“So are they all gone now?”
Number one question I get from my friends who have never had bed bugs.
Although bedbuggers themselves often talk about being “bed bug free,” there is a fundamental difference in the way bedbuggers and their innocent, lucky never-had-bed-bugs friends use the phrase. “Bed bug free,” for those who know a little about bed bugs’ elusive behaviors, can not simply mean a lack of bed bug sightings, though this is part of it, or even being bed bug bite free, also certainly part of it. “Bed bug free” is not even having been sighting-free and bite-free long enough to feel confident mopping up the residual on your floors and taking your clothes out of plastic.
To me what “bed bug free” truly means is shedding that last, oh so powerful, shred of doubt and paranoia in your mind.
I haven’t yet gotten to the mopping and clothes-freeing phase, so even though I want to answer my friends to the eponymous question in the affirmative… even though my PCO did a wonderful job and my infestation was incredibly light to begin with… I can’t. Worse, even though bed bug related tasks are no longer the heavy strain on my budget and schedule that they were in July, I often feel just as depressed as that first week of July when this all started.
I don’t want to turn this into a therapy session, but some causes for my depression are: sleeping on an air mattress, having to keep my clothes in plastic bags, uncomfortable living room, pesticide on the floors, general ugliness of my apartment which used to be a cute place, a now strained relationship with my landlord, fear that if I do get comfortable the bed bugs are lying dormant somewhere/will return again, and over $2000 of bed bug expenses last month. I’m pretty sensitive, and all of this has really taken my self-esteem down a few notches.
I know, I know, getting bed bugs doesn’t mean you are a slob, five star hotels get them, blah, blah, it’s completely irrational. But it’s still depressing. And maybe if I made a little bit more money I would still be faced with all these issues, but if I made A LOT more money, like corporate lawyer amounts of money, I could live in the Avalon Riverview and have a washer/dryer in the building and central air in the summer. But then I would be depressed because I was a corporate lawyer. Ok, that thought actually makes me less depressed. (Being a corporate lawyer==not being a corporate lawyer and having bed bugs.)
But to return to the subject at hand, I am realizing the hard way that it is important to me to have an apartment that is comfortable and completely my own. This is something that I always suspected, and in fact having such an apartment, for the amount of money that I was making from 2005-2007, in New York city, was actually kind of a miracle. Oh New York, if only I could quit you, you lock-jawed, flannel-wearing Ennis Del Mar, you.
I feel your pain. Oh man do I ever. Beg bugs suck, big time. And sleeping on an air mattress/shitty futon doesn’t make life any easier.
boozeandbooks
August 8, 2008 at 2:11 pm
It’s good to hear you are in this stretch, as hard as it is. You’ve done a good job and I hope you will have your home back soon.
Renee
August 9, 2008 at 11:54 pm
I just really wanted to tell that you’re blog really helped me cope with my bedbug situation when I was at my craziest spending ridiculous amounts of time reading everything I could online on the topic. This entry hit me the hardest because I could relate so much to what you were saying about the depression, paranoia and what having these does to your self esteem. I too had just finished decorating my apartment and gotten it the way I felt comfortable with when I found out I had them.
Nobody I know personally has had this problem and reading someone who felt the exact same way helped somehow.
Thanks again
Michelle
September 11, 2008 at 11:34 pm
i realize its been a year since this was posted but i came upon ur story here while searching how to find out if the bedbuggers are gone. i am where u were and while i read the therapy session paragraph aloud everyone in the room thought it was something i had typed. HOw horrible!
Kristi
July 30, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Thank you for this posting. I feel the same way. To me it almost feels like jail sentence that I have to go through. Nothing last forever, therefore I know that there is an end to everything. I just hope that my book on these creatures doesn’t turn to have too many pages.
I hope that by now you are bb free!
Zira
September 14, 2009 at 6:00 pm
So how did you get of them?
Alma
August 29, 2010 at 10:31 pm
Finding this page is helping a bit. My paranoia and anxiety are driving my husband and myself crazy! I have vacuumed everyday for a week, including a 2 1/2 our session to get every nook and cranny in our living room. Our bed is encased, our clothes are in bags, but I feel like nothing is enough. I worry that I’ll carry a bug hiding in the pocket of my pants to someone else’s home and cause them grief. I really don’t want to develop some form of OCD. I too feel “poor” because our apartment building has bed bugs, and therein I have seen them in our home. I just want to feel comfortable again in my own space. It seems like even though we haven’t had any bites there is no REAL way to know if these things are gone and I hate the shame I’ve been feeling about the whole situation. I have not mentioned it to anyone I know.
Rachel
May 9, 2010 at 6:33 pm
Wow…This sums up everything that I am feeling right now. My fiance and I are only 3 days into finding out about our infestation and I am already going nuts with paranoia. I crawl along the ground everynight with a flashlight looking for any signs of them. I wake up at 5 am just to do a spot check to see if they are around the air mattress that we are now sleeping on. I used take pride in my home, and now I feel…”Violated”. We were told by our PCO that we caught it just in time and we were lucky. I have ordered DE and have 10 bottles of rubbing alchahol to kill them on contact. I vacumn every night and steam clean right after that. I spray rubbing alchahol everywhere. The PCO says that we probly won’t be able to go back to “somewhat” normal for another 6 months!!! I never realized how horrible these things really are. Even though this article was a written a few years ago, it has really helped me. I know that there are other people out there having the same problems I am, and I don’t feel so alone anymore. Thank you for writing this!
Nick
August 14, 2010 at 1:25 am
We live in a very nice,clean 6 bedroom house. Never thought in a million years we could get bed bugs. My husband, we found out was working in some beg bug infested hospitals and brought a few hitchhickers home. The problem was contained in our bedroom only, Thank goodness. We had the house sprayed twice, after the second time left for a week and turned off the air. The house reached over a 100 for a week. I hope the nightmare is over! We are living in our guestroom, and pitched our bed. It has been a learning process! Now we take measure to prevent the problem again. Bedbugregistry.com is a good sight to learn who has them.
SH
August 17, 2010 at 7:58 pm
How would you know if you dont have the bedbugs any more?
Alma
August 29, 2010 at 10:28 pm
How would we know if we are not infested any longer?
Alma
August 29, 2010 at 10:29 pm