Adventures with Bedbugs, episode 3

This particular episode of "Adventures with Bedbugs" won't feel particularly adventure-y. We're in more of a "vigilance" than a "vigilante" mode right now.

But let me back up. In our previous installment, I'd praised my new heat gun. My husband was sad, when he read the post, that I didn't mention that my heat gun has a name, so let me (re)introduce this baby. Inspired by the Game of Thrones, and in particular by a warrior's command that instructs her dragon to incinerate her enemies, my heat gun is named "Dracaris". There you go.

I ended the previous installment by saying,

I don't know whether we're actually beating them, or whether they're planning a surprise reemergence in a totally new place in the house. But I'm feeling better armed and more informed daily . . .

Prescient words, there, about "reemergence".  Right after I hit "publish", I decided I needed to go upstairs and do yet another bedbug hunt, and sure enough, I discovered the bedbugs had migrated over into the library, where my husband has been sleeping, and they were snuggled up underneath his mattress (the mattress cover we'd ordered for that bed hadn't come yet).   I dracarised the heck out of that mattress and the bed frame, and we haven't seen any bedbugs in that room since.

I want to say, I have been doing my best to seek out -- and to believe -- expert advice.   I am not going to pretend that these will all miraculously go away, that the bugs will maybe just disappear, or that "it is what it is".   Experts say that getting rid of bedbugs is very difficult; they are persistent.   Experts say that bedbugs tend to live within 8 feet of their food source (a bed where someone is sleeping), but that if an infestation gets bad, they can spread to other areas.   So I'm focused on our bedrooms on the second floor, but we're also keeping an eye on the couch and such on our main floor (so far, no sightings there -- phew!)

After our initial inspection, we've resisted bringing in an outside exterminator for a couple of reasons:

• the near, "cheap" ($800) folks use poison spray and would need to do three treatments, with lots of bagging-up effort on our behalf; that's a lot of work for us, and I have serious concerns about the efficacy of poison on the bugs (it's well documented that the bugs are developing resistance) as well as health concerns for us about spreading poison in our home;
• a one-hour-away, "mid-priced" ($1500) guy would use heaters on our second floor only (where the bedrooms are), but also ALWAYS adds a poison treatment;  there's the poison concern again, but also questions about whether the bedroom-level-only treatment would work long-term;
• a three-hour-away, expensive ($3000) place would do the heat treatment to the whole home.  

The three-hour-away guy was very chatty.  He told us about a guy whose house he treated, but whose infestation was bad enough that the bugs had spread to the car, so after the guy had his house treated, he reintroduced them to the house by bringing them back in from the car.   Ugh.

A normal room heater won't work to do a treatment, we've discovered both by experimenting ourselves and by reading stuff on line.  However . . . it's possible to buy a bedbug-heater for a mere $1200.   Notice that this is less than the cost of hiring the two pricier exterminators.   So my husband, who loves buying things for me, especially when they're expensive, has bought me a bed bug incinerator.  It's supposed to arrive Friday.

In the meanwhile, I've seen very, very few bedbugs.  I'm washing bedsheets and dog beds regularly, but for three days now I haven't seen any bedbugs in the dog bed (which I am using like a magnet to try to attract them and detect their presence, sorry Prewash!), nor anywhere else in my room.  I do kind of maniacally go hunting for them at night with my flashlight, but I'm running out of places to look.   It kind of feels like we're winning, although every time I find a carcass or a tiny bug somewhere, I remember that all it takes is one little Mama Bedbug to start this whole process over again.  

So, that's where we are.  Looking forward to the arrival of an incinerator, living in a house decorated with diatomaceous earth, and generally not sharing our beds with tiny little critters, at least for now.