To Kill a Bedding-Bug

Well we know we started this blog to make y'all jealous and to live vicariously through us, but yesterday was not one we'd wish on you!

It all started several weeks ago when Gwenlli was complaining that she had been bitten. I had no such evidence, and so we assumed that they were bites from the newly de-flea-d office. (Side note: G has finished her job and is now working hard on revising for UKCAT which is in a week.)

Two nights ago we were chilling in bed with a book and Gwenlli noticed black spots on the bed sheets. We googled around and realised they are the hallmark of bed-bug faeces. Well, it was midnight, so allow dealing with that now. Let's sleep on it (!) and deal with it in the morning. Of course, neither of us got much sleep in the awareness that we were sleeping on shit. To be technical, bed bugs eat blood and they defecate blood so they're leaving smears of our blood on our sheets. Tasty.

I had some friends over for group project work (model building), but when they left we decided to inspect the bedroom. We lifted the mattresses, inspected the bed frames, and found a live bed bug in Gwenlli's bed. Incidentally it was similar to one I had found in my bed several weeks ago but had been unaware that it was a bed bug and chucked it out the window without further thought. G called Jimmi and explained the situation and apparently it always happens when new people move in. He advised us to bomb the room as that keeps it under control.

Whilst they were on the phone, I lifted the bed frames to take a closer look and saw about ten of them cotching. Luckily my freak-out was the excuse to get off the phone. Hoover at the ready and after practicing several times, I lifted the bed frame and G hoovered them up. That was the start of the hoovering. I went down to Countdown to buy some spray and bombs, came back and cooked some food. In the meantime G was getting the first high-temperature-load on of our clothes. So began the methodical procedure of moving everything out the room (checking it first) and hoovering every square inch.

We found their nest - demarcated by dark black spots all around. We found several more live ones. After hoovering, we strategically aligned the bed frames and mattresses, covered the fire alarm with a rubber glove to prevent it from going off, and started the bomb. The instructions said to wait a minimum of 2 hours. Three and a half hours later G went in to open the windows.

Fandango and Scaramouche having their first bath

In the meantime, Scaramouche, Fandango, and Jermey had their first baths. Fred and Ginger are too old for that so we put them straight in the freezer. After Scaramouche came out we put her in the freezer as we had found a suspicious looking yellow thing in her fur. Bed bugs don't like the cold, but it takes two weeks for them to go from it. During all this, our new flat mates are moving in and M asked "Why do you have bears in the freezer?" He must have thought we were cruel mummies.

Scaramouche in the dryer

Bed bugs can live up to 6 months without a feed so you have to trap them inside the mattress and ensure they slowly starve to death. I tell you, it's quite heart-breaking to think of them in there slowly rotting away but their presence is linked to sleeplessness and allergic reactions. To be honest, they're not really that bad but neither of us want them, and unfortunately it's them or our sleep :(

Scaramouche all fluffy after her adventures

So, G suggested we cling-film the bed frames and the mattresses which took about half an hour. After that, we started to move everything back in. I wanted to take the rubber glove off the fire alarm and was wary of bringing any wooden furniture into the bedroom (all of ours was bombed), so elected to use what felt like a sturdy shelving unit. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was deceptive and I fell straight through, breaking the shelves in the process. Cuts and scrapes are up my leg but luckily not that hurt.

We also forgot to wash our duvets so slept under clean duvet cases. So, safely tucked in we're just about to go to sleep when this noise started. I barely had enough time to ask "What was that?" when the mirror fell off the wall and shattered into a thousand pieces.

So begins our seven years of bad luck.