The case of the missing bed bugs - an update : Melbourne Indymedia

Last year I posted a few stories on my fight with bed bugs...

Media Criticism - the bed bug story
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/12/350785.shtml

The behavior of starving bed bugs
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/12/350712.shtml

Bed bug bed protector
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/12/350670.shtml

Experiments with bed bugs
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/12/350599.shtml

Sleep tight - don't let the bed bugs bite
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/11/349886.shtml

Exterminating bed bugs (an novel idea)
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/12/350951.shtml

As I mentioned in my story regarding the change in bed bug behavior, I have been starving a nest of bed bugs for about three months now. I have not allowed those things to bite me, and as I knew would happen, they moved out. I have also been killing quite a few bed bugs, trapping them in glue traps, drowning them in stainless steel bowls of water with disinfectant at the bottom of my bed posts. I have taken all my stuff outside and left it in weather where the wind chill factor brought the temperature down to minus 50 below zero, and froze all the bed bugs to death, thus allowing me to have access to my possessions once again. (Before this, I had every thing sealed and wrapped and was waiting for one and half years to pass before the bed bugs finally dropped dead for sure, since that is how long it takes, but as it worked out, I only had to wait about three days - one would probably have been enough, but I kept everything out in the deep freeze for three days, just to make sure). So then I have been trapping, drowning, freezing and most of all, I have been starving bed bugs, and now finally my place is bed bug free.

I can report therefore that it takes about three months to kick the bed bugs out of your place. I know this because two weeks ago, I still had bed bugs, because I slept out in the open for a couple of hours and got bit about half a dozen times. I slept out in the open yesterday for five hours and did not get bit once. My glue traps have become free of bed bugs. I no longer see bed bugs running around the place. I killed quite a few of them and the rest moved out.

I live in a high rise, and when you live in a high rise you are part of a community of people, and so therefore you are not completely free to make your own decisions. Therefore my place was sprayed for bed bugs last year. I have spent over a month sleeping in a tent on my living room floor because it was impossible to really ventilate the bed room when it was fifty below zero, while the living room vents out into the hall way, which made the living room more livable and the bedroom unlivable. As I told my land lord the spray was ineffective against those bed bugs, since they were pesticide resistant. I then went about trapping, drowning and freezing them to death, since that does work. Just this week I was ready to go back into my bedroom because finally that pesticide stink is gone, but now I have to get my place sprayed again. You see the neighbors are spraying those bed bugs again, which means that this week I am getting sprayed again. I tried to explain to the land lord that spraying bed bugs over and over again is an indication that it is a pesticide resistant bed bug, but everyone in this building is in denial, probably because they cannot deal with that idea, and they insist on spraying over and over and over again.

Meanwhile, I am the only person in the building who actually got rid of his bed bugs, which should be encouraging news to anyone else who gets bed bugs and wants to get rid of them. Even if a bed bug is pesticide resistant, that is no reason to get despondent. Just kick the little red buggers out. Don't let them bite you. It takes about three months. Better yet, be pro-active, and don't let them bite you in the first place. They won't even start a nest in your place, thus saving you three months, which is about how long it takes to kick them out once you have allowed a bed bug to bite you and the thing then decide to shack up with you.

Now that I have gotten rid of those bed bugs, I will remain on guard, because they have been in the building for a year and half, and the neighbors have them, and they are bug bombing them, which does not work, and at the same time they are being blood donors, which is the surest way of spreading bed bugs, since you cannot have a plague of bed bugs, pesticide resistant or not, without a steady supply of willing blood donors who will allow those nuisance bugs to bite. All of this is just simple common sense, while repeatedly spraying a pesticide resistant bed bug is not common sense, and neither is being a blood donor for those little vampires.