It’s been an interesting few months here at the abode. Back at the start of May, I woke up to banging on my door and thick smoke pouring into the front room – apparently, my upstairs neighbor had left the rest of us a going-away present when he moved out, in the form of a pair of gascans and a match. That was the first time I’d ever experienced a “real” fire, the evacuation, the panicked neighbors, and all that goes along with it. I learned a few things: First, firefighters are some of the most remarkable people you’ll meet, and can also be complete jerks. Second, the Red Cross is pretty cool, and not just an abstract organization- they came out to offer all of us in the affected units assistance. Third, renter’s insurance is a hundred times more difficult to deal with than auto insurance.
In the aftermath, I was told that my apartment wasn’t going to be livable and so I needed to get my stuff out. With the help of some friends, I got all my stuff out and moved into a unit that was recently vacated. With everything moved and me sitting in a new unit, I figured the problems were over and I could get back to normal. That is, until I discovered some unannounced roommates had already been living in the unit I was placed in – bedbugs.
Now I don’t know about you guys, but I’d thought bedbugs were all but extinct. One of those things relegated to folklore or the sayings of old people – “Don’t let the bed bugs bite,” for instance, had about as much relevance to me as “Pocket full of posies.” Incidentally, it turns out that not letting the bed bugs bite is damn near impossible. But I digress. It turns out these little guys were essentially eradicated back around World War II, but have made a nationwide resurgence in the last decade or so thanks to a dramatic reduction in pesticide usage around the country, especially in hotels and such.
As it turns out, bed bugs aren’t quite what I had imagined them to be. The bugs themselves aren’t that big of an issue – their bites are painless, leave barely any mark for most people, and only occur maybe once a week per bug. They never show themselves in the light, and they don’t really make any noticeable impact on your environment unless you happen to catch one as it scurries back to its hiding place. What’s more impactful is the irritation: once you know they’re there, you always feel like you’ve got them sneaking up on you – it’s apparently a major cause of delusional parasitosis. And come on, no one likes the thought of sharing their home with tiny, parasitic bugs. Especially invincible ones.
Oh, had I not mentioned that yet? These little critters are nigh-impossible to kill. Sure, you can step on one – though it takes an impressive amount of force for such a little creature, and will leave a mess – but aside from that, your options are limited. The common treatments are heavy pesticide application and steam, as they’re vulnerable to high heat. But even that doesn’t work as well as you’d hope – when I told my apartment about what was going on, they signed me up for a three-week treatment through a pest control company. Five weeks later, the bugs were still here – their ranks diminished, but still fighting for the cause. I’ve not seen any since the latest treatment (week six!) but I’m not going to consider it solved until I go a couple weeks without noticing anything. And it’s not like they’re easy to spot.
Also, for the treatments, you have to pack all your clothing, towels, dishes, hygeine items, etc., into plastic bags, and you have to wash all your bedding and clothing on high heat – and not just any high heat, you need the heat that’s only found at a laundromat. Conveniently, I discovered that Ziploc sells giant bags – 20 gallon Ziplocs with carrying handles, in fact! It’s made the whole ordeal of having all my clothing stored in plastic a bit easier, and cheaper, since I don’t have to toss them out every week after doing laundry like I did with the garbage bags I was using originally.
So here we go with another week of constant vacuuming and living out of a bag. I think I’m beginning to understand why people burn down their homes for the insurance money.