1. Bed Bugs
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- I checked on the internet and so much rubbish was written about them. Commonly people said you cannot see them. These people are confusing them with bed-mites, which we all have in our beds eating our dead skin and are so small you can't see them. Bedbugs are a different thing they cause itching bites, disturb your sleep and can be almost impossible to get rid of.
- The Experience : People seemed to be getting their info from copying other people's websites. I actually have seen bed bugs 50 or 60 times in many different countries. The thing is tourists are transporting them around so even the best cleanest hotels get them.
- Someone goes to the jungle or infected hotel; they then come to the next hotel, with the bed bugs now in their clothes or bags. In the worst examples some thoughtless person puts their bag on the bed and the bedbugs hop off and hide in the mattress and if you are in the bunk below they can drop down onto your bed. - In a dorm room I have witnessed a girl saying : "Oh that hotel last night was full of bed bugs", I looked across and pointed "like the ones crawling on your bag ... in my clean room !"
| They are amazingly intelligent miniature robots.
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- They are programmed to hate light, but also seek human flesh .
So in that room they would have stayed hiding in the seams of her bag then when the light was switched off they would move into the mattress. Now when you climb into the bed they never seem to bite you right away, but instead after the light is switched off they spend 30 minutes getting into position. Then they bite, but you are in that almost asleep state of mind so can't actually do anything even if you feel it. If there are a lot of them they will disturb your sleep. After feeding they move back into hiding either in the seams of the mattress or seams of your clothes. When the light or sun comes they move away from it. So by the time you wake up they are well hidden.
| 3 Clever Things
- 1 they hide from light
- 2 they mainly come out and bite you when you asleep
- 3 by the morning they are hidden again
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- When you woke up you would see 2 classic signs
- 1. brown specks on the sheets
- 2. many bites together in one place (single bites on feet or hands will probably be from mosquitoes)
- Getting Rid of Them -
Now that hotel are switched on to the problem. They knew that you have to deal with the problem straight away. - (The worst thing you could do is checkout the hotel without telling the managers, so then other people suffer the infection. The second worst thing is not take any cleanup precautions yourself and so transport the bugs to another hotel)
- They isolated the room. First they drew the blinds and switched off the lights. Then they come in with powerful torches and a they remove the sheets they shine the torches down the mattress seams any bugs become more visible as the start to move to flee the light. Bugs which haven't had a blood meal can be otherwise difficult to see as they are tiny and translucent. Bedbugs come in different forms, but if you see something with long feelers or wings it's not a bedbug. They use sticky tape to remove the bugs for squeezing, so they don't stain the mattress. se.
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- Hot Laundry- Any clothes / sheets that might be infected are sent for a hot wash and sun drying. - Sun I believe the bugs cannot survive UV, although I have never seen it written. Any possibly infected mattress is put on the roof in the sun and in a house I recommend you make it a habit to let light into the room.
- Bedbugs are more common in rooms without windows. Indeed I temporary stopgap if you wake up bitten is to switch-on the light and leave it on that way bugs won't leave their hiding places.
- In this hotel they next go to the room and let off a penetrating insecticide bomb to deal with any eggs which might be hidden. One very important thing is any possibly infected bags must not be removed from the room. There's no point in removing it and then bringing it back with it's bugs after the bomb. Remove food of course.
| Home Solutions
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- Now 2 things generally insecticide bombs are not available to the public and many websites say the bombs don't work, but maybe this information originates from companies that sell expensive fumigation plans. - The thing that I do is regularly allow direct sunlight into the room, that way the UV seems to deal with them. If you think that there might be eggs in the mattress in the sofa after leaving it in the sun you could dust the seams with flea powder as it has pyrethrum (pyrethrins) which kills bed bugs, but is not harmful to humans.
- Carpets, wooden panelling and wooden furniture are fine in cold climates, but the problem is in the tropics is they are a nightmare, cos they provide deep hiding places from sunlight and insecticide. The clever hotels have metal beds and washable floors. One trick is the double sided sticky tape on bed legs which prevents them climbing up off the floor, another is a metal rucksack stand (actually I use a polystyrene box) to raise your bag off the floor
| is it fleas ?
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- Incidentally if you get bites only on your feet and lower legs e.g. when your feet are under a table. then that is probably from invisible fleas. Again proper cleaning exposure to UV sunlight will fix this.
| IS SCRATCHING GOOD ?
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- NO ! You know it's not so don't do it ! : the people who have bites showing after 3 days are the people who scratched otherwise they will disappear in half of day. Yes when you notice your bites it itches like hell, but first take a shower and was the bites with soap to keep off bacteria. Of course if you have bites you might have bugs hiding in your hair or belly button, so you need to shower and wash your clothes.
If your bites still itch after a shower then don't touch them just take a cup of tea and think about something else then after 15 minutes the itching will have stopped. - There are magic creams people use, but they are largely a waste of time as touching the bite to put the cream on inflames the bite. In Malaysia I sometimes use Ax Oil on sore skin.
| Why are they terrible ?
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- The worst thing about bed bugs is the paranoia and anxiety they generate in you - The bites are not terrible, there's no disease.. it'll all be OK it a couple of hours and unless there are lots of them they don't disturb your sleep (only once did I find dozens on me), It's just that when you realise the situation you start thinking about itching and your imagination makes up itches that aren't there. - With mosquitoes you know it's all over, you'll just close the window or get a mosquito net and tonight you'll have no problems, but with bedbugs there is the daunting prospect of having to do something about them and how big a job this is : having to get them out of your stuff and out of the room. And if you don't do it properly some will find you and you won't know until you wake up tomorrow - bitten again.
- A Good Article from TIME Magazine
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