You wouldn't believe how easy it is to pick up bed bugs and inadvertantly infest your own home. Here is one customer's story about their bed...
Case Studies
It took me a while to figure out what had gone so wrong in our bedroom. I had had a bad chest infection and spent more time at home than usual trying to get better. Although that seemed to be clearing up, big red welts on my hands, arms and shoulders had begun to spread to my stomach and the side of my face.
My husband had developed some itchy rash, too, after several stops away on business and a quick trip to France for work. But he was back on the road and his rash was clearing up. For me, things got worse the more time I spent time in bed.
The doctor insisted my spreading welts, a couple of which spawned big bruises, had nothing to do with my waning chest infection. They were bites, he said, and my symptoms were an allergic reaction. Bites? From being in bed? As in bed bugs in squalid Dickensian flophouses? Chez nous, in our lovingly tended suburban Devonshire home? You gotta be kidding.
Most people just flip out when they realise they have bed bugs. They can't emotionally deal with keeping an infested mattress. That was certainly true for me... Within minutes of realising why I was getting worse at home while my husband was getting better out of town, I single-handedly dragged our king-size mattress and box spring out onto the patio (risking serious damage to my middle-aged back), along with our duvet and all of our pillows. And I threw the entire pile away.
Turns out this reaction is not the recommended one, although it worked in my case. I probably caught my infestation early, the experts tell me, meaning it hadn't yet spread beyond the confines of my bed. I caught it early because I was lucky enough to be one of the people who show an allergic reaction to the bites: between 20 and 50 percent of people don't, meaning the problem can go undetected for a long period of time.
If an infestation goes undetected, the bed bugs are much more entrenched into the bed structure and even adjoining structures. Then it gets very, very difficult to get rid of them.
My patio is also close to where my bed was, limiting the possibility that I spread any bugs around the carpets and upholstery while dragging my mattress out. (I was also lucky in that we were already thinking of replacing our 10-year-old mattress, although we hadn't budgeted for an entire change of bedding.) Once I'd thrown everything away, I took a couple of steps the experts do recommend: I steam-cleaned my bedroom carpet twice, went on a serious anti-clutter and cleaning purge, and called a local exterminating company to do a visual inspection of my bedroom.
Commercial steamers are an excellent tool. Heat is the single easiest way to destroy bedbugs.
Other remedies the experts recommend:
I narrowed the source of my bed bugs to a couple of likely culprits: my husband's recent travels or the fact I had brought my favourite pillow with me to New York, where we stayed in a moderately priced hotel for a couple of nights. Turns out, our attempt to save money in Manhattan wasn't what did us in, though.
You can pick up a bed bug infestation in any hotel – they're not like cockroaches and flies that feed on filth. You can have a very, very fine hotel, with a guest who comes in with bed bugs in their clothing and luggage, and you're off to the races.
Experts describe bed bugs as excellent hitchhikers. They need a host to travel on, something like your suitcase.
A few tips to avoid bringing them back to your house: