Please help me, Lemmy.
I was staying at a friend’s for a month waiting for an affordable room to be available, only to move in and after a week see a bedbug.
It’s a single room, for poor people, with a shared kitchen.
I am poor, work remotely, and my financial situation is bad. I thought this could improve things.
I moved in a week ago, but didn’t move all my stuff in because it’s in boxes in my friend’s garage right now.
I have moved in with 2 outfits, 2 jackets, a work computer, some computer accessories, and have purchased 1 matress and pillow and bed sheet set at target.
The manager of the property beforehand said there haven’t been bed bugs for years, but one of the door has like a block over the bottom with powder in the doorway past the block to kill bugs as like a sort of trap. The manager said prior to my moving in this is just fear from 3 years ago. The units are very affordable and I had to be on a waitlist to get a unit.
I am not sure what to do. The place is mostly quiet and I could work here. I don’t love the area because although it’s low income rent, it’s in a high cost area with many food places nearby charging very high tourist amounts, like any burrito or sandwich is $13 at least. Rent is very low, however.
I could leave now before moving other stuff in, put my stuff in bags except for my work computer when getting back to my friends, and look for a different slightly more expensive place. I can’t stay with my friend long-term because her apartment is next to a distribution center with trucks pulling in and out all night and I wake up easily due to PTSD and always being on alert, even when sleeping. She sleeps through anything. I also don’t like ear-plugs and can’t sleep with them in. When I was staying there I was chronically tired.
Suggestions from Lemmy? How bad are bed bugs? It was only 1 but I squished it. Pest control coincidentally came that day and identified it is a bed bug.
Also, I have not paid rent for this month and it’s due by tomorrow. I could actually leave immediately, today even, and just not pay the rent. My credit is bad already and the money would be useful if it’s a mistake to stay. It’s sleazy to leave wirhout paying for this month, but I am poor and may not have the luxury of paying for a place that could result in a chronic bed bug infestation. I would also lose my deposit.
I also don’t know where it came from. I can’t be totally sure it didn’t come from my friend’s place although I stayed there 5 weeks and saw nothing bad. I also had purchased a new outfit from a store with vintage recycled clothes, like an upscale GoodWill store, but that was 2 weeks ago and there were no bites. It may not be from the new place, but I don’t think I was bitten before the move in. Strangely, I don’t even know if the bedbug I squished bit me. The pest control person said the city has many infestations and could have come from public transportation.
My friend lives 6 hours away by bus and I don’t know as many people there. It’s also a cheaper area and I could move there. I could actually just get a ticket and leave today if everything else is irrational.
I am very tired and don’t know what to think. The time at my friends impacted my mental health and I’m not sure I am seeing it rationally.
If you have access to a vacuum cleaner with a handheld attachment, use that to vacuum in every crevice, no matter how small. Vacuum the bed, the mattress, the walls, everything.
I actually don’t. For better or worse, the bulk of my stuff is in boxes at my friend’s place for now. I’d have to buy a new vacuum. I’m not sure it would matter, however. They put in a new floor before I arrived (it’s actually beautiful flooring) and the place was mostly incredibly neat, aside from a small utensil for eating shoved against a closet crevice, which even a professional cleaner could have missed. I just don’t believe they are coming from this room, although I don’t know. It’s part of why I am so concerned.
Vacuuming helps because it can suck up bed bugs.
I don’t have access to the other rooms that likely are infested.
Bed bugs are BAD. Where was the bug when you found it? Was it on you, the floor, your stuff? Was it alive or dead? Could you stay there a few more days without bringing the rest of your stuff from your friend’s place and see if more bugs appear?
Bed bugs spread quickly and can travel on you or your clothes and infest other locations. That being said, it may have just been one. Then again, if it came from the apartment next door, more will likely infiltrate your place. If they are coming from next door, it won’t be enough to spray just your apartment, the entire building will need it.
Sorry for the difficult situation you’re in, this is a tough call.
the bed bug was on my air mattress, on top of a target fitted sheet, below a larger target sheet used as a blanket. I saw it and squished it and blood came out. I don’t remember if it moved but seemed alive.
I could stay a few more days to see how it goes without bring more stuff in. But I would then need to pay this month’s rent or incur late fees and violate lease terms.
My stuff is all in a closet on shelves. The air mattress is on the ground. It could have come from another apartment. It may be that other residents know, but don’t want fumigation, hence the strange bug traps in front of a door and the white anti-bed-bug stuff sprinkled in front of another door. It could be the bugs come from the street, I slept with a windows open.
My room is almost empty so far.
Man, that’s tough. I dunno, I found a single, live bedbug in my apartment once on my computer desk. I killed it immediately and blood came out, but then I never saw another one again and lived there for 2 more years.
Since your money is tight, you might want to get out before you incur fees and owe rent. Did you get the place through an assistance program? If so, I would notify them about the bug as well.
It may be that other residents know, but don’t want fumigation
They likely know and would prefer the landlord do anything possible. When someone brought them to my old building they did heat treatments, no fumigation.
Fuck, I’m getting chills just thinking about it. The treatments worked and I haven’t lived there in years.
That’s a really tough situation. I assume you’ve told your friend that you were staying with? Because tbh if it were me I’d make you strip down outside and put your clothes in a plastic bag before entering.
Also, hardly a consolation, but they seem to prefer some blood more than others. I was lucky to not be bitten much but my roommate was not. You may be lucky. But don’t discount the mental toll. I think I may have a kind of PTSD from that experience.
My friend knows. I was thinking of getting a gym membership first to shower at before entering. Even traveling on the bus seems unethical, even with new fresh clothes before traveling. I’m just screwed no matter what.
It’s a shitty situation for sure. They are adept at hiding in clothes, furniture, crevices. But if you strip your clothes, immediately bag and tie, give yourself a quick look over, and put on fresh ones you should be fine.
But a shower somewhere in there can’t hurt.
The good news is you haven’t brought all your things in yet. Don’t bring anything else in until you’ve had some time to investigate.
One bed bug, like you’ve said, could come from anywhere. If this apartment is infested you will find so many more. Give it some time to make sure this is an infestation. Do you have bites? Are there other signs? Of course the landlord is ALWAYS going to say there aren’t any bedbugs, of course they would. But give it some time, pay another month, see what happens.
If no more bedbugs show up, and you don’t get bites, go ahead and move your stuff in. If it’s infested, get out because they are SO hard to get rid of!
In my experience with bedbugs, the way I found out I had them was my sleep schedule reversed. I just found myself up all night and only sleeping during the day.
Only later did I discover it was due to bed bugs. My subconscious responded to them before I became aware of them consciously.
The reason I say this is that you mentioned your being a light sleeper with PTSD.
Bed bugs will affect your sleep. You need to take this into consideration when planning your life.
My advice leans toward saying fuck that place and finding a new one, and the reason isn’t the bedbugs but rather your landlord’s dishonesty.
Your landlord is either lying to you (concerning) or to himself (double concerning). The fact your landlord has taken anti-bedbug measures and yet claims there are no bed bugs is a major red flag.
Bed bugs are hard enough to deal with when everyone is on board and communicating, and not in denial about their existence. One of the hardest aspects of bed bugs is they’re easy to be in denial about. If anyone is showing signs of denial, that is in turn a sign that this might be an unwinnable bed bug fight.
It takes a lot of coordinated, disciplined action among a group of people to eradicate a bedbug infestation. If someone in the group is lying, that’s a very bad indication for the group’s ability to succeed.
My advice would be to confront the landlord about exactly what the fuck is going on with the bedbugs, what the history is, etc. Then, based on how authentic and trustable your landlord presents in that conversation, decide based on that.
There’s a manager and the stuff goes to the manager and that goes to the landlord.
I agree with what you are saying about communication and if there’s not clear communication it will never get better.
But also, I’m not sure writing them will help because they will either be dishonest or honest and I won’t be able to tell based on the email. I also put this to a vote in a post near the end (up for stay, down for leave immediately) and as of now it’s no upvotes and all 9 were leave immediately.
I’m not really able to think that well due to various mental health issues impacting executive dysfunction. I still have things I want, and can still sort of function within society, and so I still exist as a human of sorts, but something like this is super hard for me. (trauma/trigger warning)
spoiler
It’s mostly brain damage due to trauma plus drug use prior to a suicide attempt a long time ago, thinking drugs would make the attempt easier. Spoiler alert: I failed the suicide attempt.
So… I’m probably just going to go with the majority of Lemmy down voting this and just leave.
It sucks, my friend’s place has major problems. I may think about it more and change my mind.
Perhaps I’ll be bitten tonight leaving me with less asymmetric information?
My brain’s been fried at times too man, from drugs, trauma, brain impacts, etc.
One time I had a mold problem in my apartment and didn’t know how to handle it and part of the problem was the mold itself was making it hard to function mentally and otherwise.
In that case, having a premium subscription to chatgpt helped. Meaning having access to GPT4 instead of what they had free at the time which was GPT3.
The LLM wrote me up a step by step plan for exactly how to determine if I had mold and then whom to email when and how and in what sequence to handle it.
It was really helpful.
If you can afford it, $20 to have a month’s access to talk to GPT4 or maybe Claude 3.7 might be a good idea.
If you can’t afford it, I can spot you a month of one of these. AI isn’t necessarily superhuman in terms of precise reasoning, but it’s already superhuman in terms of just being able to articulate knowledge about all sorts of crap.
Really useful when your brain’s recovering from being cooked or fucked up, too.
Buy a bag of diatomaceous earth and a puffer and mask. Hit every seam in the baseboard and corners and every spot where your bed comes in contact with any other surface. They will die. Other treatments don’t work
If you can, move. Wash all your belongings and directly put them in plastic bags.
I have had bedbugs (bought at second hand bed, yay) and while you probably won’t wake up from being eaten on, my partner gets intense stress from just the thought of having bedbugs again. The knowledge that these little fuckers live in your bed and will come out to eat you at night is really unpleasant.
If you have to stay at the place, be prepared that you will be eaten on until they are gone depending on the treatment.
If the infestation isn’t huge pest control will probably just sprinkle some silica powder around where they live (this is like glass making them cut themselves to bits when they walk out to feed) which means you will have to sleep in the bed and let them feed on you. If they don’t detect a body they just stay put, and they can stay put for a year and a half. If you sleep on a couch they will just walk over there instead, spreading the infestation.Also they breed like hell so get pest control on that asap
Edit: oh and for god’s sake do not bring more stuff there until it’s gone.
Yep, it’s later and I am tired and I am already feeling that psychological fear. It actually sucks. I know it’s non-toxic. I am also itchy in places I know weren’t bitten, just this weird somatic reaction. :-( This would be awful to endure for a long period of time.
But also, the bed bug was in my bed last night and I didn’t feel bites. It may not like my blood?
Do they smell blood? Are they like sharks?
Not sure, but I think they might register heat and maybe CO² like mosquitoes do
If you can’t bring yourself to sleep in the bed, a nice warm ham should substitute nicely.
Do they eat ham? Ham doesn’t have blood. Sleep in the ham? I don’t get this.
Did the pest control person confirm it’s a bedbug? I ask because I have a friend that was convinced he had them but he had carpet beetles. They were often misidentified on the old site with folks asking if they had bedbugs.
I’m not saying it’s not a bedbug. Those things are horrendous and I’m no expert. I’m saying carpet beetle larvae can cause irritation and make you think you have bedbugs and their similar size gets them misidentified sometimes.
Whether they are or aren’t, getting your landlord to get someone in to look is the right call.
Yes
Check your lease and the laws of your area. Where I’m at, infestations are the landlord’s responsibility unless that gets waived by the tenant as part of the lease. It might be different where you are. If you’re in a building with multiple tenants, and you spray every room properly, it’ll be real hard to get rid of them.
There are ways to test for it. If you have a bed frame, putting tape on the legs and bowls of water under the feet can catch them so you can make sure.
If you need to spray yourself, get the Ortho home defense max bedbug flea and tick killer. It’s the one thing that I’ve find that really works, but you do have to follow the directions, including doing a second spray.
I am sure there is at least 1, there is no ambiguity. I squished it, blood came out, the pesticide person saw it, I took pictures, and I kept it in a bag after as evidence in case I leave. It is not similar to a bed bug, it is the exact shape when looking at it closely, confirmed by the exterminator person.
The exterminator also did not spray anything, just putting out glue traps. I don’t know if this exterminator does bed bug treatments. The manager said they would speak with the owner and get back to me and they had to speak with them after seeing it. (The manager and exterminator both saw.) I didn’t receive an email or put anything in writing yet because I felt it was more likely than not I would just leave and the email was going to be notice that I was leaving due to habitability issues, along with a bedbug picture and hadn’t decided. Perhaps I should email them ASAP just to document it. I am just concerned once I email them they may respond with information about their attempts to resolve it and I may be better off just leaving immediately, claiming habitability problems from the outset.
Another option, if they are legally required to fix the bedbugs, is to start putting your rent in escrow. That might be a down the road option, but it’s good to have in your back pocket.
I’m not an exterminator but traps don’t do much imo
Immediately request Landlord action and if they refuse file a complaint with the closest rental authority: either the city or the county should have one.
You can deter bedbugs with mint essential oils, it messes with their pheromone receptors, and you can kill them with freezing. Do all of your laundry with soap thoroughly to avoid them and their eggs.
If I can kill them by freezing, I have only 2 bags of stuff here. I can leave with two bags, buy garbage bags and 2 more bags, put the first bags in the garbage bags and the garbage bags in the second bags, and buy new clothes and shoes and socks and just have everything sealed tight. I would be able to freeze what I have, that’s easy. I came in with 2 medium bags, almost nothing, and I can just consider the mattress and sheets and pillow a loss since they are too risky to save (and were really cheap anyway).
Good plan
It has to be hot, hot water and high heat in a dryer for an hour? I have heard isopropyl alcohol discussed but idk if it’s effective.
I did get bitten last night, but slept with the window open again. It could be a mosquito bite, but it feels like a bed bug bite. I should probably leave.
The exterminator put out glue traps for the bed bugs and I don’t see anything in one. Another has tiny dots that look like lint and could be lint from my socks or pants, but may also not be.
Someone mentioned diatomous earth. Does that actually work? It seems like if it were just that easy, then bed bugs wouldn’t be such a big problem. It would be easy to spread all over the floor in this room since so little stuff is here.
There is a built in closet/cabinet in the apartment. Although it’s built into the unit, there is space behind the closet/cabinet and I can’t see at all what is there. There’s not an easy way to treat that area, it looks like.
This is really too bad. The rent is due today. I either pay it or leave and don’t pay it.
I already feel like I got ripped-off from the deposit. If I don’t pay the rent they will likely keep the deposit. This is a 1 year lease but since there’s a wait to get, they will fill the room immediately if I leave. I’ll just lose the deposit and the month’s rent if I pay that. It’s a lot to lose. I could also not pay today, violate the lease to see what tomorrow is like, and pay a late fee or penalty or leave prior to them initiating evictions. It seems unlikely they will persue legal action and I lose my deposit either way. It would buy me time if I am unsure. Possibly I am just in denial.
Yesterday I purchased new shoes, new socks, new pants, and new underwear. I put them in a plastic bag and tied it multiple times. I have two garbage bags also in a different plastic bag which I have food in. I briefly opened that bag when In tried to eat food, if it’s a bad idea to use those bags now I can get more at the local store.
I could also go to the bank and return the cashier’s check for this month’s rent that I havent given them yet to try to get that money back.
I am still unsure about the wisdom of giving up a tenancy like this. There are 60-70 units in here. It took me 6 months of waiting to get off of a wait list and about 2-3 months of paperwork to get this approved because it’s so affordable it’s considered partly subsidized. I can also just be in a cheaper area and work remotely there, but I don’t have a lot of job security, it could possibly be easier to work in this area if I lost my job. I have family who would probably help me slightly to prevent me from becoming homeless, so I am unlikely to become a long-term homeless person by leaving.
I could also do as the locals do, set up wood blocks in front of the door, sprinkle diamtomous clay all around, and get a bunk bed with bug traps underneath the legs and then put a desk underneath. The room is so small I was planning on doing that anyway.
But I also don’t want to be spreading bed bugs to other people and worrying about doing that. It seems like it would be an awful way to live, to have to worry about that. I know people in this area, but I will be worried about seeing them if I am having occasional bites.
I shouldn’t have slept with the window open. I did see a bug flying around when I first woke up, but also all the bugs I have seen flying since being around here were not mosquitos. It seems more likely than not a bed bug bite meaning there’s more than 1.
The bite I got last night is hurting now. I scratched it and ripped off some of the skin and now it hurts more.
Edit: looks like it’s two bites. I think I am going to just leave.
This is a very tough situation. I would leaveand freeze everythigng thtat was in this room for long. I guess if they put out traps they have bed bugs. A place with bed bugs will not give you any sleep. A friend of mine said it made her mad that they come at night when she sleeps and bite her. She couldnt Fall asleep anymore…
For this post only, please upvote for stay in bed bug place for another month, down vote for leave in next 24 hours if you want.
