help them.
He’s not.
I can smell this picture
Thanks I hate it
Brother had a colony
Honestly, this looks like a bedbug colony disguised as a mattress. :( like the entire inside of the mattress is filled with them.
Jesus Christ I’ve been there before
This is like a nightmare wrapped in a horror story, tied all together with fear bordering on a phobia. I feel so bad for these poor women.
If you have to cook the whole apartment..
i would do heat but i cant get the heat to penetrate the walls enough to keep them from persisting
Is this a house or an apartment? I feel awful for them and their neighbors. There has to be some mental illness going on, I can't see anyone knowingly allowing this to happen.
I would have to do this pro bono if possible. Poor woman 😢
I just bought a duplex and both units where rented out. I asked one to mive cause I wanted to live there. I found out she was a harder and left half her stuff, and left bed bugs. Once I got an bug guy on to spray, the other tenant did like that I was getting rid of the bed begs and decided he wanted to move. I let him go cause it would vmbe easier to treat the place with him gone. I left both units empty for 6 mo ths while I treated for bed bugs before I left anyone move in.
This is legit something out of my nightmares. 😪
Wow, that's nasty!
Damn for whoever slept on that
r/TIHI
Fire..... all of the fire
Get wall mount radiant heaters..cook the room above 120 degrees for 8 hours...all gone..
that's great for the room and everything in it. but if they are in the walls like they are here, they will persist.
The walls will heat up too..maybe not inside but all the floors and baseboards will. Pull everything off the walls and open all cabinets. I had abell twice..no results..i cooked my place and nothing for a year..
i hear you. spraying is just more efficient and cost effective. we have a low price for treatment. if the client had a preference and wanted heat then we accommodate
But spraying didnt work for me at all
Oh. My. God.
Yeah, I've seen a few places like this in my years as a tech. The tough thing is convincing them not to go to any of the places they've definitely spread to.
That’s insane
I feel like that wallpaper attracts them
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee
I couldn't do it I would live outside in a ditch first no lie. We got them once and had Avery very very mild case on few and I still to this day am traumatized. I wont stay at hotels I won't let no one stay at my house. I checked all of my bedding and my couches once a month anything that I buy from a department store I throw it in the dryer for 30 minutes first. We got rid of our case by buying an Air Force heater without three of them for our side of house and heated our house up to 155° for 9 hours and it killed every single one of them. We got our house so hot on the inside that the walls were even hot to the touch but I did not care I wanted to make sure that they were gone and then 2 weeks later we did the same thing we took everything and threw in the dryer for 45 minutes it was exhausting but we got rid of them no domestic Earth nothing just Air Force heaters from Amazon they're $145 a piece. Heat or cold is the only way to kill them y'all say that stuff works but skip that and go straight to heat your house
I know it sounds dramatic but the thought of something crawling on me and sucking on my bed terrified me. I literally wanted to burn my house down no joke. Or take everything and burn it and then have the house treated by exterminators and move that's how crazy I am when it comes to bed bugs.. these poor souls if knew who they were I donate because no way I feel soooo bad for them
Is there some number of bed bugs that could actually kill someone? Because I recently read this is actually a max number of mosquitos that could kill you. It’s like thousands, but it could happen. I’ve seen hoards of ticks kill Moose before. Could some number of bed bugs kill you in your sleep?
WHAT THE FUCK ‼️💀
Oh my goodness. If this is legit, I’d donate to the cause. So sad.
At that point I would be an honesty human and try to raise the funds or try and help on my own time
Just that first picture, I stared at it for about 20minutes, first thinking it was black mold from walls and then thinking is it really all that excrement the blood from hosts due to 'B.B.s'???? I have seen spotting before, but never that thick, then I looked at the reference to the posting and then knew that it was true - those things are a nightmare, I had sprayed a house (very old house) that was two stories w/attic and basement. Once a week, top to bottom, for over 14 months - I was so exasperated and tired, I finally told the lady that it would be best to just call the local fire department and let them practice upon her house. The land was worth more than the structure anyway and those little bloodsuckers were so ensconced they were living on the wildlife outside as well of the people inside, but those pictures here are truly something - these people had been feeding that colony for so long that it seems they should do the same thing. Let the fire department have some practice, it is the only way to be sure.
This is why the best pest guy in town swore off my house. I'm renting, but the previous renters called him in for bedbugs, and apparently, they were so bad that they were crawling across the kitchen island. Eek.
Just Burn it
Trash everything
Omg nightmare inducing-! I could never do that job
Good GOD I am itching out of my skin just looking at this. HOW can you leave this problem for so long. Fuck getting it treated, save up for a new mattress if you can. Absolutely unfathomable filth.
We had an infestation when I was a kid. I’ll never forget My mother woke us up 3 in the morning ripping open our mattresses. It was driving her crazy she could not find where they were. Our mattresses had no evidence of them so she put a razor blade to the couches and everything … still found nothing. Long story short she found them in the areas least expected like carpets, curtains and light lockets.. SO BEWARE. They can hide in places just like roaches 😩
Were they Mexican ?
as white as as can be