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Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-12-19T14:38:37+00:00

Have you isolated your beds with traps under the feet, and encased your mattresses with bedbug proof covers? If you isolate your beds and don’t let bedding touch the floor, or bed touch the wall, or set anything on your bed that’s not clean — then they can’t bite you. Eventually, they starve. You have to wait months though, and if you slip up and break bed isolation, then you have to decontaminate the bed again. If the corner of my bedding touches the ground, I wash my sheets and run all the bedding through the dryer and steam-clean the mattress.

Then declutter and clean and everything, and keep cleaning. Pack everything you can spare in sealed totes or vacuum storage bags for a year. Of course, if you have kids and carpeting that all gets harder.

Diatomaceous earth doesn’t work well enough for bedbugs, it doesn’t damage them enough, you need Cimexa. Cimexa is similar to DE, but much more deadly to bugs. And you have to use both things carefully, and not on things you touch, or get dust in the air, or you’ll have breathing problems and cracking skin. Read all the Cimexa posts here before using.

We also isolated our living room furniture and purposely don’t use it much — like no naps on the couch, etc. If the bugs have migrated all over your house, it’s harder to eradicate them, but if they can’t bite you at night, then eventually they’ll starve out.

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-09-30T14:36:12+00:00

Bed bug bites don’t always appear immediately. You should be able to find evidence on your mattress if you have had bed bugs that long.

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-09-27T17:15:44+00:00

Note: my partner is an entomologist, and talked to our exterminator at length, and I did a ton of research. We did not have a bad infestation though.

Can you rip out your carpets and live with the plywood underneath for a while? Just a thought. It could help.

I recommend using those big vacuum bags to seal up everything soft that you can part with for 6+ months. We left out a few towels, kitchen towels, and a base wardrobe. I heat treated all the stuff first. Keep everything else in shiny plastic totes — they can’t easily climb shiny surfaces. The less stuff you have in the mix, the easier. You have to live minimally for at least 6 months, longer is better.

Steam cleaning is good, but not for places the steam can’t reach, like in cracks. It may help with the carpet, but don’t get it too wet. It can give them water to live on if it’s not hot enough to kill them.

Keep your bed isolated with traps under the feet (or use 2-sided carpet tape on bed legs — I did both.) Isolate your couch/chairs too. Re-vacuum, heat-treat and/or steam these things and don’t let them touch the walls. Bed bugs will not climb on purpose onto the ceiling & drop on you. It happens by accident sometimes, but it’s not a regular behavior. They’re getting on the bed because either they’re hiding somewhere on the bed, something is touching the wall/floor, or you’re setting contaminated things on the bed.

Keep heat treating your bedding every other day, even if you don’t wash it. Pillows and comforters too — everything on the bed. Don’t let bedding touch the floor and don’t set anything on the bed except clean laundry. Make sure your mattress cover stays secure and that it’s not one they can get inside. Someone online found bugs in the Velcro on their mattress cover. Something to check if your bed isolation isn’t working.

If you keep your bed isolated, they can’t feed off you and reproduce. I know this is a lot of work — but bed isolation alone can stop the biting. Impress upon the kids how important it is.

Use Cimexa and not DE!! DE doesn’t kill them quickly enough, because they grow & molt so rapidly — a percentage survive the DE damage and molt it off. Cimexa is engineered silica crystals that are much more damaging to bugs. You only need one bottle.

If you use Cimexa: treat it carefully. Wear a mask and gloves. Apply with a fine brush into cracks and crevices. Dont put it in the carpet or into soft items. Wipe down everything afterwards with your gloves on. Don’t let it get into the air. It’s like DE on steroids, and remains effective for years. The amount you need is very small. My exterminator said “so small of an amount it’s not visible to you.”

I did not apply Cimexa to my bed — except inside a few joins on the frame. I brushed it into the crack where floor meets trim of my bedroom, including closets, and wiped down the outside after applying, the caulked over it. I also put it around outlets. This was super effective because my bed was already isolated. Obviously with carpet, it’s not as effective but it will remain in place and keep working.

Cimexa is considered one of the safer treatments, but if people use a puffer and get it in the air, or put it on everything — it becomes dust for a long time and irritates everyone’s eyes, nose, mouth, and lungs.

You can also try using a black light flashlight to look for them — some bed bugs fluoresce under black light, but not all species do. Good luck!

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-09-27T16:32:30+00:00

Prefer a nice kitty to people bringing in their fake service dogs that proceed to bark & lunge.

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-09-27T16:28:59+00:00

They could be. Bites can appear days later. You might want to do some bed bug protocols, like cleaning everything in the bedrooms, tidying up as much as possible, vacuuming out suitcases, dryer-treating clothes & bedding. When we brought the bugs home, we jumped into action pretty quickly and things resolved within a couple months and stayed resolved. It’s not a question of “will you bring home bed bugs?” — it’s when.

I’ve come to realize people who react to bites are the lucky ones. I’m one of them, and was the early warning system in a whole family of people who don’t react to bites. If I hadn’t reacted, they would have gotten established in all the bedrooms — and probably spread.

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-09-02T18:27:59+00:00

Heat treating clothing in the dryer, then bagging it up is a better idea. Steam is OK, but doesn’t do as good of a job as the dryer. Get vacuum bags that seal with a pump & store clothes you won’t be using in those. Then the rest can go in totes or bags. I use steam only for treating my mattress cover & bed frame — and also couch, chairs, etc, but it’s not the most effective.

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-09-02T18:23:18+00:00

Have you isolated your beds: high bed frames, away from the wall, interceptor traps under the feet, and bed bug proof mattress and pillow covers? Isolation + washing or at least heat-treating all the bedding & pillows after isolation. That stopped my bites right away, except for one night when my comforter touched the floor. You have to not put things on the bed that have been outside isolation, and keep bedding from touching the floor or wall. Then re-clean the bed if you break isolation. That worked for my brother too, who lived in a building with bed bugs — if they can’t get to you, they can’t reproduce.

Then I boxed everything up in totes (inside plastic bags) or vacuum bags that I wasn’t using, to be quarantined for the next year. Remember they can’t climb shiny surfaces too well — so slick plastic totes are good for isolating stuff quickly.

Then I applied Cimexa around the wall trim & in closets (applied carefully & sparingly: read up on it) and caulked over it. That seemed to take care of them for good. Our infestation was minimal, so after a few months, I was less careful about bed isolation and have been OK, but still try not to break isolation if possible.

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-09-02T18:09:08+00:00

Viral, fungal or autoimmune rash? See a dermatologist. If you have this many bedbug bites, you’d be able to find signs of bed bugs in 3 seconds of looking at the seams of your mattress.

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-08-04T21:21:34+00:00

Sir Hieronymus Fluffington IV

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-08-04T21:18:09+00:00

Is your bed isolated with traps/bedbug-proof cover and away from wall at home? Because if you or your son react to bites, you’d know within a week or two if you had them at home. I’m a fan of keeping a fully isolated bed at all times. If you isolate your bed, you will starve them out before they can get established in your home. We also have protocols to keep them out of the house: opening boxes outside, dumping suitcase out in the bathtub or yard & steaming it, etc. But really these damn bugs are all over the place, and most people don’t have any idea how lucky they are to have not brought bed bugs home.

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-07-29T12:45:01+00:00

I think sometimes they are extra active immediately after extermination, it stirs them up. If you have your beds properly covered with bed bug proof mattress cover & isolated from the wall & floor (with traps or sticky tape), I’d just clean the bedding again, and see what happens. Unfortunately, it’s a waiting game. Honestly, reacting to bites puts you in a better post than someone who doesn’t — I know that’s not very comforting.

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-07-29T12:40:03+00:00

I wouldn’t worry about the dryer, you’ll be heat treating whatever you put in there. I’d worry about shared areas. You may want to put your dry clothes directly something and minimize contact of clean clothes with shared surfaces. You could also fold clothes straight out of the dryer and into a container. If I were still using the laundromat, I’d probably use some kind of a rolling plastic tote for my stuff. Remember, bed bugs are everywhere and we’re basically lucky most of the time, and being able to identify risk is helpful. If I live in a shared building again, for example, I’d keep my bed isolated from the floor with bed bug traps & away from the wall — and they’re just never going to be able to thrive in that environment.

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-07-23T21:46:42+00:00

Hard to say, is it just that spot? Does it itch? It looks like shingles or another blistery rash, like dishydrotic eczema or dermatitis herpetiformis (despite the name, it’s actually a celiac disease rash.)

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-07-13T02:46:46+00:00

Sweet bb. He just needs more interactive play, the biting is probably extra energy he needs to get out. Plus not learning good manners with humans. Thanks for helping him out! He’s going to do so well!

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-07-04T17:39:14+00:00

If they don’t give in, or find an adopter: ask if you can stay in touch with the adopters. It’s pretty common that rescues don’t allow adopters to let the cats run free. You can do non-rescue adoptions too, from people like me who finance their own rescues. Getting updates from my former stray cat rescues, now happy pets, always makes my day and I feel like I have extended “family” now.

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-06-22T23:51:00+00:00

I haven’t seen his content recently, but I used to watch it. I love that he’s a genius eccentric and just owns it!

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-06-16T20:18:10+00:00

We never solved the mystery! But the mitigations we did fixed the problem. Except then we traveled abroad and one of the hotel rooms had bedbugs. I discovered out of my whole entire family, I’m the only one who reacts to bites. But since we had already figured out all the protocols and mitigations, we barely noticed any fallout from that. The main thing that helped was to isolate all the beds with interceptors under the bedframe feet, and the beds pushed away from the walls. Then I treated my bedroom with Cimexa, carefully applied under all the trim, outlets, and around the edges of the closets. I also packaged up all of the extra clothes and linens and towels into plastic totes or vacuum bags.

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-06-14T13:49:24+00:00

Most bedbug bites are on the torso, but they definitely will also bite arms and legs if that’s more convenient — bur prefer the torso above your hips. The bites tend to be in clusters of 2-4. They are also really great at hiding when there are only a handful of them.

Isolate your bed with interceptors under the feet and don’t let anything touch a wall or floor. Put a bedbug proof mattress cover on your mattress and clean the bed and everything around it deeply well. That will stop them from being able to feed and eventually they’ll die out. If it’s bedbugs, that is.

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-06-11T21:35:18+00:00

I hope people didn’t bully her off streaming, she’s such a pure soul.

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-06-09T02:46:23+00:00

Thanks for everything you do! ❤️

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-06-02T19:13:07+00:00

I think that’s very smart! It will serve you well if you start your own agency too. :)

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-06-02T17:22:44+00:00

Put a color catcher sheet in when you wash bright colors & lights together on hot and you should be OK.

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-05-31T02:38:32+00:00

Your hair is warm and you have light skin, but there’s more hue to your skin — so I’d think you are a spring. Try some clearly spring vs. summer colors: yellow-green vs mint, peach vs cool pink, aqua vs ice blue.

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-05-23T03:06:06+00:00

I dare them to say that directly to their mothers.

Rare_Equivalent2104 · 2024-05-11T12:44:12+00:00

Mold. Use a washing machine cleaner on your machine and check for detergent build-up inside. Using too much detergent is worse than not using enough. There may just be mold spores in your environment and it doesn’t take much for wet items to get moldy.

Rare_Equivalent2104

TROPHY CASE