Bed Bug Question
Here’s my deal: I’m supposed (along with my five month pregnant wife and two year old daughter) move to a new apartment in my building this weekend. Last week, management told me that the apartments below me and above me had bedbugs. They sent an exterminator to my place on saturday and she found two…
Here’s my deal: I’m supposed (along with my five month pregnant wife and two year old daughter) move to a new apartment in my building this weekend. Last week, management told me that the apartments below me and above me had bedbugs. They sent an exterminator to my place on saturday and she found two “husks”, but not any live bedbugs (guess what my wife thought were misqoutos were actually bed bugs).
The exterminator sprayed the baseboards and put down powder by the foot of the bed, but didn’t do a full spraying b/c of my wife and daughter. We then bought protective mattresses for our bed and our daughters and sealed both up after the spraying. the exterminator is saying that it will be safe to bring our mattresses to our new apartment because our infestation didn’t seem too serious.
I’m wondering if we’re making a mistake by bringing the mattresses to the new place. Does any one who has any experience with bed bugs have any advice? are there levels of bed bug infestation? Or if you only have a few “husks”, is that still serious?
thanks…..
ive got a product that is chemical and pesticide free. it monitors bedbugs and stops them from getting into the bed…check this website out…www.Insect-Interceptor.com
Way back in college I rented an apt that became infested w/ bedbugs. Lucky for me, I didn’t have very many posessions at the time besides clothes and a crapola of books.
All clothes and linens were laundered and drycleaned, and kept in storage until I found a new apartment.
Mattress and pillows were tossed and new ones purchased from Ikea, delivered to new apartment and promptly sealed in those handy protect a bed thingies just to be sure.
All books should be shaken out and vaccummed and make sure to check the dust covers if you have a lot of hardcovers- bedbugs are so thin they can squeeze between the pages of a closed book.
Everything you own should be cleaned/inspected and then moved out of the infested apt as soon as possible.
I would be highly cautious about staying in a building that has bedbugs. From our experience, we found out we had bedbugs and bombed, sprayed, etc which pushed the critters into our neighbor’s apartment. They then bombed,etc… pushing them right back through the walls into our apartment. Apparently it is very difficult to get rid of them entirely unless the landlord does bomb the entire building at the same time and all your neighbors take the same measures you do.
After they came back the 2nd time is when I took the above action. In fact, that was the last apt. I rented in Queens. I figure I’ll just avoid the entire boro from now on, just in case. Haha.
call a GOOD exterminator. I recommend PEst2Kill. Found them after messing around with idiots first. they were amazing. Make sure they spray powder into all the outlets and walls incase the bed bugs are traveling in the walls and coming out the outlets. (I sealed up almost all unused outlets with child-potective outlet covers and caulking. ) Have the exterminator also spray around all places the bedbugs may be- where the wall meets the floor, along the mouldings on the walls. Make sure the apartment is TOTALLY SEALED. around radiator pipes, floor boards. In our place they were coming up through the holes in the floor around the radiator pipes. I poured a ton of bedbug powder into the holes and then filled the holes with insulation foam. Also get really good mattress covers. I suggest protect-a-bed. Clean well, too. use murphy’s oil soap on the floor to kill any eggs. if your floor has lots of cracks get it refinished and use lots of resin. IF THEY CANT GET IN YOUR PROBLEM IS SOLVED!!! they are getting in somehow and that is what you need to figure out.
My friend told me there is a big import of bed-bugs into the country. I’d Google this and find out exactly what is going on.
Stern Environment Group does non-toxic treatment. They have hot boxes, which kill bugs by heat. It works on books, CDs, etc. They also use cryogenic devices to freeze out bugs on furniture. I will definitely pay them money so they will check every single item you about to move. You even might want to hire a man with sniffing dog, which will check if there any smell of bugs.
As other people mentioned, you cannot be too cautious with this pests.
On the other side – your move is the blessing since you can check every item separately.
ah the phone: 732-780-0805. I am not associated with them, but other people from this forum mentioned and recommended them.
We survived a major infestation of bedbugs. We found them mostly in the seams of a box spring but continued to find them for weeks even though we threw out the boxspring and had an exterminator treat the apt twice. We did continue to live in the apt…dogs were out of apt overnight after the spraying. Fortunately we were moving and in the few weeks before we moved the bedbug sitings tapered off. They can be in your books, files, computer…..not just beds so unless you are getting rid of everything you own I’d say look at everything very carefully…especially seams of mattresses and boxsprings and then move and hope you don’t take any with you. We moved 2 years ago and have not found any bedbugs. I also had the exterminator at the new place use the spray that works on bedbugs when we first moved. Good luck!
I am the owner of a small apt. building and I can add a couple of things:
Bedbugs are very difficult to get rid of. Even an apartment that has been vacant and fumigated can still become reinfested. Bedbugs are often resistent to the chemicals that are used to kill them and they can hide in places that chemicals just can not reach.
Using a sealed mattress cover is a good idea – if the bedbugs are in the mattress, and they are sealed withing the mattress cover, they will ultimately die and while they are alive (up to a year) they can not escape and infest your new home. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, bedbugs can hide in an amazing number of places but the exterminator is correct that if you only have a minor infestation, they are likely to remain near the bed, i.e. the source of food.
Especially if this is an old building, with lots of cracks and crevices, I suggest that you consider moving to another building. Bedbugs are not life threatening, not really all that dangerous but they are a nuisance and very difficult to eliminate.
Bedbugs move from apartment to apartment – if they are in your building then there’s very little chance that an uninfested apartment won’t be infested before long.
Listen to Act 2 of this podcast of This American Life…
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1255
with something like bed bugs, i feel like the adage better safe than sorry is more than appropriate. get new mattresses – from Ikea if you have too. Or if you are buying a bunch of new ones, go to Sleepys/Rockaway, etc and negotiate. Mark ups on mattresses are incredibly high.