Originally published on Bubblews~March 14, 2014
Bubblews Article
I had read an article here by &o0o_Sea-Sparkles_o0o about how she avoids the issue of bringing in bedbugs by accident, especially when staying in a hotel, and it reminded me all too painfully of an incident that happened to me last year. Yup, I had gotten hit with those nasty critters.
First, one has to realize that I've lived in my apartment for a long, long time. I was only a little girl when my grandmother, mother and I moved into this place. Over the years, yes, there would be a variety of "critters" that we had to deal with. For a long time, when we first moved in, there often were silverfish, why I don't know, but thankfully, after a period of time, haven't seen any in decades. Then of course, on and off during the years, cockroaches, which seem to be a plague one deals with a lot when living in a urban type apartment building. About five years ago, all of a sudden I had an infestation of ants coming in.
Well being that I have pets, I don't like the idea of using anything toxic or poisonous that could be a danger to them. That means I refuse to use any kind of insecticide sprays (besides I can't tolerate the smell of bug juice either). I won't use baits, since my feeling is, is that, say the particular insect goes into the bait and eats the poison. Now the insect has the poison in them, so if a nosy pet decides to go after the poisoned insect, plays with it and maybe bite sin to the insect, then the pet is poisoned as well. By the way, it actually has been documented that poisons designed for one type of "pest" can and will affect other animals, including wildlife. (1)
When I got the ant problem years ago, instead of getting ant baits, I resorted to trying something more natural and non-toxic: baking soda. Yes, believe it or not, common ordinary baking soda, which I sprinkled around where I saw the ants coming in. It took awhile, but sure enough, it did the trick, as the baking soda sort of "smothers" them if they go into it. I haven't had one ant since. Yea!
Well last year I was in for the surprise of my life, the appearance of bedbugs on my bed! Just how they managed to get into my apartment I'll never know. There are a good number of ways that bedbugs can come in one's home: if one takes in used furniture, the arrival of packages via deliveries where the delivery truck is infested with them; many stores, even theaters are infested with them, also, hotels and motels may have them. There's also another more common reason.
When I think of it, who knows what critters are lurking and running up and down in the foundation and behind the walls of an apartment building or home. Do I really want to know? No thanks, since if I really sat and thought about it, I'd probably get the willies. It's my suspicion that the bedbugs got in via any cracks in the baseboard of my bedroom from another apartment with them.
Now how I discovered them. One day, last year I was doing my fanatical cleaning routine. I set aside one day of the week and clean all the floors of my apartment, clean and tidy up the bathroom, clean and tidy up the kitchen, clean and tidy up the bedroom. If I need to dust, I will, I also will do light hand-washable laundry. Yes, I do it all in one day, and often into the night, to get it all done. Well, I also decided to air out my bed that one particular day. The sheets didn't really need to be changed, but I wanted. as I said to air out my bed, so pulled the sheets off the mattress. That's when I saw them.
I'm not by any means a squeamish person, but when I saw the bedbugs on my mattress, I got annoyed more than anything else, and don't ask the "lovely" language that spewed out from my mouth. If anyone had been watching me for what I did next, they would have thought they were watching a crazed person. I ran into the bathroom, and quickly filled my bathtub with hot water. I ran back to the bedroom and stripped off the fitted sheet, flat sheet, pillow case, then ran back into the bathroom and dumped the sheets into the tub. I had remembered reading that heat kills bedbugs, thus the hot water in my bathtub. Ah, but it didn't end there!
I got out my vacuum and dragged it into the bedroom, then quite literally took my bed apart, and no easy feat considering I have painful RA issues. I took the mattress off the bed and vacuumed it, took the box spring off and vacuumed that. I lifted the two large and heavy slats of the bed off, vacuuming them, then vacuumed every nook under the bed.
Not confined to just trying to get rid of the bedbugs in the bedroom, armed with my vacuum I made an inspection of the rest of the bedroom and the entire apartment, especially going through the sofa as well. Thank goodness I didn't see any bedbugs anywhere else; they seemed to have been confined only on my bed.
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Luckily at the time I just happened to have Diatomaceaous Earth on hand. If you don't know what it is, it's a powdery substance made from the crushed up remains of marine phytoplankton. (2) I had heard about it sometime ago, and had gotten some to keep cockroaches away; it is a non-toxic means of getting rid of many types of insects, but it is known to work wonders particularly with bedbugs and completely safe around pets. So I grabbed my container of Diatomaceaous Earth and began sprinkling it all around all over the place in the bedroom.
Well it took a bit of doing as the bedbugs didn't disappear overnight. I started reading up on bedbugs, to be informed what to look for. It's easy to see them as adults, since while not very large, they are nonetheless very noticeable, but one has to be able to identify what bedbug eggs look like as well as the "baby" bedbugs. Needless to say, I kept up with my routine and searching for the critters and sprinkling more of the Diatomaceaous Earth around. Thankfully, I must have caught the bedbugs early on and was not a heavy infestation of them, since to date, a year later, I haven't seen a single one.
So if by chance you get hit with bedbugs, if not a heavy infestation, consider getting Diatomaceaous Earth and be sure it's the "food grade" kind. Where can one get this product? There are several websites one can order it, including good old Amazon.com which is where I got it. I would also recommend looking up about bedbugs to see what to look for, as many websites will show photos of bedbugs in all their stages, from eggs to adults. Sadly, if you do have a real infestation, you might have to consider getting rid of all the infested furniture. The real trick however, is to get rid of them before it does become out of control.
(1) Dangers of various poisons. Includes mention of poisons for rodents, slugs and other toxic substances that can affect pets and wildlife:
http://www.petpoisonhelpline.com/2011/09/things-in-your-yard-that-are-poisonous-to-dogs-cats/
Toxic Substances Affecting Pets and Wildlife
(2). One of the best articles about Diatomaceous Earth:
http://www.richsoil.com/diatomaceous-earth.jsp
Diatomaceous Earth
Image Source:
A Take of this image found here, but I changed the caption around via Photoshop
http://www.seekwellness.com/wellness/reports/2012-07-07.htm
