Here I Go Again!

Last July, when it was awesomely warm out still, we liked to leave the boys window open at night. The boys took advantage of this by creating a quarter-sized or slightly bigger hole in the screen >:-( so... when Gryffin started suffering bites every night, we thought MOSQUITOES! Oh well, too bad for him, maybe he will remember not to pull the patch off the window, lol! We also wondered why the mosquitoes didn't bite Phoenix; but figured he must not be as tasty, lol.

Time went by, and eventually we had to close the windows at night. Around November, we thought it was strange that Gryffin was still getting bitten, but it wasn't too hard to imagine that there might be a few mosquitoes left hiding somewhere in our house. We looked everywhere for anything, mosquito or not, that could be causing such bites, because Gryffin was starting to look like he suffered permanent chicken pox or something. Phoenix still looked fine, but he had gotten bitten once or twice. We specifically checked their bed, because bites at night indicates that what ever it is might be hiding on or in the bed. There was nothing, nothing!

A little after that, hubby started getting bites, but not me. I wrote this off because it is a fact that mosquitoes are attracted to sugar in the blood, and it is also a fact that Gryffin and Hubby are more likely to eat sugar than me and Phoenix. It was exceedingly strange that there were still mosquitoes alive in December, but hey, the boys flood the floor in the bathroom every day, so it's possible that they were breeding in there.

More time passed, and the bites didn't really stop, but they didn't get worse either. Gryffin had bite marks, but you know what, they didn't look so bad any more, like he had finally gotten used to them, and his body wasn't reacting quite so much. We would have thought that the mosquitoes were gone, but hubby kept getting more bites. I had tiny little bumps on my one arm, but that really could have been anything. 

I started taking a flashlight into the boys room and our room at night when I went to bed so that I could look around and see if anything was out of hiding. There was nothing. I posted on my Facebook status that we must have a case of the dreaded invisible mosquitoes.

Then, our neighbor started spraying noxious substances in his apartment, and we thought Is it a meth lab? Turns out, he had them too. Now I am not really pointing fingers here, but here are the facts. We had an inspection last March, and they specifically looked for bed bugs and roaches. We had none. The bites started in the boys' room, which borders the neighbor's apartment, and took months to move to our room. The boys have NOTHING in their room. They never really have. Other than a mattress my grandma bought them new 2 years ago for Christmas, and toys. Lots and lots of plastic toys. We finally put a dresser in there about 3 months ago, and it was in our closet, having been mine since I was a baby.

During the time when these bugs - which were confirmed as bed bugs when we finally thought to check our bed after the neighbor started spraying for bed bugs - were slowly invading our apartment, we DID NOT bring anything new into our apartment. We didn't even get a couch until December, and the couch we got had been sitting in a freezing garage for a week or more. (We have since checked with official government documents, and freezing something for a week will kill all of the bugs and their eggs.)

We do NOT see how these bugs came into our home as a result of anything we did. That said, where they came from is not the issue. The fact is that we have (had) them, and we told this to our management. They came in, told us what to do, we complied, and they sprayed. We still have 2 treatments to go.

NOW, here's the part that's probably going to piss some people off. Bed bugs suck, they invade your home, infest your bed, and drink your blood, BUT they do not make you sick, and they do not hurt you. Yes, having bites all over your body is not pretty, but again, they don't hurt, and they don't make you sick. So... why they hell are bed bugs such a big deal???

My home is regularly infested with spiders, and once a year box elder bugs (shudders), lady bugs, flies, fruit flies, mosquitoes, and probably carpet beetles (which are also year round) also make their presence known, yet no one insists that we call in an exterminator for them. This is good because all of these bugs have an important role in the ecosystem. I could totally understand it if bed bugs carried disease, like tsetse flies do. HELL even mosquitoes are known to carry disease!

 Oh well, we've done our part to get rid of them, so the point is moot, but I seriously wonder...

For more information about bed bugs, see This handy guide or consult these books: The Bed Bug Book: The Complete Guide to Prevention and Extermination or The Ultimate Collection Of Tips For Wiping Out Bed Bugs Totally!: Easy Do-It-Yourself Pest Control To Kill Bed Bugs, Treat And Stop Bed Bug Infestation ... Bed Bugs From Top To Bottom, Inside And Out

Have a happy day, and please, whatever you do, don't let the bed bugs bite, lol!