Madness? This isn't madness. This is SPARTA! Er... my BEDROOM!

Shortly before the two week mark of living in my new apartment I woke up with one little itchy dot. The net day I woke up with a few series of little itchy dots. The day after that, more itchy dots appeared in a distinct pattern of clusters of 3 in straight lines. Bed bug bites.

I didn't have bedbugs before I moved here. And according to the exterminator, I still don't my mattress is clear, no bedbug streaks or bodies, or skins or anything have been found. The exterminator has told me there is nothing that he can really do, the infestation, he suspects, is in a neighbouring unit in the complex and that the bugs are coming over at night to feed on me, and returning to their nest at the neighbours' when they are done. Spraying my unit would have no effect on the problem, they'd come back over as soon as the spray wore off.

I'm being ignored by one of the neighbours, the one that I share a bedroom wall with, and the most likely culprit. The other neighbours have sounded cooperative, but I'm not sure they are taking me seriously. See, not everyone reacts to bedbug bites. So you can have bedbugs, and you could be giving them to your neighbours, without even knowing it.

So, I am expected to live with someone else's bedbugs. I am itchy, Kodi is itchy (likely being bit as well) and I am creeped out. How long until the infestion moves over in to my unit? How will I move out of this place without taking bugs with me? Am I supposed to live with being bit until my six month lease is up?

Well, I'm claiming no to the last one at least. So, I spent my saturday beginning my war against my neighbour's bugs.

My army



Seem like overkill? Seriously Monika? Do you really need FIVE bottles of insect killing dirt? In my world I do. And you'd feel the same too if you were being bit by bugs and no one was helping you. That dirt is diatomacious earth. Its made out of crushed diatoms, single celled creatures made up of silica. Glass. To a person it feels kind of like talcum powder, but it is very abrasive at a bug's level. It works by cutting their exoskeleton and deydrating them. It is perfectly harmless to me, Kodi, and the birds, but deadly to crawling insects.

So? Why all the tape? You'll see.

As for the Oxymed. I've used more of it on myself so far than I have on Kodi. So soothing.


The battle ground.




First thing I had to do was bag everything in the room that can be washed. All my clothes, even if they are already clean, and all my bedding and kodi's bedding. These will be washed in HOT water and dried at (gulp) high heat. Unless I really don't want to risk wrecking something. If that is the case that something will be bagged and put outside. Either we'll get two straight weeks of below zero before spring, or the +30 come summer will kill whatever is in the bags with the clothes.




Next I vacuumed everything that was left. The lamp and alarm clock aren't leaving the room because, beleive it or not, bed bugs will hide in these items, so they are staying in instead of harbouring the creatures elsewhere in the house. I vacuumed all the crevaces of the bed, walls, outlets, closet, and the dresser.

Then I threw dirt all over everything.




I created quite the mess. I'm leaving it as such over night, then tomorrow I will vacuum again and sprinkle a more controlled perimeter of the DE around the baseboards, dresser legs, around the bed, and around Kodi's crate. I found the containers hard to control the spray on, so I will transfer some to a shaker and do it that way.
I also unscrewed all the outlet covers and puffed the DE inside, as this is likely where the bugs are traveling between units, through the electrical system.

Then I created a perimeter of double sided carpet tape. Under it is painter's tape, to prevent damage to the finished surfaces. Bed bugs shouldn't be able to fly or jump, so they would have to climb the walls, or the bed, to get to me. There is tape around all parts of my bed that contact the floor as well. I made a perimeter around my most suspect outlet, and a big one around the head board too.




I don't know how well it will work. I bought the one that said "aggressive adhesive" on the lable, but it doesn't seem all that sticky to me at all. I hope it's sticky enough.

Altogether this process took around 5.5 hours of steady work. This is just the first stage. Tomorrow I will see what bug remains I find, will tidy up the DE as mentioned above, and will expand my defense further throughout my home. Not to mention the huge pile of laundry.

You know what would be awesome? If these weren't bedbug bites after all, but Asian Lady Beetle bites. I've been finding what I have been calling ladybugs all over the basement, dead ones mostly, but I wonder...


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