Throwing out the couch...

I had been told these suckers are afraid of movement, noise and light. Apparently mine were quickly overcoming their fears. After the treatment began I was finding them in my daughter's bedroom, my bedroom, the living room and the kitchen. The bathroom seemed to be the only safe haven. I had read that relocating sleeping areas within the infested dwelling would be fruitless and only aid in the spread as these suckers would find you. No place was safe. There would be nights though, where I would work myself into exhaustion so that sleep was no longer a choice. I couldn't willingly subject myself to the nightly feeding frenzy. And then there were nights that I just couldn't bring myself to lay down on their dinner table and I would fall asleep in the bathtub. I never slept on the couch, not at night anyways. But one day, exhausted from the OCD cleaning and sleep deprivation, I gave into sleep as I lay on my couch at 3pm in the afternoon. It was a comfortable couch and pretty too. Microsuede, cushiony and blue. I woke up with a start as I felt a pinch on my back. I rubbed my back, looked at the pillows, moved them around and saw nothing. I decided to ignore it. I was tired of this. I laid back down and 2 seconds later I felt another pinch. "That's it!" I cried as I ran to the bathroom mirror to inspect my back. Sure enough there were 2 bites right next to each other. I informed my daughter I needed her help, we were throwing out the couch. We took a knife to the pillows, cushions and couch as instructed to make the furniture undesirable so as no dumpster divers would be tempted with such a great find. My pretty blue couch, only 1 1/2 years old, we slid down the stairs, through the parking lot and abandoned it right next to the dumpster. It was at that point my daughter said she realized how serious this was and that I was not just being mean. What a memory she will have when she gets older....the day my mom jumped off the couch and exclaimed, that's it-we're throwing out the couch. I feel like I have lost my mind. I am sure my neighbors are thinking the same.

Evacuation Plan

I was told by the apt mgr to keep furniture and such in my apt until treatments were complete. I had already gone through 4 treatments and there seemed no end in sight, besides, I needed to start preparing for my escape from the nightly and what had begun recently as daily torment. I began systematically throwing items away. The saddest was bagging up my daughter's beloved stuffed animals in a trash bag and throwing them in the dumpster. I tried to assure her that we would start replacing them as soon as we got settled in our new place and that it was important not to take any risks of taking the bedbugs with. There was a high risk of the bedbugs infesting her stuffed animals since they resided on her bed and sometimes, behind her bed. She agreed but later told me secretly she thought I was just being mean.
I was used to having to play the bad guy sometimes as a parent to invest into the best interest of my child, but this took the cake.
I began going through everything, all of my possessions, and having to decided what I would part with forever and what I would end up keeping in storage for the next 2 years. There were many tears. I would make piles of what to keep and immediately bag and throw out what I wasn't keeping. Again and again, the pile to keep would become too large and I would have to go through everything a second, third, fourth, fifth time and so on.
When I say I threw out everything, I mean everything except the kitchen sink, although I was tempted to do that when I spotted one there as well. Pouring rubbing alcohol on it sufficed my demented desire to see it suffer as much as my family and I have.

Searching for a safe haven...

I haven't yet mentioned that I am a full time college student and had to do an emergency withdraw from my classes because I realized this nightmare was all too consuming and needed my full energy and attention if I were to successfully rid my life of bedbugs. I had also just quit my part time job one month before the nightmare began. I had put enough money into savings to focus on school and to hurry up and finish with my degree and now I was having to transfer my savings so I could use it to fight this war the human parasites had waged against me.
I began my search for a new apt. I was not going to compromise this time and looked beyond the city to the cush suburbia. I found some very pretty "luxury" apts for twice as much as I was spending in rent but I couldn't do this half way. I refused to make a parallel move from one bad situation to another. It reminded me of the sitcom theme song for The Jeffersons..."moving on up, to the east side," or however it goes. The whole reason I moved into that apt was to save money on rent so I could eventually quit working and focus on school full time. I had finally done so and no sooner than I had, the rug was pulled out from under me causing me to smack the back of my head on the ground so hard surely causing an indefinite concussion.
Without knowing how I was going to afford this new place with no job and no student loans in sight, I signed the lease and payed the thousands of dollars to secure the place. I never stepped foot inside the apt until the night I made the final move.

The Apt. Manager

I talked to my apt. manager about wanting out of my lease. The apt. mgr said, "Why, because of the bedbug infestation, no I'm sorry, I can't do that." I preceded to tell the mgr that I had spoken with the local police dept and they advised me to get out for safety reasons as well as the bedbugs. "Why would they tell you that?!" The mgr declared more than asked. The mgr began to argue with me until I gave specific examples of recent crime occurring in the area and reluctantly gave in. Prior to this, the mgr told me to submit all my receipts of the expenses I accrued to eradicate the bedbugs and they would reimburse me. Nearly six months later they have yet to do so and claim they feel it is a wash because they let me out of my lease early.

A moment of realization...

After weeks of experiencing more bites, even worse than ever and now seeing the nasty critters in places such as my kitchen...I knew something more had to be done. I needed to plan my escape. I called the state health dept. and the local police dept, both of which advised that I abandon everything and get out of there. Apparently my apt building had been put on alert a year ago by the state health dept for having an infestation of bedbugs. This meant the local police and fire dept were instructed not to enter the premises unless it were a life or death emergency. Nice. No one told me and I'm living here!!! Apparently, the fire house had become infested and the only way they were able to eradicate the bugs were to strip the building and do a major renovation. They succeeded. I of course don't have that recourse as an option.
So I began the long painstaking process of systematically ridding my apartment of all my possessions.

The first few weeks...

Initially I thought, ok, this is going to be a lot of work but I can do this. I am very methodical and resourceful in my approach to any challenge and I will do the necessary work and be done with this thing.
Almost six months later you can probably guess that it is not quite that simple but lets start at the beginning.
First on the list was spring cleaning and re-organizing. I had lived in my apt. for 3 years so I had accumulated some items that I didn't necessarily need but couldn't bring myself to throw it out. I threw these items out. Not that my place was very cluttered to begin with but it could use a spring cleaning anyway. Now that I have a clutter free environment, the OCD cleaning will be much easier. I decided I had to throw more items out. I wiped all surfaces with bleach and water solution (50/50), mopped my floors with bleach and washed the baseboards with bleach. Ahhh, the smell of bleach-at least I know it is clean. I vacuumed mattresses, couches, cushions, pillows and every square inch of carpet. I went through our clothes and placed the ones to be thrown out in tightly sealed trash bags. I also had to place the vacuum bags in sealed trash bags immediately after vacuuming and promptly dispose of them in the dumpster. I began transportation of hoards of laundry to the local laundry mat and dry cleaners. Until this point I had never seen a bug in my apartment although I did notice their shedded skin along the baseboards behind the bed as I vacuumed. It wasn't until the exterminator came for the first time that I saw the invisible culprits. One had dropped off my daughters mattress which I had just vacuumed and I found another one climbing on my bedroom wall. I must have killed it about 20 times over by smacking it with my Doc Martin and to ensure the death of the unidentifiable carcass, I flushed it down the toilet.
This process needed to be repeated each week indefinitely.
I decided we needed to get rid of yet more items. This was just too much work.
I got rid of my daughters dresser and tore down my canopy and threw it all out.
Weeks later we were still suffering from bites.

My vow to be victorious...

I decided to start this blog to share my experiences with others, what I've done to try and eradicate these things and also to receive feedback from others. I have succumbed to a self-induced isolated state over fear of spreading these suckers as well as self-protection from the judgments of society. This is me being brave. I will not be kept silent and I am determined not to let these blood-sucking parasites ruin anymore of my life than they already have. I will defeat them. I will be victorious. If there is one thing I know about me it is that I am stubborn and can be even more tenacious than the chemically resilient creatures that feed on me in the dead of night.

The beginnings of my living nightmare....

It all started sometime in May 2007...my daughter was experiencing mosquito bites...so I thought. I bought some "off" but still the bites persisted. I bought cortisone cream and still her scratching persisted. I started getting these mosquito bites, but they were like mutant mosquito bites. The bites were extremely itchy, welted and like my daughter experienced, the cortisone cream didn't touch them. I even spoke to the pharmacist to see if there was anything stronger than the over-the-counter 1% cortisone treatment. Nothing. I began keeping mental notes of the bites as they were increasing and I didn't spend much time outside...I noticed my cats were even scratching. I began my indefinite Internet research and looked up everything from mange, ringworm, scabies and insect bites. To my dismay I was able to identify photos of bites as being the same as my own, the culprit, bedbugs.
The following day I called up my apartment complex to have them nonchalantly inform me that "yeah, I probably do have bedbugs since the tenants above me have been receiving treatment for them for the last 5-6 weeks." They initially told me they would try to get someone out there in the next week or two. I was irate and would not accept this. They gave me self-bombs and had the exterminator out in 3 days. I had no idea what I was in for. The living nightmare I had just awoken to. Ignorance was, in part, bliss.