BEDBUG EPIDEMIC! Not To Be Alarmist Or Anything.

Yay Paula Fletcher for taking action on this! Bedbugs scare the crap out of me. Seriously, I have nightmares about those things.

...I mean they CRAWL ALL OVER YOU WHEN YOU'RE SLEEPING AND SUCK YOUR BLOOD OMG WTF I have to go take a bath now ::shudder::

My name is Sean Rollo and I am a former pest control technician and am now a Quality Assurance Manager and Technical Advisor for one of North America’s largest pest control companies.

I have spent the better part of the past five years studying and researching bed bugs. It has literally become a hobby.

I have created a website geared toward providing the public with a place to go to get information and allow industry professionals to communicate with each other on this issue.

The site is called The Bed Bug Resource (www.thebedbugresource.com). At the top of the page there is a Forum button that will take you to the message boards.

If you find this to be a useful resource please feel free to pass the information on to colleagues and the general public.

Sincerely

Sean Rollo
Entomologist / Pest Professional
www.thebedbugresource.com

How do you get bed bugs? They don't just walk into your apartment, do they?

I wonder if they affect all animals who use beds, or just humans.

I had bedbugs in my last apartment, and it was horrible. Waking with large itchy spots all over your body, in sheets speckled with your own frickin' blood! We threw out the bed and moved shortly thereafter. All out war on bedbugs!

Bed bugs 2009

I lived in unit 201 of this building for 3 weeks in July 2009. When I first moved in my boyfriend and I saw a bug crawling on the wall by the front door, not even thinking of bedbugs I wrote it off as an "outdoor bug that got lost." Upon moving in the place has been empty for a while, cleaned, painted, and re floored in the bathroom; there were no visible droppings, smell of bug spray or bugs. While the hallways are carpet, the units are hardwood for the most part. It is washed down with bleach once a week. The walls were repainted to the point they almost seemed hollow, and when you hammer into them you can hear things falling behind.

On the Monday of my 3ed week living there I noticed a few bites on my neck, I wrote it off as misquotes from the nature walk. By the Thursday, my neck, the bottom of my face, and my hands were covered. I instantaneously threw out my pull out couch which my parents had so kindly bought me. The landlord attempted to be very calming when I showed up at here door crying and covered in bites. The husband-wife supers told me they would come spray with some "heavy duty" stuff that he sprays his unit with every other week to keep bugs out; he then offered to come spray my place every other week. I really didn't think my cat and rabbit would approve of that, nor their lungs. I was told they would have someone come the Monday and spray professionally.

I returned Monday evening and nothing had been moved, there was no smell nor was there any indication that anyone had been in my unit. I would have assumed the furniture would have been pulled away from the walls. after bagging all of my clothing, winter gear and life (21 garbage bags to be exact), spraying the inside of those garage bags with bug spray I stood outside waiting for a cab to take me to a laundry mat. As a man walked out of the building I asked him if things bite him in his sleep. He said "yes, you just gotta spray once a day." my positive outlook on the situation then faded. I was going to move for the second time in a month.

I broke my lease with out issue, but was refused my deposit. I have read that so long the super does something; they legally have to give you nothing.

When I was moving out a plumber pulled in to do repairs to the building. He spoke to my father while I carried my life to a pick up truck. He told my father that it was good that I was getting out of the place now. That he found cockroaches, dead mice, bugs he didn’t know the names of, and bedbugs. He said he would go into many of the units and they would be riddled with trash, cockroaches and mice.

I made a list of the money lost through out the adventure. I cried for almost a week. Gone: couch, pillows, mattress, over stuffed chair, some bedding, and wicker-wood things. I did 21 garbage bags of laundry, in hot water then to dryer destroying all that was once wool. I rotated my shoes and purses in the freezer for 3 days at a time each. I left a lot there. I will not add the time I had to take off work to rush find a house and move again.

The one thing that was not going to happen was for me to move with them and infest something new. I have now moved to forest hill. My rent only went up 20$ and my place is 4 times the size. I still wake up and think about things crawling in my bed.

Best suggestion for prevention: vacuum vacuum vacuum steam clean. Steam clean. And don't move to Carlton and Sherbourne ;)

On a side note: a spider also gave birth in my shower resulting in my looking up on day while showering and finding 40 -50 baby spiders crawling all over the ceiling and tops of the walls. Bleach.bleach.bleach.