Bed Bugs

I've done enough stories on bed bugs at CBC to know everything I could ever want to know about them! Let me set the scene for you.
It's Sunday night. I'm supposed to be at the Marilyn Manson concert, but I'm not because the night before my sister's boyfriend got my drunk and I was so hungover I was SICK and couldn't go. So I'm sitting in front of the tele, watching movies, alone.

There's a soft knock on the door. I think, who the hell could be at my door at nearly ten o'clock at night? I wasn't making any noise. It's the landlords. They have a paper for me to read and sign.

Somebody in my block reported seeing bed bugs in their apartment. Consequently, my third of the block needs to be treated just in case. (The apartment is 100 years old and is split into three sections. We use a central boiler system to heat the apartments and each suite has radiators in it. Hypothetically, the bed bugs could crawl up the radiators and enter other suites. The other 2 thirds are safe because their radiators are not connected to ours.)

My hand was shaking as I signed the form saying that I had received the information. I was in utter shock. I always thought bed bugs were a problem in low income housing and in homeless shelters. It was something that happened to somebody else and not me! I pay over $1100 rent; I better not have fucking bed bugs!!!

I didn't work Monday and Dave only went to work in the morning and came home at lunch so he could help me prepare the apartment for the pest control peeps to come in and do their thing.

I had to bag every article of clothing Dave and I owned. Every towel. All of our bedding and pillows and spare bedding and guest room bedding. We had to vacuum every room and pull all the furniture away from the walls and vacuum along every baseboard. We've got 1000 sq ft so it took a while.

All art and prints on the walls had to come down. All the food in the pantry had to bagged or stored in an air tight bin, except jars and cans.

It took forever. It was like moving day all over again.

Tomorrow I'm going to a laundromat to wash around 8 loads of laundry. I would have had more like 12, but I made a judgement call and decided that the clean clothes hanging nicely on hangers in my closet most likely do not have bed bugs. I checked all my shirts before packing them away.

This is an amazing inconvenience for both Dave and I. We're staying at my mother's for two days while they steam and spray and check any problem areas. Dave has to drive a lot farther to work, and MTS was supposed to come over to hook up my land line.

I checked along the seem of my mattress and didn't see any sign of bug activity. Dave and I don't have bites on our skin. We sleep mostly naked, so we would definitely have bite marks if we did have the bugs in our room.

I totally understand why we have to go through all of this hassle. I do not want the bugs to find their way into my suite. It's just all so stressful and time consuming. Tuesday at 9 am on the dot, the pest control will be entering everyone's suite. We have to wait at least 4 hours after they're done before we can safely enter the suite again. And we're supposed to wait 24 hours before sleeping on our mattress again. I don't know how long it will take them to disinfect all areas. The longer we leave our apartment untouched, the more effective the treatment will be.

All in all, I'm feeling tired right now.