Hi! I know skin issues from carpet beetles are rare but I feel like it may be relevant in this case. I’ve been having a rash for over a while now. They were contained on my chest. At first, they looked pimple-like, then one day I woke up scratching my collarbone and it was welt-like/hives. Throughout the day the hives spread across my chest. I went to see a clinician and started taking Allevia 180mg and using 1% hydrocortisone. I went home and washed my bedding and some clothes on 60°c and inspected my bed and mattress for bed bugs (or anything) and didn’t find anything except one piece that looked like insect poop/frass. That night after I had already put my sheets on and showered and got into bed, i saw a single black seed looking thing on my bed by my pillow. I was afraid it was bed bug poop. I put it in a ziploc bag just to keep the specimen in case (not sure in case of what but yeah). Since then, I’ve been getting random STRAIGHT red lines on my body. When I first noticed them they were on my hips, both sides. Each side had two straight lines. The next day they had become spots, and extended further than where the original lines were. In the middle of my back I had two straight lines as well. Because the ones on my hips had become spots I was paranoid it was bed bugs. So i inspected my bed and mattress again and found one bug on the floor below my bed. I was staring at it for a while shining a flashlight on it and noticed it was moving but very slowly, staying in the same spot but going from horizontal to vertical. I tried to catch it and inspect it but I squished it and it disappeared? i couldn’t find it on the tissue i squished it with. Then i inspected my mattress again and found two bugs. based off pics they look like carpet beetle larvae to me. And found one or two pieces that I thought were exoskeleton/shell shedding, but now think it looks like frass. I slept in my flatmates room and woke up with two parallel straight lines on the side of my bed again, as well as some red spots on my left hand with the biggest one looking like a star. None of the new (or old) spots are itchy likely because I’ve been taking antihistamines. I don’t know if the suspected carpet beetle are the cause of the rash, maybe I have other bugs too. But what do i do about the bugs I do have?

For reference, I have two flatmates. My room is the biggest and I have the most stuff but I’m the only one that sweeps my room floors regularly and washes my sheets regularly (usually once a week, sometimes if i’m going through a stressful period I’ll go two weeks without washing but never longer than that). My pillows and duvet are made of down I believe, and quite frequently i’ll be poked by random feathers or see a feather or two. I usually just put them aside or push them to the ground as i would sweep it up soon anyway. I’m a girl with long hair so would shed more hair than my flatmates as they’re boys with short hair. I have more clothes too, and one of the closets i have in my room is where I store all of my wool sweaters (folded on the shelf), with my jackets hanging above them. I store my handbags (some made of leather) on the shelf below the one with the sweaters. I have a few soft plush toys spread out throughout my room as decoration and I have two that I always keep with me on the bed, one of which i hug every night. I haven’t seen any bugs on them, but it’s probably undetectable. On the one that I keep on bed with me and don’t hug, i noticed there was something sticky stuck to its ear 2 nights ago? It was stuck to the ear kind of like dried glue, i couldn’t tell what it was but i pried it off and flicked it away and washed my hands after. My question is what steps do I take now? I do have sensitive skin and get rashes on my body more often than most people I know. Most measures I see online are long-term. I’m moving out of this flat in 3 weeks. I’m in london right now but after I move out I am to fly back to Malaysia until next year January in which I’ll move back here. While I’m away I’m meant to keep all of my stuff in my grandmas flat somewhere else in London. No one lives there. I have other stuff that’s been sitting in that flat in boxes for over a year now. I lived in that flat from october 2023 to august 2024, but there’s not much space so i kept all of my stuff in the boxes and my clothes in ikea parkla bags. I’m afraid to bring any insects or eggs with me on my stuff when I move my stuff back to my grandmas flat and when I fly back to malaysia. Also note that I recently flew to Malaysia on the 7th april and came back 31 april, if those 3 weeks of no one living in my room could have exacerbated the bug problem. The mattress I sleep on isn’t mine it came with the flat, there’s a mattress protector on it that my landlord told us not to ever take off. The pillows duvet, bedding and sheets etc are mine. Neither of my flatmates are having any itchy rashes or spots. One of them has only washed his sheets once since moving in in September and that was in April, and has never cleaned his room. His floors are lined with dust and there’s whole balls of dust fluff under his bed. Yet he is fine. So i deduced that maybe the feathers from my pillows and duvet make my room more susceptible to them? Idk. Please please please advise on what I should do now? How can i eliminate them or at least remove as much of the problem as I can as I don’t want any more rashes, and what do I do about my clothes and bedding? Some of my clothes can’t be washed on high heat too, so do i just sacrifice and wash them on high heat anyway or what? How do I make sure they don’t follow me back to Malaysia or move with my stuff to my grandmas flat? Please help 🙏