Hello,
Here is my experience with bedbugs. For about a year or so I was finding hard lumps on the back of my neck and also on the inside of my wrists. I had no idea what was happening and my husband just dismissed it as a bug bite.. I also kept finding dark blood stains on our sheets. These would eventually turn brown as I washed the sheets over time. One night my husband woke me up to show me a bug he had caught on his body. At the time I was sick with a severe case of vertigo AND bronchitis. I was barely able to reply to him and then fell back asleep. A few months after that he caught another one and saved it. We did some research and there on the screen was a bedbug looking exactly like the one we found. We took the bed apart. We vacuumed and cleaned etc. There was some reddish stuff on the baseboard. Scrubbed that. We also sprayed some bedbug stuff we got at a hardware store. Did nothing. We took the bed apart again and I noticed some black smears on the box spring. We threw it away and bought a new box spring. It did not help. Called Orkin who told us they couldn't come for 3 days. He also said bedbugs come out in the dark and are attracted to the carbon given off my human breath. They seemed to be coming from the top corner of the left hand side of the bed as that is where I found the reddish stuff and the black stuff. They came and sprayed and gave us mattress covers. A few months later more bites... more blood spots on the bed. Orkin came back as that was part of the package we bought....about nine hundred dollars. About 6 months later I found a dead bedbug in the hem of the bedspread. This time we called a local exterminator who had gotten rid of a skunk family living under our front porch. He sprayed again. No where near as expensive as Orkin. I don't remember who but one of them told us to put cups of mineral oil under each of the bed post.We are still doing that. As luck would have it they never got to the RV. Before Orkin guy came the first time we slept with the lights on as we were told they only come out in the dark. We have not had a problem since the 3rd spaying the the mineral oil in cups thing. This started about 4 years ago. We do travel and had stayed at hotels rooms and on cruise ships. Orkin guy we most likely picked them up in the carryon luggage area of an airplane.
Anyway.....it was one of the most traumatic things I have ever gone through.I know compared to all the tragedies happen in the world today it was really nothing. But to me it was. I felt like I couldn't even go to bed at night without worry. The worry of them coming back which they did 2 times. Just the thought that there were bugs crawling in our bed and over us and biting us was awful. It is hard to explain how it effected us. I was teaching in an inner city school at the time and more than one of my students had bedbugs. Who knows? It could have been there although my coat was never hung with the students closet.
Just wanted to pass along our experience. Both exterminators told us that they are extremely hard to get rid of. Thats why people living in tenements have a hard time getting rid of them. The landlord usually doesn't want to spend the money to get rid of them correctly. One of my students had bedbug bite all up and down her arms. She would constantly scratch. Her family was at the mercy of the landlord who did nothing.
So from what I know if they are truly bedbugs all of the heat steam etc will not get rid of them. It took us three professional whole room sprays , mattress covers, pillow covers and mineral oil in cups to finally get rid of them. We still pull the bed apart periodically and check for signs of them.
I wish you luck getting rid of them. Its something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy( not that I have any:)
Marianne
David and Marianne
2010 Tundra
2007 FunFinder 21'
