[Cause]

My solution is fire

But a high temperature without burning your home will also suffice.

[Tsundoku]

Bed bug?

[Slow Ben]

That’s shitty luck.

Nuke it.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

I second Abyss' suggestion. What is it exactly?

[Slow Ben]

Bed bug!

They feed on humans and pets and they’re damn tough to get rid of.

[Tiste Simeon]

But I was specifically instructed NOT to let the bed bugs bite! How rude of them to ignore this!

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Obviously you should devour them before they can bite you.

But they're like tiny vampires---like a blood sucking mattress of squirming, swarming, feasting tiny insects, swelling with your blood.

On the brighter side,

Quote

Their bites are not known to transmit any infectious disease

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed_bug

[Cause]

Diatemacous earth and heat! Nothing else works. You need to dry them out

Put everything cloth you own through the dryer and repeat.

[Abyss]

Counterpoint: flame-thrower

[Cause]

Abyss, on 09 May 2025 - 04:20 PM, said:

Counterpoint: flame-thrower

This is high heat and I approve

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Cause, on 09 May 2025 - 05:30 PM, said:

Abyss, on 09 May 2025 - 04:20 PM, said:

Counterpoint: flame-thrower

This is high heat and I approve

Rand al'Thor nuking the titanic bed bugs...

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Yeah, it's a bed bug. I found 1 dead one, 1 LONG dead one (dessicated and semi-transparent), 1 living one, and a few eggs. They can lay dozens of eggs a day and can survive months without food.

I immediately made a spreadsheet of all the exterminators, researched their methods, and came to the same conclusion as Cause — heat and DE are the top methods.

We are hiring a guy who does whole home heat treatment. Essentially, he raises the temperature of the whole place to 140F-150F for several hours, and that kills all the little buggers. I'm really hoping this does the trick.

Unfortunately, as we are in a modern apartment building with sprinklers, the HOA is going full caution mode and requiring that the sprinkler system for the entire building be drained. This won't happen for a few days. The sprinklers activation temperature is somewhere in the 150F range, so I do understand the concern here and think it's sensible. I just don't want to have to delay too long.

While I wanted to get the exterminator in today or tomorrow, I'll have to wait until after the sprinklers are drained.

I did think about abandoning all my possessions, shaving off all my hair, and moving to a monastery, but then I read that even monasteries have bed bugs. Alas...

EDIT: I had some itchy bumps on my arm the day before I found it. I assumed they were just hives, as I am allergic to a few things, and didn't think much of it. It was only when I was changing the bed sheets the next day that I saw the bed bug and put 2 and 2 together. It was pure luck that I decided to change the sheets and saw the bed bug.

This post has been edited by Whisperzzzzzzz: Yesterday, 06:53 PM

[amphibian]

Way to go in getting to the situation where you could put two and two together, then take decisive action.

Any idea of the vectors?

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

 amphibian, on 10 May 2025 - 01:30 PM, said:

Way to go in getting to the situation where you could put two and two together, then take decisive action.

Any idea of the vectors?

Absolutely none. We've traveled a bunch over the past month or two, and we live in an apartment (so could be coming from neighboring units), and our dog has been at doggy day care some.

Could have been any of those, or even just from sitting at a restaurant.

This post has been edited by Whisperzzzzzzz: Today, 04:16 PM