Nate-ism #9.

eating breakfast this morning

Nate: Well, July's finally over.
Lindsey: Uh...not quite.

The Worst Thing EVER!

     I have delayed making this public as it completely grosses me out and is totally embarrassing! But now that we have the situation resolved, I wanted to document it because someday (not for years I'm sure) we will look back and laugh at the events of our first year of marriage:)

     A little more than a month ago I had a knock on my door from a mattress delivery man looking for some guy I'd never heard of. Turns out he was delivering a mattress to the neighbors above us. Well later that day and for the next week there was a disgusting box springs leaning up against our window and 2 trashed and hideous mattresses in  the basement. We didn't think much of it until a few days later I woke up with itchy red welts on my arms and legs. I chalked it up to mosquito bites although I couldn't remember being outside when they were around.

     After about 3 or 4 nights of waking up to this I started looking into it online. I thought maybe it was some pregnancy side effect but found nothing. Eventually my search led me to believe we had BED BUGS!!!! Once I put 2 and 2 together with the neighbors and the mattresses I knew that was our problem. But Nate wasn't getting bit, or at least not reacting if he was, and we saw absolutely no signs of them so it was really hard to know what to do.

     Every night we would check the baseboards, the carpet, the mattress, the box springs, etc. and we never found a single sign of them! It was so frustrating because I kept getting bit but we were beginning to question if it was really bedbugs! One night while Nate was at work, I was bound and determined to reach a conclusion and low and behold, I found 3 of them and an egg! I was so mortified and repulsed! I was on the verge of tears texting Nate and telling him I found some. They were hidden in a flap on our box spring. I vacuumed them up continued my search very intensely.

     That night we bought bug spray and sprayed the whole bedroom, bed, everything. I also made Nate cut open the box springs so we could search/spray more thoroughly. We bought some stuff called DE dust online that is supposed to be the best bet for killing them as most insecticides don't kill them unless you can spray directly on them. I slept very very crappy for about 2 weeks after that. I would wake up in the middle of the night and jump out of bed and grab a flashlight and tear the bed apart looking for more bugs. 

     I was mostly annoyed because I knew the bugs weren't from us and it meant they were somewhere else in our building. And because right before we moved Nate and I dished out a bunch of money on a new bed that we really didn't want to have to trash.

     I ended up calling the landlord and explaining the situation to her and she was very sympathetic especially with me being pregnant and adamant that I would NOT be bringing my baby here if the problem was still on going. The next week she sent out a pest control company to look around. He agreed that he didn't see any signs of them in our apartment but said he would see if he could check out some neighboring apartments. 

     A few days after, the landlord stopped by to see how things were going and let us know the pest guy was going to come back and spray. She also said he checked the apartment above us and said they definitely had an infestation and that's where they were coming from. That was a relief to me to hear that it was not our fault (I know that cleanliness has nothing to do with whether or not they infest your house, but it still made me feel gross and dirty to know they were getting into my stuff) she told us basically that the people above us are not great tenants and if they have one more issue, he's gone...which would not be a problem for us if they left:) 

     Well, this whole situation really took a toll on me. Like I said, I couldn't sleep at night and being home made me very anxious, I cried a lot but don't know if that was the bed bugs or just pregnancy...probably both. Every few hours I would search everywhere for signs of more bugs. I vacuumed daily and tried to keep any clutter to a minimum. I went full force and bagged up all our extra pillows and blankets and took them to the laundromat to be run through the drier on high for an hour (that kills any bugs). I also made us get rid of our couch. I was so paranoid they were going to spread to any and all of our stuff, I wasn't taking any chances. Luckily we didn't love that little couch and it was cheap so I didn't feel bad throwing it out, and of course I made Nate cut it open and inspect for any signs of bugs...which there were none. After we ran everything through the drier, we kept it in bags just to be safe. In fact there are still some things in bags. I also made us take off all the outlet covers and dust them and then tape over all the ones we didn't need. I bought a mattress cover for our box springs, and I cleaned out both of our nightstands and took them apart and thoroughly washed them and put them back together. Then I went through all our baby stuff, inspecting everything closely before putting it in our nightstands and dusting the perimeter with the DE.

     It has now been over 2 weeks since I have had any bug bites, and we haven't seen any signs of bugs. I am confident that the issue (at least in our apartment) is under control, but I will not stop taking precautions just to be sure. We still have white dust sprinkled all around our bedroom, but I did finally let Nate buy a futon for our living room so we're no longer sitting on the floor. And I sprinkled it with dust just to be sure.

     I have started sleeping better, but some nights still wake up in a panic dreaming about bugs and then I have to check the bed to be sure, but those nights are fewer and fewer. 

     The icing on the cake was yesterday, Nate was out sanding our table (another post) when another neighbor who we had never seen/talked to before came down and started talking to him. I went out to meet her and she asked if we had the bed bugs. I said yes and she got really defensive saying that it wasn't the neighbor above us who brought them it, that it was the girl that lived here before us because she had a dog (oh, no one in the complex is supposed to have pets but the neighbors above have a cat and the landlord told him that cat had to go...we still it daily). And a sidenote, I am now a bedbug expert after all the research I have done...pets do no attract, cause, carry, bring in bedbugs...only humans do! And on top of that, there is no way we could have lived here 5 months and never noticed the bugs until now. Anyway, she went on about how it wasn't his fault and he's a nice guy and the landlord threatened to evict him if there was one more issue and then she said that the noise we hear isn't him either, and blah blah blah nothing was him. Funny thing was we have not had an issue with noise and never once complained about it, so I don't even know where that came from. Either way she was starting to make me mad so I told her, the pest control man told us the bugs were definitely coming from that apartment, we didn't want anyone to get in trouble we just wanted the situation taken care of. Then she changed her story and said,, well it wasn't his fault he didn't know that old mattress he brought in had bedbugs in it...so I thought that was funny. 

     We really don't care who lived here, or what they do, so long as they don't interfere with us and our living peacefully! So that was my rant about bedbugs and what we have been going through for the last month. It has been stressful, and obnoxious, and gross, and time consuming...but we survived and like I said we seem to be bedbug free! Although I won't say for sure unless we can go another whole month...but I'll still probably take precautions because I'm OCD like that. So there is it, our big nasty news is now public. I have held off because I figured people would read this and be disgusted and not want anything to do with us anymore.
     On a happier note, we have started to do some projects that we want finished before Adventure comes. Right now we are in the process of sanding and painting our kitchen table. I would also like to finish a living room curtain, and make some covered padding for our new rocking chair. I also bought the cutest fabric to make a carseat cover. Oh, and Nate has been really happy about this one...I have been meal planning AND actually cooking. I am so domestic.