Monday, August 2, 2010

Bed bugs

There's been an epidemic with them in the NYC area as of late. And lucky me, I got a call today that two of my clients apparently now have them. Both of them are "clean" and have had services for awhile so it's total speculation to where they may have gotten them from. It really could be ANYWHERE from what news and research shows. Anyways...........looks like this will be the next big problem I will have to deal with. I've been itching all day (literally) just thinking about cleaning up this mess.


Have any of you had to deal with this problem before either personally or professionally? What did you do and were you successful?

3 comments:

  1. One of the apartments I lived in in Syracuse NY got bedbugs. Sorry to say, they are nasty little bugs and they are hard to get rid of. I didn't get bitten like my roommates did (I had brought a new mattress while they were using ones that had been in the furnished apartment we rented), but one of my roommates hd bites literally covering every inch of her legs. She ended up needing to use antibiotics to decrease the swelling. The bugs are flat and small and they can live through nearly anything, including most fumigation processes. You have to make sure you get an exterminator who does bedbugs. The fumigation doesn't kill the eggs either, so what you need to do is fumigate once to kill all the grown ones, then you need to fumigate again a couple of days later to kill the eggs that have hatched before they lay their own eggs. Your best bet to make sure they are all gone really is to fumigate about 4-5 times over two weeks.

    That's for normal bedbug infestations. The apartment I lived in had them EVERYWHERE. WE ended up replacing our beds, mattresses, chairs, furniture, stuffed animals, and carpet. We also had to take every article of clothing we owned and wash it in boiling hot water. We had to stay our of our apartment for about three weeks during this process. I hope it doesn't turn out like that for you or your clients. Good luck!

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  2. A lot of my clients have had bedbugs, and one of my friends did as well. (Sidenote-if someone is offering a free couch on Craig's List, just walk on by.)

    Be really careful in an apartment that has had bugs. They say that they're clean, but it can take a long time. Try not to sit on any soft surfaces if you can avoid it. I've been in apartments with bedbugs but have avoided bringing them back to the office or my own apartment.

    I agree that an exterminator who knows what they're doing is the most important thing. A lot of times they'll bring a beagle to sniff out the bugs, which has the added bonus of being adorable.

    The most important thing is not to let yourself get too crazy--it's hard, as I'm getting itchy while I type this. Good luck!

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  3. Thanks for the info, both of you. The not letting myself get too crazy about this is what I've been repeating to myself all day.

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