How do you spell AAAUGHERAAAUGUGGHGHGHAHOHIRIOHRAGHH?
I got three bed bug bites Sunday night, almost one year to the day since my second and last bed bug treatment last year.
Law & Order: BUG
I heard from an inside source that tonight’s (April 26, 2009) Law & Order: Criminal Intent (which since it now stars Jeff Goldblum I should really be checking out anyway) involves bed bugs in some way.
The entomologist is played by the husband of a good friend of my sister’s, who is one of the first people I heard of to get bed bugs way back in 2005… so there’s some nice bed bug karma for you. It’s his television debut!
My Email to Eric Gioia
Unlucky readers, feel free to plagiarize me. And write to your public representative now!!!
Intro 873
I guess I didn’t dream (hearing) this this morning.
I’m curious to see if Eric Gioia, my city council rep is one of those pushing Intro 873 through.
http://newyorkvsbedbugs.org/2009/01/04/wnyc-radio-has-news-item-about-intro-873/
Bed bug free now for 118 days. A success story, for now…
After $2,000…
65 nights on an air mattress…
18+ loads of laundry…
7 trips to Bed, Bath and Beyond…
5 trips to Home Depot…
2 treatments…
4 letters to my landlord…
and no guarantees… (slept overnight in the East Village in mid-October and got a definite bed bug bite on my left forearm, but I didn’t get home until 4:00 pm that day, and because of the “bed bug sense” all bedbuggers develop after going through what we go through, I knew it wasn’t from my own apartment)
I’m feeling good these days. So for those of you still on Day 2, Day 8, Day 13… keep plugging on.
The best thing is that, after living through the reality of them, bed bugs aren’t my biggest nightmare anymore.
Day 118: After looks a lot like Before, with a little more plastic
Went to Red Hook Ikea and got an encasable sofabed and new dresser (mine unfortunately began falling apart shortly before bed bugs).
How things look on Day 118:
Bedroom:
Living Room:
I found a cheap vinyl encasement from Bed, Bath, and Beyond in New Jersey, 9″ high, full-size, that ended up fitting the sofabed mattress perfectly. (Couldn’t find anything more shallow than 13″ in the 6th Avenue one in Manhattan.)
Day 99: Tidings of Comforter and Joy
In New York, I somehow got into the habit of using a down comforter year round – I like the way the bed looks with the comforter pulled over, like a giant pillow (and it just seems naked without), and usually when the a/c is on at night in the summer (as it always is) it’s too cold for just a sheet or a light blanket.
The down comforter got purged the weekend before my first treatment in July, and I replaced it finally on October 7.
National Allergy has a comforter encasement (that looks much like a pretty duvet cover) for around $100, but I went the cheap route with a $50 Wamsutta cotton comforter with polyester filling, no encasement, from Bed Bath and Beyond. I will just stick it in the dryer if I get reinfested. If I had more cash on hand, though, I would have bought a nice down comforter and get the National Allergy cover.
Day 91: The Audacity of a Dress
I’m not one to go from meticulous quarantining of all fabrics back to normal overnight. (Didn’t help that my cheap Ikea dresser was dying a violent death.) After some hemming and hawing, I decided that I could start leaving out worn items, because – duh – they need to be washed anyway, so keeping them in plastic wasn’t really going to save me any trouble down the line.
Still, scary, if definitely also an Excitement a Bedbugger Can Understand:
Day 90: Bug-Free Storage
I, of course, have been aching to take my clothes out of plastic bags. I reached the two-month mark set by my pest control company just as the seasons began to change and I was sorely in need of the jackets, scarves, gloves, sweaters, and pants that were smooshed into garbage bags in my sad, sad closet.
And yet, not wanting to be in the position of having to do seven loads of laundry in case of a reinfestation, I needed a strategy.
So I made a trip to The Container Store on 59th St. and Lex and got three big storage bins. I spent several hours one Sunday in September slowly but systematically unpacking my garbage bags and packing my out-of-season stuff, extra linens, and other fabric items into the bins, which I taped around the edges with blue painter’s tape. I categorized the three bins as: (1) clothes, (2) bags, and (3) linens and towels.
I packed all in-season items into two Space Bags and four Ziploc Big Bags, with another Ziploc Big Bag in my front closet for my jackets.
My six other categories for the bags were as follows. For the Space Bags: (1) tops – work shirts and blouses and nice casual tops, and (2) bottoms – skirts and pants. For the Ziploc Big Bags: (1) sweats, shorts, and tees, (2) dresses, (3) washable winter knits, and (4) dry clean only winter knits.
