I live outside of NYC and assume I got them from the bus. I’ve seen them on the bus, anyway.
It got bad before I realized. I did my research— bought the bed covers, put everything near the bed in clear plastic bags, and bought a steam cleaner.
The bugs infest your bed, reproduce, and spread out. To get rid of them you do the reverse—kill them on the bed with steam. Wait a day or two for the commuters to repopulate the bedding, repeat.
Most important thing is don’t panic. If you panic, throw out your bed, then you will prolly end up dragging your bed through your home and spread the bugs everywhere.
A year later I was volunteering at a community program teaching adults to use computers. The topic of bed bugs came up. A person said the Cedarcide product was absolutely the best product. I’m adverse to using any poison on or near my bed, so I gave it a try—it’s just cedar oil.
Well, I tried it and shared the product with my neighbors. I didn’t see any direct effect on the bugs. What I did realize was the smell of the product is distinct (and pleasant). Living in an apartment building, when you smell the product, you know someone has the problem and you can catch an infestation early. This is key.
Also, once you find and deal with the issue, best to continue to check your bedding twice a week. I found spring through to early summer is the worst. If you can get past that time, and you know your neighbors are clear, then you’re good. But as long as your neighbors have a problem, then you too have a problem.
There is a lot of irrational shame when people have the bugs. They deny and deny, so communication is key—even if it’s coded communication as the smell of whatever spray people use to treat and kill the bugs, or empty bug spray cans.
Bedbugs have no correlation with filth. They're not flies or cockroaches, they don't live off your waste. They live off you.
All it takes to start a bedbug infestation is for a female bedbug to crawl on someone, in their clothes or bag, and then fall off in a new place and start laying eggs. It can happen in the cleanest spaces in the world. They're highly resistant to insecticides and they hide in cracks barely wide enough to slide a strip of paper, so even a thorough washing and vacuuming won't remove them.
Public bus, air plane seats, delivery packages, hotel rooms, even your office chairs. You will be surprised how common they are and how easily you could get them. Often there is only one thing standing between you and them- Luck. One wrong move and it could be over.
Everything has an ecosystem living on it. Are you sure your laptop is any cleaner than the toilet seat? How long has it been since you disinfected its surface with alcohol, bleach, or citric acid?
The toilet always gets brought up in these conversations. For example, the toilet in almost every restaurant is substantially cleaner than any surface you eat on. It's made of ceramic and doused in bleach (and other cleaners) on a regular basis, so it comes as no surprise that it is cleaner.
Comparing to the toilet is a fallacy because of this and the fact that no one I know defecates on their laptop.
The toilet is actually a very good example that illustrates the importance of easily cleanable surfaces. It doesn't matter if you poop on it every day as long as it can be doused in bleach from time to time! Can't say the same for a MacBook Pro. (By the way, one usually poops in the toilet bowl, not on the toilet seat...)
We won't get cleaner buses by magically wishing all the passengers to have better hygiene. The answer is to cover all internal surfaces with non-porous, corrosion-resistant, easily cleanable materials and to eliminate nooks and crannies where dirt can accumulate. Ideally, you should be able to hose down all the seats of a bus after a day's service.
> We won't get cleaner buses by magically wishing all the passengers to have better hygiene.
Isn't wearing different clothes indoor and outdoor the actual solution? We can't expect public spaces leave alone the public transport to be sterile or sparkling clean even in paragons of hygiene such as Singapore. Getting changed into something that one wears at home and at home only and putting outdoor clothes away seems like a simple thing to do and eradicates a whole class of hygiene related issues.
Yes but also stop using plastic bevause it requires oil extraction which causes climate change that will doom us all within a generation or three, and also don't use metal because that feeds the military industrial complex and/or supports child labor or slavery or other exploitative conditions.
Yep, washable vehicles are perfectly feasible. All police cars in my city have washable rear seats and a drain hole on the floor. If whoever they detain in the rear seat contaminates it with blood, vomit or covid-laden drivel, they can just hose down the whole area.
It’s cleaner on average. But boy is it extremely variable whereas my table is dirtier on average but never has spikes drastically worse than average. Not to mention people eat off plates, not off the table itself directly.
Fly paper on bed posts and pull the bed away from the wall. This’ll let you get a good nights sleep while you engage all the additional preemptive measures you point out.
Its a precaution for when you turn the bed into a safe zone, they don't re-infest the bed (provided you are being super careful about what you're putting on your bed).
It got bad before I realized. I did my research— bought the bed covers, put everything near the bed in clear plastic bags, and bought a steam cleaner.
The bugs infest your bed, reproduce, and spread out. To get rid of them you do the reverse—kill them on the bed with steam. Wait a day or two for the commuters to repopulate the bedding, repeat.
Most important thing is don’t panic. If you panic, throw out your bed, then you will prolly end up dragging your bed through your home and spread the bugs everywhere.
A year later I was volunteering at a community program teaching adults to use computers. The topic of bed bugs came up. A person said the Cedarcide product was absolutely the best product. I’m adverse to using any poison on or near my bed, so I gave it a try—it’s just cedar oil.
Well, I tried it and shared the product with my neighbors. I didn’t see any direct effect on the bugs. What I did realize was the smell of the product is distinct (and pleasant). Living in an apartment building, when you smell the product, you know someone has the problem and you can catch an infestation early. This is key.
Also, once you find and deal with the issue, best to continue to check your bedding twice a week. I found spring through to early summer is the worst. If you can get past that time, and you know your neighbors are clear, then you’re good. But as long as your neighbors have a problem, then you too have a problem.
There is a lot of irrational shame when people have the bugs. They deny and deny, so communication is key—even if it’s coded communication as the smell of whatever spray people use to treat and kill the bugs, or empty bug spray cans.