Are the bugs winning?

If you can't tell already, this bedbug experience speaks directly to the obsessive side of my personality. Screw my other blatherings and falderal; I just might turn this blog into Bedbugs 24/7. Of course, then I'd be forced to compete for viewership with my new favorite website: http://www.thebedbugresource.com/.

Six days post-extermination and I'm still waking up with multiple new bites each day. This is not entirely unexpected. The insecticides do not necessarily kill on contact -- they typically wreak havoc on the bugs' nervous systems, eventually causing death -- but they require contact for death to ultimately occur. Because bedbugs feed only once every five to seven days and otherwise spend their time in their "harbourage," up to a week after a spraying adult bedbugs will still venture out for a night-time Rick meal. Also, eggs that were not hit with insecticide will hatch and eventually turn into bugs which will likewise seek my flesh. The goal with spraying is to coat the areas that the Rick-seekers will traverse so that they encounter the insecticide and, after leaving me with a new itchy welt, finally meet their demise. Indeed, the professionals recommend that you continue to sleep in your room after a spraying so that you can act as bait to lure the bugs out into the poisoned environs.

We, nonetheless, had concerns about the scope of Ben's spraying the other day, so we called and requested that we take another hit. I was at work, but Ben arrived before noon. He helped Cathleen disassemble our bedframe (separating the headboard from the mainframe), at which point they saw two bugs. Then, as Cathleen was moving items off of my small bedside table, they noticed two tiny little newbies scurrying off. Ben sprayed the entire bed and table directly with Bedlam. With each passing day our comfort level with the insecticides grows. In another week I will no doubt be willing to bathe in a vat of Ben's favorite pyrethroid mixture.

In the meantime, reality has forced us to cancel our annual holiday open house party, which had been scheduled for this coming Sunday. The bugs appear to be contained within our bedroom, but if someone were to come to the party and take a bug home with him...it would be an unforgivable act. On the one hand, our apartment is such a war zone right now: bagged clothing here, boxed up stuff there, that prepping it for the party would have been a huge effort. But I look forward to that party every year, and I'm bummed that we're putting it on hold. The new plan is for a bedbug free party maybe in January, but it won't quite be the same.