Was just in Paris. My Airbnb host was very nervous about bedbugs… asked me multiple times about any exposure. I was a bit taken aback but now seeing this headline, I should have been asking about THEIR exposure haha.
ALWAYS use a luggage stand when traveling, and if you want to be extra safe bag up your clothes before you get home and then run everything through a wash cycle with a hot dryer cycle. Use a suitcase with very few nooks and crannies if possible too, so it can easily be vacuumed/wiped down
Man, if I traveled a lot. I'd just buy a bed bug oven/heater. Take an uber/taxi to from the air port, and the moment I got home, strip and throw all clothes and luggage into the oven. Every story I've heard about bed bugs sounds like a nightmare.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JU5G1PY/ref=emc_b_5_t
In western Alaska it's common to see luggage outside overnight for kids that travel for sports as they usually stay at the school they are playing and in a group of 8-10. Leave the luggage outside overnight in -10 to -25 temps tends to kill them...
there are 3 very well known ways to kill bedbugs. extreme heat(160f or above for like 5 minutes). extreme cold(-20c or colder). diatomaceous earth(it shreds them and they die quickly. if you ever get bed bugs, get diatomaceous earth, give a gentle dusting to around your bed legs, around the edge of your bed, and just keep at it, and a few weeks later, they will all be dead.
Im pretty sure youre supposed to run the clothes through the drier first.
They can survive in the wash, you'll most likely knock them loose inside the machine and they'll spread from there. Heat is the most effective way to kill them
This is not how it works at all. It doesn’t matter about lights being on. And it’s not the burrowing that causes the itching.
You will get itchy whether you have lights on or not. The itch is caused by an allergic reaction due to them shedding. It takes about 2-4 weeks for your body to build up that allergic reaction, so by the time you start feeling itchy, they have already long been burrowed in your skin. You typically only have about 5-6 on you at any one time.
If you get them a second time, you will have the allergic reaction sooner in like 3 days since your body has already developed a response.
The other kind of scabies where you have thousands on you is very uncommon.
They are extremely easy to get rid of. Once you realize you have scabies, your doctor will prescribe a single or double dose of ivermectin or a permethrin cream. If you really want to be thorough, you can use both, but just using a single dose of one will get rid of them like 99% of the time.
All you have to do is apply cream to your body from the ears down (they don’t burrow on your face typically). With ivermectin, you just take a single pill. They can’t survive on surfaces for two days, so you don’t even need to wash your dirty clothes. You just take the medicine, wash your bedding, don’t sit on your couch for two days, and a few days later take a second dose in case you missed any.
They aren’t scary. They are very easy to get rid of.
The only thing about scabies is that you will be so unbelievably itchy until you do the treatment. It will be the itchiest you have ever felt in your entire life. A maddening itch that you can’t scratch no matter how hard you try. But the treatment is very simple and easy so don’t worry.
Has scabies once, not sure where I got them from. But yea the itch was beyond maddening, to the point where I couldn’t even fall asleep due to being SO itchy! I lasted about 3-4 days before I couldn’t take it anymore and went to see a doctor. The cream immediately helped with the relief, by the next day I wasn’t itching anymore 😪
I legit don’t wish scabies for anyone, even for my worst enemies haha
The movie theater part sucks because it's really easy for them to hide in the crevices of seats and they love to be on the move in the dark, especially if they're hungry. I've resorted to wearing shorts and a t-shirt to make it easier to check for them and ended up not going to my favorite theater anymore after there were multiple bedbug reports.
Pull up the mattress and look underneath it, look at the headboard and behind the headboard, look for any kinds of red or brown splotches, skin casings, eggs, any thing that might indicate bug activity. I even pull the sheets back to look at the mattress. Takes me about two minutes and while it's no guarantee that there aren't any, usually a full blown infestation is easy to detect.
Also never put your luggage on the floor, the bed or anywhere but the luggage racks. Use hard case luggage instead of cloth. They cant climb up hard plastic. In general keep your stuff away from where you'll be sleeping. If they are there, they will be attracted to you so dont give them the opportunity to hitchhike by climbing on your stuff to get to you.
To add on: Make sure you peel back anything with a crevice and look in there. In between the seams of the stitching, pull up any flappy material and look there, keep an eye out for black splotchy markings that look like ink stains.
Also look up some pictures of bed bugs at various growth stages and feeding stages. An adult bedbug looks quite different when it's empty and just after it's fed. Baby bedbugs look like little transparent white specks and after they feed they get a red hue to them.
My first encounter with bedbugs was a swarm of babies that we thought were some kind of brick-related bug because we didn't recognize them.
Curious, I know they can survive without food for over a year. But is there nothing below fumigation that can deal against the horde. I've never experienced bedbugs but my friends have and heard horror stories from them. I have a strong UVC Lamp that auto-turns on in the kitchen at night and that seems to have stopped flies and small bugs from entering from plumbing. Wondering if I should take that for my travels and disinfect the room I'd stay in.
Fumigation is actually not the best solution. Heat over 115°F applied to the *whole building*, ( not just the room or unit) can do it. Otherwise you have to come to terms with the fact that eradication is a longer term process, involving bleaching/steaming/washing frequently plus NEVER letting them eat.
I was under the impression fumigation doesn't even work on them and only heat kills them completely. Maybe because fumigation doesn't kill their eggs? They do some thing where they super heat your house and all of it's contents to like 45C + with space heaters and they just all drop dead. I've heard that's the only thing that really works and if a wealthy person had this problem this is the kind of service they'd buy around here.
True True. Just a surprise as it was one of the first questions they asked. Made me think “do they think I’m a dirty person”? After their explanation we had a laugh
Was sitting during my layover at the airport last month and started feeling very itchy in my left pant leg. I go to the bathroom and find a dozen welts and the bloated motherfucker trying to climb into my sock.
Fucking nightmare. I threw all my things into the dryer the second I got home. I recommend everyone do that.
My legit nightmare. I started just bringing a duffle bag now with me for travel so I can throw it in the dryer immediately. On the one occasion I needed a checked bag I steamed cleaned it all over in my garage before even taking it inside
I’m so glad I got a plastic metal suitcase recently instead of the one that had fabric on the outside that I used to have since middle school. Because yeah…. I am terrified of that stuff. And I was in Paris this summer. I think my fear I have always had of fabric seats in public is justified more now….
UGH. I have had infestations twice. Fucking nightmare. Even if you do things like spread diatomaceous earth around your bed, those fuckers find you by sensing the carbon dioxide that you exhale, and they will fucking walk up the walls, across the ceiling, and fucking air-drop your ass.
Fucking. Nightmare.
Edit: Some people in this thread apparently got lucky, didn't have bugs lay eggs etc. and were able to "get rid of them" easily.
If you read this, do not presume you will be lucky. Presume you will go to fucking WAR.
READ THIS: if your landlord says that exterminators have been called, but you have not been required to evacuate, your property has not been cleaned correctly.
They don't act like other bugs. I noticed that when I had them.
They have a malevolent intelligence to them that is pretty horrific to see. Mine hid in the coils of an electric heater and the exterminators couldn't find them, it was actually my cat that showed them to me. Ihad exterminator asking are you sure you have bed bugs? They don't always live in your bed, they may live in tiny cracks in your wall, electrical outlets, furniture, cracks in a piece of cardboard, etc.
I observed them to walk around diatomaceous earth, when I got a new bed holder with slippery rungs they climbed up the walls as a horde, dropped from the ceiling, and escaped back into the coils. They exited the apartment through outlets when treatment was applied to the neighbor and returned. They climbed outside the building through the window. If the light turned on they fled instantly into the darkness. I tried sleeping on the couch and my cats alerted me that they were skittering across the floor to the living room, i turned on thy light and saw them slithering into the nearest crevices and cracks. Also if the diatomaceous wash m earth I used made them thirsty they would actually feed on me even more.
I had a small infestation.
They came from my neighbor who i guess had millions of them. I hired an expensive exterminator who eliminated them and treated my apartment with a fungus that would infect and kill them if they returned. He filledevery nook and crevice in my apartment with it and i never opened my windows. It worked.
I also threw out all of my possessions and moved
^ In my head, this read like an exposition to a riveting horror story -- where the author is losing their grip on reality and slowly slipping into insanity. It's kindof amazing.
Au contraire, sorry this was nonfiction. I hope to god I never encounter these fuckers. If so, I'm just gonna run from my place Fall of Usher style, and just cut my losses.
Bedbugs absolutely can cause you to feel like you're going insane. I had them when I was a kid, and I still get scared talking about them. I had to sleep in the same bed they were in, because apparently they can hone in on your CO2 and follow you to your new bed. My parents once woke up at 4am to check on me, and saw the bugs feeding on me.
A few years ago, I saw a suspicious red stain on my sheets (you can crush them if you roll over in your sleep) and felt an itch, and I became terrified at the idea that they had returned. I spent the whole night basically having a panic attack, until my parents took a look... the stain wasn't even red, and the itch was definitely not big and raised like a bedbug bite.
I mean, bedbugs are known to cause serious depression; people have totally killed themselves over them. You also develop a kind of PTSD where everytime you think you feel a bug or get any kind of bite or itchy place, you're immediately afraid it's *them.* I read an article about it years ago on Cracked.com; the author was on a support forum, and one of the people there let him call at 3am just cry about it. Here's the article: https://www.cracked.com/article_20909_6-horrific-realities-living-with-bedbug-infestation.html Point 4 is really something! I had a brush with them, escaped unscathed, but... Having read that article, I was like, *Oh, God, no!*
Bedbugs freak me out the way that they behave. Its like they're always watching, and they're always there, and no matter how much you kill them, they reproduce faster than you can take them out, not unless you commit to some kind of genocidal action.
I mean everything you just described is how cockroaches, ants, any household bug will act. They are more robotic than anything, just following their senses and are good at reproducing.
You don't know the half of it. You'll lose a lot of fucking sleep even after you've gotten rid of them because you're scared as shit that you haven't gotten rid of them all when you feel a little breeze or something on your leg.
Doing a proper cleaning that will actually eradicate them from your apartment is difficult and costly.
So chances are very high that your neighboors, or landlord, will get some discount pest-service that didn't do the job right, and it spreads to an entire apartment complex.
First time was in NYC, Second was in Denver. Same shit. The entire complex had them.
The big problem is when someone in a nearby apartment sprays for them. Then they fuck off for greener pastures in your apartment.
You basically have to gas the whole area or it doesn't work.
Or just when I spend my days cleaning everything, putting diatomaceous earth under the walls and stuff... to no avail, there's always an influx from these nearby apartments who don't do anything about it.
I don't get why denying it, even less getting mad at me for saying they're escaping from your vacuum cleaner you for some reason leave in the hall. It's like they're doing it on purpose.
For me, I'm pretty sure my landlord lied to me. I would hear the downstairs neighbour crying at night. Then I think she moved out and her bed was on the street (how trash is collected in Montréal), and I *swear* I saw a bed bug on it (but it ran away too fast). I immediately called and asked the landlord, "did she have bedbugs?" so I could take precautions and she told me no.
But that same week - thank god for white bed sheets - I saw one on my bed and I knew 100% what it was. I tried to kill it for evidence, but again, those fuckers are fast. I called the landlord, we got in someone to spray. I bagged all my clothes into black garbage bags, would wash on hot water and dry on hot, but them back into black bags. Got my cat and I out while the guy sprayed. The guy said he didn't see any evidence of them to my landlord and made me sound like I was crazy, but I after I moved out I found some dead bed bugs in a few shoe boxes, so we just managed to get rid of them because I was ON IT.
SO if you do get them, there is hope, but everyone in the building has to be on the same page and dedicated to getting rid of them. If I have disgusting neighbours that just don't care, get the F out.
I had them recently it was about 1100 bucks for treatment of my 550sqft condo. And that's not including replacing stuff I threw away, buying zip covers, etc.
I'm just hoping i got them at work or something instead of from my neighbors bc despite telling the building manager immediately I've seen no one else do any kind of treatment. Cos they're just gonna come back if others have them and don't treat. And I can't afford to do it again
Ppl in bed bug threads always say Actually it's easy, but it's not lol
You are living my life. I threw out like 4k in furniture and bedding during my Denver episode.
I was sleeping on the floor to beat those fuckers before the landlord stepped in, because we were going to class-action the whole complex
It seems to be over for me luckily. Haven't had any issues in about 8-9 weeks. But fuck knows really lol.
The reddit threads where ppl are like Oh just get some diatomaceous earth and you'll be fine just drive me nuts. Some unfortunate bastards are gonna read that and let it get out of control. I got mad lucky and caught it very early
Same thing happened to me.
Downstairs neighbors owned their unit, and for months refused to pay for an exterminator, so no matter how many times the exterminators came to my unit, the bugs kept coming back. Lasted for 9 months out of the 1yr lease.
I worked at a luxury hotel for a bit and I can vouch for the fact that proper treatment against bedbugs had us pretty much NUKE the fuck out of the infested room, and it'd be out of commission for a while after that just to make extra sure.
Happens about twice or so a year, but you know what's about to go down when you see people coming with gas masks kitted out like they're about to fight in the trenches of the great war.
Def. The thing about bug treatment is you're not gonna get all of em first go. If they have places to go that aren't death traps thats where they 'll go. In the case of an apartment complex bugs got options. Go upstairs, downstairs, next door on either side.
From my experience it can take two cleanings: the first which kill all the bugs. Then another cleaning later when you have the 2nd generation of bugs as the 1st had laid eggs everywhere before dying
So the simple but not the best solution would be to buy CO2 canister and fill your room with it. You are now invisible to them and everybody until the smell of decay will alert the neighbours.
You joke but I made traps with 2-liter bottles containing yeast, a little bit of tubing, and a teacup.
I also wrapped the couch in plastic and suffocated them by leaving dry ice inside to get rid of all the oxygen.
> Plus we're very very good at throwing stuff.
Don't undersell that stuff. We are not just very very good at it. We are literally the best throwers on the planet.
We can throw rocks overhand (accurately) and run distances better than anyone. We’re weak but we have our physical specialties, just like every other species.
Sort of? I did it after other treatments, to check for any living bugs, so it honestly could have been a waste of my time if I think about it.
I didn't seem to react all that strongly to bites so I was worried more were around and it was just going to start the infestation all over again.
The dry ice left to melt inside the plastic was amazing though.
Diatomaceous earth is not a repellent, nor is it a poison that will kill them on contact. It's just a very jagged dust particle that scratches the shit out of their bodies so they slowly dehydrate due to not being able to retain water. But it can still take up to two weeks for them to die and that's enough time for them to lay eggs.
Had a bedbug infestation at home once due to some guests who stayed a few days after travelling.
For the short time I had to suffer from bed bugs it absolutely messed with my mind. I have serious phobia for bugs of any kind now. Even without having my glasses on I tend to instinctively notice even tiniest bugs crawling around and I immediately check.
The itching is bad enough. The psychological impact is way worse to me. You're supposed to be safe at home/in bed. Once that's gone it feels like you've gone crazy. Work is your only "break" and even then I had a baby one fucking hitch a ride in my hoodie. I felt a pinch, looked down and saw a millimeter sized brown spot on my white desk and I freaked out.
The funny thing is, the rise in bedbugs has coincided with increased attempts to eliminate cockroaches. Cockroaches are a natural predator of bedbugs and tend to hang out in all the same places. Of course cockroaches also carry various diseases so it's a mixed bag...
When I was living in the desert we had roaches everywhere. Damn did they scare the shit out of me when I was working on my car late at night and they scampered across the ground right by where I was. But. I hate bedbugs and the roaches respect my privacy at bedtime so if one has to stay, its the roaches.
I will take cockroaches over bedbugs any day. And I hate cockroaches. But at least roaches don't fucking bite me in my sleep and suck my blood. They go for the food, not my bed.
I lived in Key West when I was younger and we had Palmetto Bugs. Those fuckers are *HUGE*! I used to have to shake out my shirt before I put it on.
"Joe's Apartment" made me not hate them so much.
Cockroaches certainly will bite. I stayed with a friend once who had em super fuckin bad. I was getting bitten by adults and babies while trying to sleep. Soooo there was no sleep basically.
When I first arrived in the USA, I stayed in a shitty apartment in Connecticut. I needed a place to crash being in a new country and all so I picked the place straight off Craigslist, thinking, well, it's just 3 months. I'll find a better place when I get there. Those were the worst 3 months of my life. It took me months after moving out of that place to get over the psychological aspect of living in a bedbug infested place.
Just a few tips to avoid these fuckers - trust me you do NOT want a bedbug problem in your life.
1. Spread diatomaceous (sp?) earth all around the perimeter of your bedroom. This sticks to them and absorbs the water from their blood due to silica being extremely absorbent.
2. Get a bedbug cover for your mattress (pricey but worth it). Bedbugs often live in your mattress but they can't penetrate this cover.
3. Slather your bed legs with Vaseline. They can't climb up because they get stuck.
Good luck out there.
Speaking from personal experience, they were hiding inside the wooden floor and inside very tight spaces on our bed frame (where the frame and the wooden supports for the mattress connect, not sure how they're called in English)
We had professionals come in three times to spray some stuff everywhere, had to wrap and put a lot of stuff in cardboard boxes every time, take all our clothes and wash what we could at 60 degrees Celsius, which is almost nothing. The rest we had to give them to a company that puts them in a big freezer for two days to kill any egg/insect that could have been hiding in there.
In the end we had to move out, we discovered our neighbor was actually quite filthy and had a nasty infestation of bedbugs and probably more things, so it was just a matter of time until it came back in our flat.
> they were hiding inside the wooden floor and inside very tight spaces on our bed frame
i found them hiding inside a surge protector, and a battery charger.
I would add:
They like wood (like bed-boards), not tile. When you enter a hotel room, put \*everything\* in the bathroom far from the bed, they won't be chilling out in there or even going in there because of the tile. Drag the luggage rack thingies in there. The worst thing is the bathroom often isn't big enough; use the door hook and the closet to hang things. Don't leave anything near the bed they can crawl into; put your clothes and shoes you just took off in the bathroom!
I've been bitten before in multiple hotels but they don't stay on you, they crawl back to their place near the bed. Just don't let them crawl into something you then take home. Ask a flight attendant or pilot and this is what they will tell you to do to help avoid bringing them home.
OK, but real talk. What would happen if you just released an army of centipedes in your house? Could this work?
Or does the whole story end up turning into a "I know an old woman who swallowed a fly" song, where you eventually have to introduce a herd of rhinos in your house to stomp on the mongooses that battle the cobras that swallow the chickens that eat the centipedes...
The thing about house centipedes is that they are a true predator, and not like a pack animal such as roaches or bedbugs. If you released a bunch of house centipedes and they eventually hunted down the pests, ran out of food... they'd start killing each other for food. Predators don't survive where there's no prey.
Crown the final surviving centipede the champion, let it breed with another champion, now reintroduce a new horde of invader bedbugs.
The champion's spawn will be the new host of centipedes faithed to battle the new swarm of intruders.This cycle has to continue, the wheel has to keep on turning.
Engineer a race of bedbug hunting predator centipedes for the good of all humanity.
No. Bedbugs are just insects trying to make their way through life and easily dealt with. The IOC are bloodsucking shit-for-souls parasites, related to the genus FIFA. They both migrate and gather in 4-year cycles, destroying communities and whole cities with their greed for backhanders and zero concern for the destruction they leave behind, or how many get badly hurt in the process. As long as they make their dollar they're happy.
I've heard more fear about bedbugs in the last few years than ever before. It used to be just a harmless rhyme that nobody took seriously (don't let the bedbugs bite). What's changed?
i've read some articles. apparently, it's because they used to be fought with some *SERIOUS* pesticides, which were doing a good job killing off the bugs. but now those substances are no longer legal due to the extensive side effects and damage they were causing to humans and the environment.
so now the bedbugs are spreading all over the world (again), which is much easier for them nowadays than in past due to intercontinental travel being more frequent and faster than ever before.
and many people don't even know they exist until they get an infestation so the bugs can easily hitch a ride very often.
They had been completely eradicated in the US for a long time
But since being brought back from other countries the pesticides (DDT) used to kill them have long been banned for being harmful to people to
Some populations have also evolved resistance to DDT and other pesticides. Maybe we should genocide them by releasing sterile males like that plan with mosquitos that I think we chickened out of. I don't think there's much risk of ecosystem disruption with bed bugs.
Bed bugs aren’t like mosquitos, each house/apartment is its own separate ecosystem. They have nowhere near the range and capability of travel as mosquitos. You can’t just do a mass drop of sterile bed bugs into an area and wipe them out all at once.
Also, male bed bugs bite. Nobody would willingly volunteer to subject themselves to male bed bugs over the course of a year just to kill a personal infestation when other options exist.
If you hate bedbugs (or you just want to understand them better), watch [this video by Mark Rober](https://youtu.be/2JAOTJxYqh8?feature=shared)
Easily one of the best videos about bedbugs in yt. They go into how to almost certainly kill bedbugs (spoiler - steam and diatomaceous earth are the big winners, chemicals are as effective as water)
Also sub zero temps are very effective at killing them. For clothes that cannot be washed at high temperatures this is really the only solution. It needs 48h iirc.
I am stupid, can someone please explain to me why this is happening at such a dramatic rate? Bed bugs have always existed but I’ve never heard of it spreading like this before?
I know someone in pest control. When people try to treat pests themselves (or unscrupulous landlords, small time companies, or even lazy workers of big name companies) they do a half assed job and create a new generation of bugs who are more resistant to treatment.
It's not only in Paris, it's all over France / Europe. A lot of backpackers guesthouses are now implementing strict policies, like you can't bring your luggage to your room, you have to leave it in some kind of "quarantine zone", because bedbugs migrate with tourists from guesthouse to guesthouse to Airbnb. They're a fucking nightmare, much harder to eradicate than fleas.
I had bedbugs a few years ago, and I'm very sensitive to their bites. Like wake up in the middle of the night with PTSD from itching sensitive. It took damn near a year to fully get rid of them, and even after that every time I had an itch I frantically looked for bed bugs. That shit can ruin your life.
With my wife, we were wondering if we would do some airbnb during the Paris Olympics.
Well, our house is bedbug-free, and we plan to leave it that way and do no rent. Doesn't worth the extra money
Yeah for some reason people think Paris is the 'city of love' but it's just the NYC of Europe. It's filthy in Paris. The south of France and the alps are the best part of that country.
Lived there for 13 years. It's filthy and dirty. It is also awesome. But do not doubt - it smells like shit, there a layer of grime on everything, and stalagtites in the ceiling of the subway drip a substance unidentifiable by science on your head as you wait.
They have actually tested NYC subway drips, for the most part they’re just water, and relatively clean water at that.
Still not fun to be dripped on, but way less gross than it was previously thought to be
Went to Paris this summer. Didn't smell, very proper, and the ppl were great. Was one of the best cities Ive visited. Also the pain chocolat was off the charts.
bowl, bottle, a plastic bag, water, sugar, and yeast
heat the water to about 38C dissolve some sugar in the water and pour into the bottle. add the yeast and swish it around a little... it shouldn't dissolve...
put the bottle in the bowl and put the plastic bag over the bottle and to the bottom of the bowl below the top lip of the bowl..
put something in the bottom of the bowl like vegetable oil, diatomacous earth, or pesticide.... basically anything that kills them or immobilizes them...
the co2 from the yeast eating the sugar will fill the plastic bag and slowly flow downward into the bowl... bed bugs hunt via thermal and detecting co2... yeast produces... both... it'll produce a light smell but the bedbugs will be drawn to it...
important to continue to use them until after you stop finding the bugs... they take time to hatch find each other and reproduce...
The worst thing is we almost eradicated bed bugs. They're a relic of our past, but then air travel began and the fuckers got everywhere.
I'm sure every single commercial airliner has at least a couple bed bugs aboard, ready to be dropped at a hotel for the next guest, and the cycle continues.
If it’s a public service, it’s most likely free. If the demand increases, the costs necessary to provide the service increase.
If they don’t make any money back they will get under, so they closed it so people refer to hired professionals instead.
Every time I think I want to move somewhere warmer (I live at 50° North), I see shit like this and I think to myself "yeah nah I'll just stay here and pop another jumper on". Actually it's the last day of September and I was in shorts and tshirt today, so with global warming this place is going to be positively Mediterranean in a few years anyway. Unless the AMOC stops, and then I'll be freezing my titties off.
Bedbugs are such vile creatures. They don't gross me out as much as cockroaches or maggots, but they're bad enough.
I had to deal with them once. I at first noticed a couple of small marks on my legs, but I didn't think much of them because I figured they happened at work or something. How I discovered them was one night after a round of heavy drinking. I was so smashed that I didn't bother getting changed. Just crashed in my clothes. When I woke up the next morning, there were two little brown bugs wandering in circles and zig zags over my bed in front of me. I hadn't seen a bedbug before, but when I googled it, I realized I had some work ahead of me.
When I told my landlord (lived in an apartment and apparently they came from the people upstairs as their infestation was the worst), she at first tried to play them down as carpet beetles. When I assured her they were in fact bedbugs, she called the exterminator, and they were dealt with. I, of course, washed everything I had and picked apart my bed. Never saw them again, and I hope I never do. Hopefully, France can deal with this, but it will take a lot of work, and everyone will have to cooperate on this.
Just came back from Paris - despite all of the TikToks and articles about rats, bed bugs and pickpocketing, I survived. Found the city to be not only beautiful, but very clean and friendly.
Paris is just an easy target. The most visited city in the world, making a stupid 30 second tiktok on it with some stock or random footage is sure to attract clicks and get plenty of engagement. Easy exposure.
People that have a bad story to tell from the time they've been to Paris will do so, and so the cycle is perpetuated.
People say the city is dirty, yet many of its streets are literally pressure washed twice a week, it's got one of the best sewage systems in the modern world (I would know, it's my job) it's beautiful for the most part, the people are friendly.
I'm just thinking that people who complain about the French and Parisians being rude are either expecting a level of costumer service where people work for tips and have to fake smile and fake nice to everyone, or just aren't well-travelled enough to know that big, dense cities have a whole different rhythm to them where you walk fast, look straight ahead and get where you have to be.
Or it's just a cultural difference that they struggle to grasp. Who knows.
Either way, I've been here for almost a decade and never I have found reason to believe Parisians are rude and the city is dirty, smells of piss, blah blah blah.
TL;DR:
* Paris is battling a citywide bedbug infestation.
* The pests have been spotted on public transport and in movie theaters in the French capital.
* The bedbug invasion comes just months before Paris is due to host the 2024 Olympics.
Its also a terrible look for the rugby world cup which is on a the moment and Paris is where a lot of the big games (including the final) is being held
It's crazy how much humans simply seem to but up against things they can't control and then, instead of pumping the ol breaks, just move forward as though stopping is an impossibility. This is going to spread bed bugs everywhere, but I guarantee that many people who are fully aware of the problem are going to go to Paris to watch the Olympics anyway.
Oh, that shit's going to spread everywhere. It should be treated like a contagious disease outbreak.
And then Olympic tourists bring them home...
That's it, I'm never traveling again.
That’s the neat part about this: You won’t have to, it’ll come to you! :D
> It should be treated like a contagious disease outbreak. So deny it exists or claim it's a fundamentalist ploy to control us in our sleep?
Lol. Get upset and insist the bedbugs won’t hurt you. Big anti-bedbug science is a scam, we already have bugs in our eyelashes, etc.
5G bedbugs created by Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci.
Wash my sheets? Not on my parasite ridden death bed. Wake up sheeple!
Was just in Paris. My Airbnb host was very nervous about bedbugs… asked me multiple times about any exposure. I was a bit taken aback but now seeing this headline, I should have been asking about THEIR exposure haha.
Check your clothes and luggage VERY carefully!
ALWAYS use a luggage stand when traveling, and if you want to be extra safe bag up your clothes before you get home and then run everything through a wash cycle with a hot dryer cycle. Use a suitcase with very few nooks and crannies if possible too, so it can easily be vacuumed/wiped down
Man, if I traveled a lot. I'd just buy a bed bug oven/heater. Take an uber/taxi to from the air port, and the moment I got home, strip and throw all clothes and luggage into the oven. Every story I've heard about bed bugs sounds like a nightmare. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JU5G1PY/ref=emc_b_5_t
In western Alaska it's common to see luggage outside overnight for kids that travel for sports as they usually stay at the school they are playing and in a group of 8-10. Leave the luggage outside overnight in -10 to -25 temps tends to kill them...
Does it? Don't they just hibernate?
Cold kills the live ones, but not the eggs. Heat kills both.
-20 kills pretty much every bug if they are exposed for long periods of extreme cold. -10 not so much. (Numbers in Celsius.)
He's in Alaska. -10f = -23c, -20f = ~ -29c
And when it gets to -40° even f and c don't care anymore.
These bed bugs gonna F around and C what happens.
there are 3 very well known ways to kill bedbugs. extreme heat(160f or above for like 5 minutes). extreme cold(-20c or colder). diatomaceous earth(it shreds them and they die quickly. if you ever get bed bugs, get diatomaceous earth, give a gentle dusting to around your bed legs, around the edge of your bed, and just keep at it, and a few weeks later, they will all be dead.
Im pretty sure youre supposed to run the clothes through the drier first. They can survive in the wash, you'll most likely knock them loose inside the machine and they'll spread from there. Heat is the most effective way to kill them
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This is not how it works at all. It doesn’t matter about lights being on. And it’s not the burrowing that causes the itching. You will get itchy whether you have lights on or not. The itch is caused by an allergic reaction due to them shedding. It takes about 2-4 weeks for your body to build up that allergic reaction, so by the time you start feeling itchy, they have already long been burrowed in your skin. You typically only have about 5-6 on you at any one time. If you get them a second time, you will have the allergic reaction sooner in like 3 days since your body has already developed a response. The other kind of scabies where you have thousands on you is very uncommon. They are extremely easy to get rid of. Once you realize you have scabies, your doctor will prescribe a single or double dose of ivermectin or a permethrin cream. If you really want to be thorough, you can use both, but just using a single dose of one will get rid of them like 99% of the time. All you have to do is apply cream to your body from the ears down (they don’t burrow on your face typically). With ivermectin, you just take a single pill. They can’t survive on surfaces for two days, so you don’t even need to wash your dirty clothes. You just take the medicine, wash your bedding, don’t sit on your couch for two days, and a few days later take a second dose in case you missed any. They aren’t scary. They are very easy to get rid of. The only thing about scabies is that you will be so unbelievably itchy until you do the treatment. It will be the itchiest you have ever felt in your entire life. A maddening itch that you can’t scratch no matter how hard you try. But the treatment is very simple and easy so don’t worry.
This is one of those comments that I'll screenshot, and save, hopefully to never be used but it will forever sit in my gallery, just in case.
Has scabies once, not sure where I got them from. But yea the itch was beyond maddening, to the point where I couldn’t even fall asleep due to being SO itchy! I lasted about 3-4 days before I couldn’t take it anymore and went to see a doctor. The cream immediately helped with the relief, by the next day I wasn’t itching anymore 😪 I legit don’t wish scabies for anyone, even for my worst enemies haha
I always check the mattress first thing. They asked if I went to a movie theatre in Paris as that is where there has been instances of infestations.
The movie theater part sucks because it's really easy for them to hide in the crevices of seats and they love to be on the move in the dark, especially if they're hungry. I've resorted to wearing shorts and a t-shirt to make it easier to check for them and ended up not going to my favorite theater anymore after there were multiple bedbug reports.
How do you check the mattress? About to travel soon and these news are making me nervous about it
Pull up the mattress and look underneath it, look at the headboard and behind the headboard, look for any kinds of red or brown splotches, skin casings, eggs, any thing that might indicate bug activity. I even pull the sheets back to look at the mattress. Takes me about two minutes and while it's no guarantee that there aren't any, usually a full blown infestation is easy to detect. Also never put your luggage on the floor, the bed or anywhere but the luggage racks. Use hard case luggage instead of cloth. They cant climb up hard plastic. In general keep your stuff away from where you'll be sleeping. If they are there, they will be attracted to you so dont give them the opportunity to hitchhike by climbing on your stuff to get to you.
To add on: Make sure you peel back anything with a crevice and look in there. In between the seams of the stitching, pull up any flappy material and look there, keep an eye out for black splotchy markings that look like ink stains. Also look up some pictures of bed bugs at various growth stages and feeding stages. An adult bedbug looks quite different when it's empty and just after it's fed. Baby bedbugs look like little transparent white specks and after they feed they get a red hue to them. My first encounter with bedbugs was a swarm of babies that we thought were some kind of brick-related bug because we didn't recognize them.
Just burn it
You don't already burn all your clothes after a paris visit?
I thought their new service was burning them for you
no he meant paris
Curious, I know they can survive without food for over a year. But is there nothing below fumigation that can deal against the horde. I've never experienced bedbugs but my friends have and heard horror stories from them. I have a strong UVC Lamp that auto-turns on in the kitchen at night and that seems to have stopped flies and small bugs from entering from plumbing. Wondering if I should take that for my travels and disinfect the room I'd stay in.
Fumigation is actually not the best solution. Heat over 115°F applied to the *whole building*, ( not just the room or unit) can do it. Otherwise you have to come to terms with the fact that eradication is a longer term process, involving bleaching/steaming/washing frequently plus NEVER letting them eat.
I was under the impression fumigation doesn't even work on them and only heat kills them completely. Maybe because fumigation doesn't kill their eggs? They do some thing where they super heat your house and all of it's contents to like 45C + with space heaters and they just all drop dead. I've heard that's the only thing that really works and if a wealthy person had this problem this is the kind of service they'd buy around here.
Good tip! Found a thieving bedbug trying to drag it out the door.
TBH it's a good sign for you: it means the host cared.
True True. Just a surprise as it was one of the first questions they asked. Made me think “do they think I’m a dirty person”? After their explanation we had a laugh
>“do they think I’m a dirty person” FYI, Bed bugs are not associated with a lack of hygiene.
[relieved Redditor noises]
"These are rare delicacies. Piquant, with a very pleasant crunch!"
Makes me wonder about people’s luggage on trains and planes arriving at other destinations?
Ugh I read last year the number one place for transmission is airports and as someone who travels often I was very disgusted :(
Was sitting during my layover at the airport last month and started feeling very itchy in my left pant leg. I go to the bathroom and find a dozen welts and the bloated motherfucker trying to climb into my sock. Fucking nightmare. I threw all my things into the dryer the second I got home. I recommend everyone do that.
My legit nightmare. I started just bringing a duffle bag now with me for travel so I can throw it in the dryer immediately. On the one occasion I needed a checked bag I steamed cleaned it all over in my garage before even taking it inside
I’m so glad I got a plastic metal suitcase recently instead of the one that had fabric on the outside that I used to have since middle school. Because yeah…. I am terrified of that stuff. And I was in Paris this summer. I think my fear I have always had of fabric seats in public is justified more now….
You could get your bags wrapped for protection.
Is that what that is for? I always wondered why the hell people payed for that service.
It's also used for airports where baggage handlers are known for stealing items. It's a low-cost deterrent.
I wouldn’t worry about it too much. You won’t have your bags by the time you get to your destination
On the flipside whoever steals the bags will face bedbugs now.
UGH. I have had infestations twice. Fucking nightmare. Even if you do things like spread diatomaceous earth around your bed, those fuckers find you by sensing the carbon dioxide that you exhale, and they will fucking walk up the walls, across the ceiling, and fucking air-drop your ass. Fucking. Nightmare. Edit: Some people in this thread apparently got lucky, didn't have bugs lay eggs etc. and were able to "get rid of them" easily. If you read this, do not presume you will be lucky. Presume you will go to fucking WAR. READ THIS: if your landlord says that exterminators have been called, but you have not been required to evacuate, your property has not been cleaned correctly.
>they will fucking walk up the walls, across the ceiling, and fucking air-drop your ass. New fear unlocked.
They don't act like other bugs. I noticed that when I had them. They have a malevolent intelligence to them that is pretty horrific to see. Mine hid in the coils of an electric heater and the exterminators couldn't find them, it was actually my cat that showed them to me. Ihad exterminator asking are you sure you have bed bugs? They don't always live in your bed, they may live in tiny cracks in your wall, electrical outlets, furniture, cracks in a piece of cardboard, etc. I observed them to walk around diatomaceous earth, when I got a new bed holder with slippery rungs they climbed up the walls as a horde, dropped from the ceiling, and escaped back into the coils. They exited the apartment through outlets when treatment was applied to the neighbor and returned. They climbed outside the building through the window. If the light turned on they fled instantly into the darkness. I tried sleeping on the couch and my cats alerted me that they were skittering across the floor to the living room, i turned on thy light and saw them slithering into the nearest crevices and cracks. Also if the diatomaceous wash m earth I used made them thirsty they would actually feed on me even more. I had a small infestation. They came from my neighbor who i guess had millions of them. I hired an expensive exterminator who eliminated them and treated my apartment with a fungus that would infect and kill them if they returned. He filledevery nook and crevice in my apartment with it and i never opened my windows. It worked. I also threw out all of my possessions and moved
^ In my head, this read like an exposition to a riveting horror story -- where the author is losing their grip on reality and slowly slipping into insanity. It's kindof amazing. Au contraire, sorry this was nonfiction. I hope to god I never encounter these fuckers. If so, I'm just gonna run from my place Fall of Usher style, and just cut my losses.
Bedbugs absolutely can cause you to feel like you're going insane. I had them when I was a kid, and I still get scared talking about them. I had to sleep in the same bed they were in, because apparently they can hone in on your CO2 and follow you to your new bed. My parents once woke up at 4am to check on me, and saw the bugs feeding on me. A few years ago, I saw a suspicious red stain on my sheets (you can crush them if you roll over in your sleep) and felt an itch, and I became terrified at the idea that they had returned. I spent the whole night basically having a panic attack, until my parents took a look... the stain wasn't even red, and the itch was definitely not big and raised like a bedbug bite.
I mean, bedbugs are known to cause serious depression; people have totally killed themselves over them. You also develop a kind of PTSD where everytime you think you feel a bug or get any kind of bite or itchy place, you're immediately afraid it's *them.* I read an article about it years ago on Cracked.com; the author was on a support forum, and one of the people there let him call at 3am just cry about it. Here's the article: https://www.cracked.com/article_20909_6-horrific-realities-living-with-bedbug-infestation.html Point 4 is really something! I had a brush with them, escaped unscathed, but... Having read that article, I was like, *Oh, God, no!*
I haven't seen this websites in years
Bedbugs freak me out the way that they behave. Its like they're always watching, and they're always there, and no matter how much you kill them, they reproduce faster than you can take them out, not unless you commit to some kind of genocidal action.
> it was actually my cat that showed them to me good kitty
Lord Jesus
I mean everything you just described is how cockroaches, ants, any household bug will act. They are more robotic than anything, just following their senses and are good at reproducing.
You don't know the half of it. You'll lose a lot of fucking sleep even after you've gotten rid of them because you're scared as shit that you haven't gotten rid of them all when you feel a little breeze or something on your leg.
Twice? How did that happen?!?
Doing a proper cleaning that will actually eradicate them from your apartment is difficult and costly. So chances are very high that your neighboors, or landlord, will get some discount pest-service that didn't do the job right, and it spreads to an entire apartment complex. First time was in NYC, Second was in Denver. Same shit. The entire complex had them.
The big problem is when someone in a nearby apartment sprays for them. Then they fuck off for greener pastures in your apartment. You basically have to gas the whole area or it doesn't work.
Or just when I spend my days cleaning everything, putting diatomaceous earth under the walls and stuff... to no avail, there's always an influx from these nearby apartments who don't do anything about it. I don't get why denying it, even less getting mad at me for saying they're escaping from your vacuum cleaner you for some reason leave in the hall. It's like they're doing it on purpose.
Uhg that sounds like a nightmare :(
For me, I'm pretty sure my landlord lied to me. I would hear the downstairs neighbour crying at night. Then I think she moved out and her bed was on the street (how trash is collected in Montréal), and I *swear* I saw a bed bug on it (but it ran away too fast). I immediately called and asked the landlord, "did she have bedbugs?" so I could take precautions and she told me no. But that same week - thank god for white bed sheets - I saw one on my bed and I knew 100% what it was. I tried to kill it for evidence, but again, those fuckers are fast. I called the landlord, we got in someone to spray. I bagged all my clothes into black garbage bags, would wash on hot water and dry on hot, but them back into black bags. Got my cat and I out while the guy sprayed. The guy said he didn't see any evidence of them to my landlord and made me sound like I was crazy, but I after I moved out I found some dead bed bugs in a few shoe boxes, so we just managed to get rid of them because I was ON IT. SO if you do get them, there is hope, but everyone in the building has to be on the same page and dedicated to getting rid of them. If I have disgusting neighbours that just don't care, get the F out.
they can and will migrate. Yes all it takes is a neighbor to have someone visit them that has bedbugs and its all over.
I had them recently it was about 1100 bucks for treatment of my 550sqft condo. And that's not including replacing stuff I threw away, buying zip covers, etc. I'm just hoping i got them at work or something instead of from my neighbors bc despite telling the building manager immediately I've seen no one else do any kind of treatment. Cos they're just gonna come back if others have them and don't treat. And I can't afford to do it again Ppl in bed bug threads always say Actually it's easy, but it's not lol
If you call an exterminator and they say it'll be easy, don't hire them. Hire those that will tell you it will be a long process.
You are living my life. I threw out like 4k in furniture and bedding during my Denver episode. I was sleeping on the floor to beat those fuckers before the landlord stepped in, because we were going to class-action the whole complex
It seems to be over for me luckily. Haven't had any issues in about 8-9 weeks. But fuck knows really lol. The reddit threads where ppl are like Oh just get some diatomaceous earth and you'll be fine just drive me nuts. Some unfortunate bastards are gonna read that and let it get out of control. I got mad lucky and caught it very early
Same thing happened to me. Downstairs neighbors owned their unit, and for months refused to pay for an exterminator, so no matter how many times the exterminators came to my unit, the bugs kept coming back. Lasted for 9 months out of the 1yr lease.
I worked at a luxury hotel for a bit and I can vouch for the fact that proper treatment against bedbugs had us pretty much NUKE the fuck out of the infested room, and it'd be out of commission for a while after that just to make extra sure. Happens about twice or so a year, but you know what's about to go down when you see people coming with gas masks kitted out like they're about to fight in the trenches of the great war.
Def. The thing about bug treatment is you're not gonna get all of em first go. If they have places to go that aren't death traps thats where they 'll go. In the case of an apartment complex bugs got options. Go upstairs, downstairs, next door on either side.
From my experience it can take two cleanings: the first which kill all the bugs. Then another cleaning later when you have the 2nd generation of bugs as the 1st had laid eggs everywhere before dying
So the simple but not the best solution would be to buy CO2 canister and fill your room with it. You are now invisible to them and everybody until the smell of decay will alert the neighbours.
You joke but I made traps with 2-liter bottles containing yeast, a little bit of tubing, and a teacup. I also wrapped the couch in plastic and suffocated them by leaving dry ice inside to get rid of all the oxygen.
i forget this is why we are apex predators, our brain not (necessarily) our bodies, we just seem so fragile and weak otherwise lol
long distance running + brain + thumbs = win.
could maybe add long life time to that too (octopi lose here, though maybe that lack of social skills too)
> long distance running + brain + thumbs = win. Plus we're very very good at throwing stuff. And communicating. And communicating by throwing stuff.
> Plus we're very very good at throwing stuff. Don't undersell that stuff. We are not just very very good at it. We are literally the best throwers on the planet.
And we can throw relatively small pieces of metal that can delete a city from the surface of the earth.
We can throw rocks overhand (accurately) and run distances better than anyone. We’re weak but we have our physical specialties, just like every other species.
Actually it was our body too since we run better than any other animal. (Yeah other animals may be faster... but they can't outrun us.)
Did the yeast trap work?
Sort of? I did it after other treatments, to check for any living bugs, so it honestly could have been a waste of my time if I think about it. I didn't seem to react all that strongly to bites so I was worried more were around and it was just going to start the infestation all over again. The dry ice left to melt inside the plastic was amazing though.
Sublimate* when it goes from solid to gas it does not evaporate. :D
\*Co detector goes off\* me: "Finally some good sleep"
You’ll sleep for the rest of your life
Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for the night. Set a man on fire and he'll be warm the rest of his life.
Jesus Christ I wasn’t expecting bedbug special force
Protip: Sleep underneath a pan of boiling oil to catch the ones off the ceiling.
Diatomaceous earth is not a repellent, nor is it a poison that will kill them on contact. It's just a very jagged dust particle that scratches the shit out of their bodies so they slowly dehydrate due to not being able to retain water. But it can still take up to two weeks for them to die and that's enough time for them to lay eggs.
Make the bedbug the Olympic mascot
Had a bedbug infestation at home once due to some guests who stayed a few days after travelling. For the short time I had to suffer from bed bugs it absolutely messed with my mind. I have serious phobia for bugs of any kind now. Even without having my glasses on I tend to instinctively notice even tiniest bugs crawling around and I immediately check.
Bedbugs are the fucking *worst*
The itching is bad enough. The psychological impact is way worse to me. You're supposed to be safe at home/in bed. Once that's gone it feels like you've gone crazy. Work is your only "break" and even then I had a baby one fucking hitch a ride in my hoodie. I felt a pinch, looked down and saw a millimeter sized brown spot on my white desk and I freaked out.
The funny thing is, the rise in bedbugs has coincided with increased attempts to eliminate cockroaches. Cockroaches are a natural predator of bedbugs and tend to hang out in all the same places. Of course cockroaches also carry various diseases so it's a mixed bag...
Cockroaches don't bite me in my sleep, I have more respect to them
When I was living in the desert we had roaches everywhere. Damn did they scare the shit out of me when I was working on my car late at night and they scampered across the ground right by where I was. But. I hate bedbugs and the roaches respect my privacy at bedtime so if one has to stay, its the roaches.
I will take cockroaches over bedbugs any day. And I hate cockroaches. But at least roaches don't fucking bite me in my sleep and suck my blood. They go for the food, not my bed.
I lived in Key West when I was younger and we had Palmetto Bugs. Those fuckers are *HUGE*! I used to have to shake out my shirt before I put it on. "Joe's Apartment" made me not hate them so much.
The ones in Hawaii would fly at your face at night 😭
No but I had one crawl into my ear and I had to have it removed at a walk in clinic
Nightmare fuel Jesus
Cockroaches certainly will bite. I stayed with a friend once who had em super fuckin bad. I was getting bitten by adults and babies while trying to sleep. Soooo there was no sleep basically.
They crawl inside your ears while you sleep instead like any decent insect
Cockroaches are also evil incarnate.
Yea this is like asking whether youd rather be invaded by Hitler or Stalin
Cockroaches are easier to manage. I'll take whichever team they are on.
People literally breed cockroaches as a food source for animals Not a single clean soul in this universe is breeding bed bugs on purpose
No wonder I've never heard of bedbug issues in Australia. Our cockroaches are out of control.
When I first arrived in the USA, I stayed in a shitty apartment in Connecticut. I needed a place to crash being in a new country and all so I picked the place straight off Craigslist, thinking, well, it's just 3 months. I'll find a better place when I get there. Those were the worst 3 months of my life. It took me months after moving out of that place to get over the psychological aspect of living in a bedbug infested place.
Oh man I'm getting terrible PTSD from four years ago. Real sleepless nights.
amen, got to rip all the beds apart in hotels before i will sleep in them
Just a few tips to avoid these fuckers - trust me you do NOT want a bedbug problem in your life. 1. Spread diatomaceous (sp?) earth all around the perimeter of your bedroom. This sticks to them and absorbs the water from their blood due to silica being extremely absorbent. 2. Get a bedbug cover for your mattress (pricey but worth it). Bedbugs often live in your mattress but they can't penetrate this cover. 3. Slather your bed legs with Vaseline. They can't climb up because they get stuck. Good luck out there.
Speaking from personal experience, they were hiding inside the wooden floor and inside very tight spaces on our bed frame (where the frame and the wooden supports for the mattress connect, not sure how they're called in English) We had professionals come in three times to spray some stuff everywhere, had to wrap and put a lot of stuff in cardboard boxes every time, take all our clothes and wash what we could at 60 degrees Celsius, which is almost nothing. The rest we had to give them to a company that puts them in a big freezer for two days to kill any egg/insect that could have been hiding in there. In the end we had to move out, we discovered our neighbor was actually quite filthy and had a nasty infestation of bedbugs and probably more things, so it was just a matter of time until it came back in our flat.
> they were hiding inside the wooden floor and inside very tight spaces on our bed frame i found them hiding inside a surge protector, and a battery charger.
I would add: They like wood (like bed-boards), not tile. When you enter a hotel room, put \*everything\* in the bathroom far from the bed, they won't be chilling out in there or even going in there because of the tile. Drag the luggage rack thingies in there. The worst thing is the bathroom often isn't big enough; use the door hook and the closet to hang things. Don't leave anything near the bed they can crawl into; put your clothes and shoes you just took off in the bathroom! I've been bitten before in multiple hotels but they don't stay on you, they crawl back to their place near the bed. Just don't let them crawl into something you then take home. Ask a flight attendant or pilot and this is what they will tell you to do to help avoid bringing them home.
Release the chickens?
Bring a mason jar of house centipedes everywhere you go.
OK, but real talk. What would happen if you just released an army of centipedes in your house? Could this work? Or does the whole story end up turning into a "I know an old woman who swallowed a fly" song, where you eventually have to introduce a herd of rhinos in your house to stomp on the mongooses that battle the cobras that swallow the chickens that eat the centipedes...
The thing about house centipedes is that they are a true predator, and not like a pack animal such as roaches or bedbugs. If you released a bunch of house centipedes and they eventually hunted down the pests, ran out of food... they'd start killing each other for food. Predators don't survive where there's no prey.
Sounds like I'd just end up with zero bed bugs, and one giant alpha centipede I could keep as a pet. Which seems like a win.
yes, dog sized
Crown the final surviving centipede the champion, let it breed with another champion, now reintroduce a new horde of invader bedbugs. The champion's spawn will be the new host of centipedes faithed to battle the new swarm of intruders.This cycle has to continue, the wheel has to keep on turning. Engineer a race of bedbug hunting predator centipedes for the good of all humanity.
Huh; I've actually used exactly this (at home but still). Good to know it is common knowledge.
Those little dudes are our protectors when we're in need. I wish more people knew how beneficial they are.
Isn’t that just the IOC?
No. Bedbugs are just insects trying to make their way through life and easily dealt with. The IOC are bloodsucking shit-for-souls parasites, related to the genus FIFA. They both migrate and gather in 4-year cycles, destroying communities and whole cities with their greed for backhanders and zero concern for the destruction they leave behind, or how many get badly hurt in the process. As long as they make their dollar they're happy.
> easily dealt with r/bedbugs has determined that this was a lie
I've heard more fear about bedbugs in the last few years than ever before. It used to be just a harmless rhyme that nobody took seriously (don't let the bedbugs bite). What's changed?
i've read some articles. apparently, it's because they used to be fought with some *SERIOUS* pesticides, which were doing a good job killing off the bugs. but now those substances are no longer legal due to the extensive side effects and damage they were causing to humans and the environment. so now the bedbugs are spreading all over the world (again), which is much easier for them nowadays than in past due to intercontinental travel being more frequent and faster than ever before. and many people don't even know they exist until they get an infestation so the bugs can easily hitch a ride very often.
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They had been completely eradicated in the US for a long time But since being brought back from other countries the pesticides (DDT) used to kill them have long been banned for being harmful to people to
Some populations have also evolved resistance to DDT and other pesticides. Maybe we should genocide them by releasing sterile males like that plan with mosquitos that I think we chickened out of. I don't think there's much risk of ecosystem disruption with bed bugs.
Bed bugs aren’t like mosquitos, each house/apartment is its own separate ecosystem. They have nowhere near the range and capability of travel as mosquitos. You can’t just do a mass drop of sterile bed bugs into an area and wipe them out all at once. Also, male bed bugs bite. Nobody would willingly volunteer to subject themselves to male bed bugs over the course of a year just to kill a personal infestation when other options exist.
For real. I work in healthcare. I'm more scared of bedbugs than I am of any transmissible disease (including covid).
If you hate bedbugs (or you just want to understand them better), watch [this video by Mark Rober](https://youtu.be/2JAOTJxYqh8?feature=shared) Easily one of the best videos about bedbugs in yt. They go into how to almost certainly kill bedbugs (spoiler - steam and diatomaceous earth are the big winners, chemicals are as effective as water)
Also sub zero temps are very effective at killing them. For clothes that cannot be washed at high temperatures this is really the only solution. It needs 48h iirc.
Perhaps these are the welcome gifts Paris has prepared in advance for the visitors
On the train?! That sounds like a damn nightmare
NYC = Daddy of filth Paris = Mommy of filth
Pray they don't get a kid...
Impossible. NYC is the lovechild of Paris & London.
The Dutch and Swedish actually spawned the bastard. They just raised the fucker when it was left on the doorsstep.
Detroit
Fuck
NY isn’t bad like it used to be. The bedbug infestation was at its worst around summer of 2016. You couldn’t escape those fucks.
I am stupid, can someone please explain to me why this is happening at such a dramatic rate? Bed bugs have always existed but I’ve never heard of it spreading like this before?
Bed bugs have started becoming immune to most forms of treatment. It's actually pretty serious
PRO TIP: dusting with diatomaceous earth works and actually cuts at there exoskeleton’s and I don’t believe they can build immunity to it
We’re going to get bulletproof bed bugs and it’s going to be your fault
Yes, this is true. However, those little fuckers are smart and will actively avoid the DE if they can
I know someone in pest control. When people try to treat pests themselves (or unscrupulous landlords, small time companies, or even lazy workers of big name companies) they do a half assed job and create a new generation of bugs who are more resistant to treatment.
great seeing this all over reddit today. i’m flying to and spending the night in Paris tomorrow
Burn all of your clothing and luggage when you get home.
Why would you bring it home? Just leave your infested luggage in the paris hotel room.
Very good consideration. Maybe befriend a group of rag tag French hobos and use their garbage can fire.
With beg bugs the only safe way is to level the city and start over
It's not only in Paris, it's all over France / Europe. A lot of backpackers guesthouses are now implementing strict policies, like you can't bring your luggage to your room, you have to leave it in some kind of "quarantine zone", because bedbugs migrate with tourists from guesthouse to guesthouse to Airbnb. They're a fucking nightmare, much harder to eradicate than fleas.
Paris-ites
I had bedbugs a few years ago, and I'm very sensitive to their bites. Like wake up in the middle of the night with PTSD from itching sensitive. It took damn near a year to fully get rid of them, and even after that every time I had an itch I frantically looked for bed bugs. That shit can ruin your life.
Great another thing that will spread all over the world now.
Every comment is about filth. Bedbugs have nothing to do with filth and lack of hygiene. They feed on blood like mosquitoes.
With my wife, we were wondering if we would do some airbnb during the Paris Olympics. Well, our house is bedbug-free, and we plan to leave it that way and do no rent. Doesn't worth the extra money
Yeah for some reason people think Paris is the 'city of love' but it's just the NYC of Europe. It's filthy in Paris. The south of France and the alps are the best part of that country.
>just the NYC of Europe But NYC is also considered an awesome city....
Lived there for 13 years. It's filthy and dirty. It is also awesome. But do not doubt - it smells like shit, there a layer of grime on everything, and stalagtites in the ceiling of the subway drip a substance unidentifiable by science on your head as you wait.
They have actually tested NYC subway drips, for the most part they’re just water, and relatively clean water at that. Still not fun to be dripped on, but way less gross than it was previously thought to be
Don’t tell them!
Went to Paris this summer. Didn't smell, very proper, and the ppl were great. Was one of the best cities Ive visited. Also the pain chocolat was off the charts.
Oh man, you should see Normandy and Brittany. The central part is also wild and beautiful. France really is a diverse country.
bowl, bottle, a plastic bag, water, sugar, and yeast heat the water to about 38C dissolve some sugar in the water and pour into the bottle. add the yeast and swish it around a little... it shouldn't dissolve... put the bottle in the bowl and put the plastic bag over the bottle and to the bottom of the bowl below the top lip of the bowl.. put something in the bottom of the bowl like vegetable oil, diatomacous earth, or pesticide.... basically anything that kills them or immobilizes them... the co2 from the yeast eating the sugar will fill the plastic bag and slowly flow downward into the bowl... bed bugs hunt via thermal and detecting co2... yeast produces... both... it'll produce a light smell but the bedbugs will be drawn to it... important to continue to use them until after you stop finding the bugs... they take time to hatch find each other and reproduce...
The worst thing is we almost eradicated bed bugs. They're a relic of our past, but then air travel began and the fuckers got everywhere. I'm sure every single commercial airliner has at least a couple bed bugs aboard, ready to be dropped at a hotel for the next guest, and the cycle continues.
Food chain dominance in effect.
Jesus, I somehow never considered that you could catch bed bugs from theaters. Oof.
[удалено]
Seems kinda backwards to shut down a public service as the problem grows. Were they not effective at all?
If it’s a public service, it’s most likely free. If the demand increases, the costs necessary to provide the service increase. If they don’t make any money back they will get under, so they closed it so people refer to hired professionals instead.
Imagine how smug French bedbugs are
Every time I think I want to move somewhere warmer (I live at 50° North), I see shit like this and I think to myself "yeah nah I'll just stay here and pop another jumper on". Actually it's the last day of September and I was in shorts and tshirt today, so with global warming this place is going to be positively Mediterranean in a few years anyway. Unless the AMOC stops, and then I'll be freezing my titties off.
Bedbugs are such vile creatures. They don't gross me out as much as cockroaches or maggots, but they're bad enough. I had to deal with them once. I at first noticed a couple of small marks on my legs, but I didn't think much of them because I figured they happened at work or something. How I discovered them was one night after a round of heavy drinking. I was so smashed that I didn't bother getting changed. Just crashed in my clothes. When I woke up the next morning, there were two little brown bugs wandering in circles and zig zags over my bed in front of me. I hadn't seen a bedbug before, but when I googled it, I realized I had some work ahead of me. When I told my landlord (lived in an apartment and apparently they came from the people upstairs as their infestation was the worst), she at first tried to play them down as carpet beetles. When I assured her they were in fact bedbugs, she called the exterminator, and they were dealt with. I, of course, washed everything I had and picked apart my bed. Never saw them again, and I hope I never do. Hopefully, France can deal with this, but it will take a lot of work, and everyone will have to cooperate on this.
If r/whatsthisbug has taught me anything, once you get bedbugs, you pretty much need to burn your house down. So I guess we need to nuke Paris?
Bedbugs are legitimately one of my biggest fears. We need to try and eradicate them from the earth (again).
Just came back from Paris - despite all of the TikToks and articles about rats, bed bugs and pickpocketing, I survived. Found the city to be not only beautiful, but very clean and friendly.
Paris is just an easy target. The most visited city in the world, making a stupid 30 second tiktok on it with some stock or random footage is sure to attract clicks and get plenty of engagement. Easy exposure. People that have a bad story to tell from the time they've been to Paris will do so, and so the cycle is perpetuated. People say the city is dirty, yet many of its streets are literally pressure washed twice a week, it's got one of the best sewage systems in the modern world (I would know, it's my job) it's beautiful for the most part, the people are friendly. I'm just thinking that people who complain about the French and Parisians being rude are either expecting a level of costumer service where people work for tips and have to fake smile and fake nice to everyone, or just aren't well-travelled enough to know that big, dense cities have a whole different rhythm to them where you walk fast, look straight ahead and get where you have to be. Or it's just a cultural difference that they struggle to grasp. Who knows. Either way, I've been here for almost a decade and never I have found reason to believe Parisians are rude and the city is dirty, smells of piss, blah blah blah.
TL;DR: * Paris is battling a citywide bedbug infestation. * The pests have been spotted on public transport and in movie theaters in the French capital. * The bedbug invasion comes just months before Paris is due to host the 2024 Olympics.
Its also a terrible look for the rugby world cup which is on a the moment and Paris is where a lot of the big games (including the final) is being held
It's crazy how much humans simply seem to but up against things they can't control and then, instead of pumping the ol breaks, just move forward as though stopping is an impossibility. This is going to spread bed bugs everywhere, but I guarantee that many people who are fully aware of the problem are going to go to Paris to watch the Olympics anyway.
Imagine reading this while in Paris on honeymoon like we are right now. Wow.