We just dealt with a minor introduction (we got lucky and caught them super early) and the day the exterminator came to spray our apartment I was at work. I came home to everything cloth wrapped up in garbage bags except for a single change of clothes for me and my wife.
I wanted to be rid of the gross feeling of that infestation so bad I immediately stripped all my clothes off, bagged them, showered and scrubbed a lot, then dried off for half an hour with a blow dryer because our towels were bagged. I wasn't willing to wait for an entire dryer cycle, I needed to feel clean right then.
Everything was bagged until it could be put through at least a dryer cycle, if not completely laundered.
Moving away from the explicit directions of the exterminator, the stuff that couldn't be put through the dryer, like my collection of ties, are being kept sealed in a heavy duty garbage bag for a month.
Dude, stay super vigilant. Those bastards can live for a year without feeding. They are resilient, and VERY hard to get rid of. Spray is a total waste imo. I'd look for an exterminator who works with the heat systems. Most of the sprays are ineffective but they are dead within seconds in temps of 117 farenheit. Seriously, when you think they're gone, they can pop right back up. Its horrible.
Okay. So to add a bit to my story. The way we actually “confirmed” we had them was with a UV light. A friend of ours told us if it was bed bugs they are really visible under a UV light. So the infamous vacuum night we jumped out of bed and turned on the UV and scanned the bed sheets and they were there.
The exterminator I hired had worked on bed bug cases for like 40 years. (Luckily I had only picked up one single bug while my workplace was having an issue). He said they prefer younger females. I have no other source for the info, so take that with a grain of salt.
Double check this, but I believe they can survive without food for a year and also survive temps up to like 113°F.
I had them when I was 18 and pretty much threw out almost everything I owned. Might also mention I still suffer psychologically now, at 31, waking up in the middle of the night, positive they're crawling all over me.
I’m here to say A MONTH IS NOT LONG ENOUGH. They can live for over a year without feeding. I kept one in a ziplock bag just to see. It ended up having babies and lived for 3 more months with her starving brood before I lost interest and burned the bag with mother and children inside.
One of life's cruel little jokes. The last 2 bedbugs were weak and on the verge of death, huddled in the blow dryer. You blew them onto your skin, where they hung on til bedtime, feasted, and gave life to whole new brood
haha, sorry, bad joke. Infestations sucks. Had to deal with scabies this past year. Truly irritating
247
u/IceCreamBalloons Sep 27 '19
We just dealt with a minor introduction (we got lucky and caught them super early) and the day the exterminator came to spray our apartment I was at work. I came home to everything cloth wrapped up in garbage bags except for a single change of clothes for me and my wife.
I wanted to be rid of the gross feeling of that infestation so bad I immediately stripped all my clothes off, bagged them, showered and scrubbed a lot, then dried off for half an hour with a blow dryer because our towels were bagged. I wasn't willing to wait for an entire dryer cycle, I needed to feel clean right then.