Bed Bugs...eww

Bed bugs. Gross! We think of those things as creepy, crawly insects that are found in the most disgusting of houses or hotel rooms. While I don't have them (thank God), my sister does. What I found to be interesting, she has one of the cleanest houses of anybody I know.

The signs of bed bugs started to show last October when my brother in law started getting what he thought were hives. He thought he was becoming allergic to his dog. He did have animal allergies before to cats and certain breeds of dogs, but he had dog for years and never had a problem. Then my sister got the bites and they both concluded that since my sister has never been allergic to any animal and it would be rare that two people would suddenly start being allergic to one thing, then the problem wasn't a dog it was something else. They thought that perhaps they had bed bugs and checked. They had a sleep number bed (not sure if this matters to the story) and didn't see the usual traces of the bugs. Then my sister and brother in law were getting more. After trips to the doctors office, it still wasn't concluded that they in fact had bed bugs.

Fast forward to the present. Last weekend my sister found a bug in her room. It was a bed bug. To her horror she called her husband upstairs to start the investigation of where these creatures were living. They tore apart their bed. Nothing. Come to find out they found these bugs in the slats of their bed post. After doing a little research, they found out that one way to kill these bugs were to do a drastic temperature change in their environment. They didn't have a steamer, but decided to use a hair dryer. Twenty bugs started coming out of the bed post that were both big and small. The bed bugs had breed. After my sister spent four hours hair drying and vacuuming up the bugs, they figured they were done. WRONG! Come to find out over the next few days she found more in different parts of her room. It was time to call an exterminator.

After the exterminator came in and analyzed the situation, he gave a plan of action. They had to essentially "bomb" her bedroom to get the bugs out. To ensure that no other bugs had traveled in her house they were also bringing a dog to sniff out any more bugs. Did you know that dogs could be trained to do that? I didn't. She also has to go through before the exterminator treats her room and wash every single article of clothing. Can you imagine? At least she has the chance to clean out her closets, but that is A LOT of washing.

My sister sat down with her husband and puzzled over how they could possibly get these bugs in their house. After all, they did not get any new/used bedroom furniture in the last several years and had a pretty clean home. Turns out after thinking long and hard, her husband probably brought some of these bugs home after an ATV trip where he had stayed in a not so clean trailer for ATV riders. It was the only possible explanation. Bed bugs are known hitchhikers.

So the story concludes (so far) at that. Their hives were actually bed bugs feasting on them during the night. Clean homes can still get bed bugs by hitch hiking their way in. Bed bugs are just GROSS, GROSS, GROSS!!!