Bed bugs - oh nooo

I have a terrible sinking feeling that my daughter has bed bugs in her bed. We've had a nightmare of six months of conflicting diagnoses from her pediatrician and two different dermatologists for her itchy bumps, including heavy duty treatments for scabies and eczema. She finally showed me a dead bug and told me that she's seen them before. And god help me, it looks a lot like a bed bug from online photos.

ETA: So assuming they are bedbugs, who should I call? Any recommendations for exterminators who are effective? Help! And thank you!

You begin like everyone else would and google bed bugs and see if there is any new information about the insects. 

If not, call an exterminator. When I had the problem with tenants, about 8 years ago, it was only one room and the bill was $600.00.

Good luck.

Well, an easy diagnostic check would be one of the sticky traps designed to kill them. Put them in the room as per the directions and you will quickly get a sense of their presence or not. Are there any indications you can already see like dark spots on the sheets or at the seams or piping of the mattress? They often leave little shell casts as they grow out of them and must molt. Their eggs are small but are visible, kinda translucent greyish. Sometimes there is a coriander or nutty odor. Also like raspberries maybe. However, they are really good at hiding so obvious signs just aren't there. Hence the glue traps. They will work without your vigilance efforts. Doctor Internet will give you lots of images to compare to what you may find.

https://bedbugger.com/forum/ has a section where you can send in a pic and their actual entomologists will say if it's a bedbug or not. they have helpful info but don't go down the rabbithole there coz there are some worst case scenarios there. there's also a beagle who will come to your house and can tell if you have them or not by sniffing but that's expensive. good luck!

A friend considered using one of those sniffing beagle companies. She was given estimates of $1,000.00 per room.  Roscoe never got that job.

Throw out the mattress. Clean the room. Why waste money on a beagle to tell you to throw out the mattress?

Jaytee said:
Throw out the mattress. Clean the room. Why waste money on a beagle to tell you to throw out the mattress?

 ... because the bedbugs don't reside in the mattress.  They make their home in narrow cracks in the furniture.  Replacing the mattress will just lead to the replacement mattress becoming infected.  It will not resolve the problem.

We actually have a bug in a plastic bag and Jerry Buckingham, bless his heart, said he'll come by and confirm whether it's a bed bug. If it is, however, I'll have to find someone else to do the treatment since Buckingham Pest doesn't do bed bugs. 

Any recommendations for bed bug killing companies? Assuming I have a sample bug in a bag, I won't need bug-sniffing dogs

Clean the room. Means clean out the infestation. Either way I would replace the mattress. I've done it with rentals. 

joan_crystal said:

Jaytee said:
Throw out the mattress. Clean the room. Why waste money on a beagle to tell you to throw out the mattress?

 ... because the bedbugs don't reside in the mattress.  They make their home in narrow cracks in the furniture.  Replacing the mattress will just lead to the replacement mattress becoming infected.  It will not resolve the problem.

Rivoli said:
We actually have a bug in a plastic bag and Jerry Buckingham, bless his heart, said he'll come by and confirm whether it's a bed bug. If it is, however, I'll have to find someone else to do the treatment since Buckingham Pest doesn't do bed bugs. 
Any recommendations for bed bug killing companies? Assuming I have a sample bug in a bag, I won't need bug-sniffing dogs

 Jerry is great.

Don't move your daughter to another room. The bugs will follow. If you do have them in one room only, you need to keep them isolated there until you decide what to do.

the sticky traps aren't very effective.  One called BuggyBeds is a little better, but not great.  intercepters under the legs of the bed with catch them.  It helps to move the bed away from the wall and not touching anything else they can climb on.  If they have been around that long, you should be able to spot them yourself.  check along the edges of the box spring/mattress as well as any curtain near the bed.  The dogs are somewhat reliable, but not are all equally trained.

you need pyrethroid resistant pesticide.  home depot does have some-Ortho Home Defense.  But is better to hire a pro....and better to not treat yourself if you are hiring a pro.  But I have read many stories of pros not working (using both heat and pesticide treatments).  Heat treatments are supposedly a good option.  You have to remove all medications, wax, aerosols, and anything that might melt.

vaccuum....i would at least get the spray at home depot to treat the vacuum as they get stuck in the brushes,  after you vacuum, empty/remove the bag (preferably outside), and SEAL the vacuum in plastic in case any are stuck in it....might want to just leave the vacuum in the affected room.

do not remove anything from the room except in a plastic bag to bring it to the washer/dryer to heat treat.

you don't necessarily need to throw out the mattress.  and you don't want to replace it until the infestation is clear...which could take months.  after the mattress is treated and tried you can cover it it a bed bug cover, then treat the outside of the cover before replacing bedding.  If you do remove the mattress, it must be wrapped or the bed bugs will jump off as you move it out.  If you have a box spring with a dust cover...just rip it off to get at the inside.

you could consider sleeping in daughters room for a while..but someone should sleep there.

you can also get dry ice or carbon dioxide machines to bait them out of hiding

i can't recommend a specific company, but find small family owned companies tend to do better work..wouldn't go with a large company like terminex.

its really sad that the alleged pro doctors never suggested you look for bed bugs...one of the many examples of why I prefer to do things on my own when possible

jmitw said:
its really sad that the alleged pro doctors never suggested you look for bed bugs...one of the many examples of why I prefer to do things on my own when possible

 I'm also surprised the docs didn't suggest this. After the bedbug epidemic of a few years ago, you'd think it would be fresh in their minds.

epidemic is just getting worse....in my personal experience with docs is that they error rate is about 80%...but its not considered to be malpractice because it is the standard of care.  I've dealt with many alleged pros in many fields..lawyers, mechanics, construction, etc that did a poor job....in many cases, I did better my self.

and about 30% of people don't react to bites, so they could be in another room biting people and you don't know until you look for the bugs.

i would also take all clothes out, wash in hot water or at least heat treat in dryer.  bag anything not needed for the next few months and store the clothes in another room for now.  any stuffed animals/dolls should be heat treated...be care ful about any that have glued on hair.

Good luck!!

This somewhat of a new phenomenon. In a decades long career in hands on Pest Control......servicing many types of accounts I never had a legitimate call about a bed bug problems    Remediation was difficult..........amounting to breaking down the bed and rubbing down the slats with denatured alcohol.  My original boss claimed that he developed the process in conjunction with Rutgers people.

In time as travel,  especially airline travel became easier and cheaper.....the little guys began arriving from all points.

bed bugs were gone from about 1970-2000..i don't remember the exact years..but around that

https://www.vox.com/2015/4/27/8502491/bed-bugs-kill-increase

One thing you can do (on top of everything else) if we get a true cold snap (1F or lower) is winterize your house and leave it with the windows open and the heat off overnight.  

Klinker said:
One thing you can do (on top of everything else) if we get a true cold snap (1F or lower) is winterize your house and leave it with the windows open and the heat off overnight.  

not likely to happen around here...has to be 4 days at zero degrees or less--and the cold has to reach everything--if some hide under a rug where its 10 degrees they can survive....and you can expect your house to be cleaned out when you come back.....might teach thieves a good lesson though when they become infested.

it is believed that bed bugs live 3-5 months at room temps.  A study at 78 degrees showed them living 3 months.  At 50 degrees they can live a lot longer.  At controlled lab conditions (cold/controlled humidity) they lived 18 months-without feeding.  2-3 treatments is recommended at minimum using pesticides (1 heat treatment might work..but they could scatter away from the heat if only 1 room is done).  Of course even at warmer temps some will survive longer than expected...but if you don't see any (using traps, interceptors, visual inspection) for 6-8 weeks that is a good indication of success....if all else fails..hope for a hot summer (and don't turn the AC very low) to kill off any that managed to avoid the treatments...

adults live longer than nymphs

http://bedbugger.com/forum/topic/wait-bedbugs-can-live-longer-than-18-months-now

they can't reproduce without feeding...but if you have pets could feed off pests even if you can keep them off people (using the interceptors/moving bed away from wall, etc)....but if you can keep them from reproducing you have a better chance of any stragglers dying off from time and eventually heat in the summer.

foggers consistently have bad reviews for bed bugs.

another thing you have to worry about if you get a new bed...safely disposing of  the old one (mark it so no one picks it up off the curb if you put it out)...but if you have a bed delivered by a company that picks up old beds...the old beds in the same trucks could transfer bedbugs to the new beds...i read a story about that.  if you do get a new bed, even after the infestation is believed to be gone, put bed bug covers on right away...and if you can pick up the mattress yourself.

I would think a dermatologist would have been able to immediately tell a bed bug bite. I wouldn’t make the leap yet. I have been itchy, with little red bumps on different parts of my body ( mostly arms) for the past 10 years. Sometimes to the point of near insanity and have never gotten a real definitive answer about why. The only thing that works is a strong steroid cream that I use sparingly only when an outbreak is severe. May very well not be bed bugs.

conandrob240 said:
I would think a dermatologist would have been able to immediately tell a bed bug bite. I wouldn’t make the leap yet. I have been itchy, with little red bumps on different parts of my body ( mostly arms) for the past 10 years. Sometimes to the point of near insanity and have never gotten a real definitive answer about why. The only thing that works is a strong steroid cream that I use sparingly only when an outbreak is severe. May very well not be bed bugs.

 if they hadn't found a bug that looks like a bed bug I would say the same thing (except for trusting a doc).  After 6 months, there should be a lot of them so they can be spotted if you go looking.  If OPs pest guy hasn't come to look at the sample yet, can you post a pic and maybe someone here can tell.

I went to 4 docs over 2 years with foot pain.  A desk had fallen on my foot years ago.  They all xray ed and said they didn't see a fracture and blew me off...until 1 put the xray up in front of me and I pointed out the deformity.

I had a head injury...again tried 4 docs.  I couldn't see straight and had poor motor control among other things...docs said I was fine and could drive.  Months later I saw a news story about a hockey player with the same symptoms...that is how I got diagnosed with post concussive syndrome....

and many more stories of docs that don't seem qualified to put on a band aid....so the point is, you need to do your own research and not depend on docs.

bed bug bites are impossible to firmly diagnose, but a competent doc would at least know it was a possibility and suggest inspecting for bugs.

it could be hives. 

to make it more difficult, even for people that react, they get different types of bites, that is why you can't just look at it to tell what is causing it...

another thing to look for is blood stains on the pillow/sheets

Thread title makes me think of this guy:

from research I did awhile back, i remember the bites are in a distinctive linear pattern. Hoping it's something else! 

So both Jerry Buckingham and a guy from Viking Pest Control came over, looked at my bug-in-a-bag and said, without any trace of doubt, "That's a bedbug." Viking said they could do one treatment tomorrow, one treatment in 2 weeks and then an inspection or treatment in another 2 weeks for $850. Fine, I said. But my god, the prep is going to kill me. Everything in our 3 bedrooms on beds and in closets, dressers, drawers, bookshelves, night-tables, etc. has to be removed and if fabric, has to be washed or at least, dried at high heat, then put in garbage bags. Ninety percent of that stuff will have to stay bagged until the final inspection, so a month of chaos. And Christmas!

At least it's not a chronic, incurable disease, like the eczema she was diagnosed as having and I spent $$$ trying to treat. 

buy the xxl ziploc bags. Makes things a lot easier, though the prep sucks. I’ve been through it twice. And there’s a good chance that they will get everything the first time, and the subsequent visits will be just insurance.