Day Four: In the Bedroom
I organized, inspected, cleaned, and bagged all the desk stuff – I sort of have a mini-office in my bedroom and keep lots of books and papers there – and toiletries in my bedroom. I think this is more to protect them from the pesticide than to keep bed bugs out, as I don’t necessarily have to keep them in plastic for a full two months, the way I do my clothes and linens.
Then I wiped all surfaces and inside drawers and vacuumed and mopped the entire floor. Although I was kind of ADD and kept doing five different things at once, the only major mishap was knocking my printer to the floor when putting my bed back after mopping under it. I broke the paper tray and dust guard, but tape is holding it together for now.
I stripped the bed finally and inspected the mattress and under the box frame closely for the first time since right after I started getting bitten. It still is very clean, but as I was bitten about seven times, that could mean 140 eggs – 140 future adult bed bugs – lying in wait inside it, and that’s not a risk I’m willing to take.
Don’t worry, just a fleck of dust…
The white tape you see in various places on the box frame is double-sided carpet tape. I read on Bedbugger.com that you may be able to catch some this way. I didn’t see any as I was removing it yesterday, but I was cheap and got an indoor-only carpet tape that isn’t as sticky.
More unsuccessful traps. Here are the glue traps I used (three under the bed and one, not pictured, taped inside the box frame. I put heating pads under the glue traps on the floor, again as advised on Bedbugger.com, but didn’t catch any bed bugs this way. I bought glue traps for $2 for a box of four at a hardware store near my work and ordered heating pads online direct from Amazon.com: $15 for a huge box. REI and Sports Authority may carry them too (in the skiing section), if you don’t want to wait for delivery.
