No More Sleeping Tight.

Steve came home from his business trip on Labor day weekend exhausted. It was a long weekend and we didn't have anything to do except spend time with each other and relax. We had a great Saturday together relaxing in our backyard and catching up. Sunday we took a nice long walk along the lake. When we got home Steve started to itch his back. He didn't stop. He asked me look at his back to see if their were any bug bites. He took off his shirt and his entire back was covered in bites. It didn't stop at his back either. His upper arm, legs, and area between his fingers had broken out into large welts that itched like crazy. The bites were too small to be mosquito bites and had no real pattern to them to indicate a rash.

After a quick google search we came up with the diagnosis of bed bugs. Steve had stayed in a hotel with bed bugs. We quickly quarantined his belongings. We read with horror at the possible infestation that was taking hold of our house. Most pesticides won't kill bed bugs. If you live in a multi-family house or apartment building and you bomb your house they will just go to another part of the house then return. They can live anywhere: in the frame of your bed, in the crack in the floor, in an electrical socket. Once they are in your house they are there. The only way to get rid of them is to kill them with heat. Our minds were racing with the awkward possibility of informing our new landlord that we had contaminated the four family house we had lived in for less then a month with bed bugs and that we would have to all leave the house for a few days to have the problem taken care of.

The next day Steve went to the doctor who confirmed the bedbug diagnosis and reviewed how to prevent the transmission of bedbugs, not too helpful. We decided to wait to have the conversation with our landlord until we were sure we had infested our house. If we had bedbugs, surely I would breakout with bites in the next few day. We waited. Every skin irritation I had I thought of the worse. Every bump or itch was the first signs in my mind. Two days had passed and no bumps ever came. Then a week passed and still no bits or marks.

We are still a bit worried. Steve's suitcase is still sitting in a large plastic bag in our guest room and I remain slightly paranoid about any itch I have. I think I can almost say now that we dodged a big bullet with this one and thanks God.