Happy to say it was oh-so long ago that I had experience with bed bugs.
I wrote a blog about it and created an ad-supported website with additional content.
Overall, it was a case of turning lemons into lemonade, to be able to support other people suffering and earn additional income.
2004
In 2004, I suffered a bed bug infestation that lasted approximately four months. I had several treatments from a professional exterminator and I followed all of their instructions as best I could. It was one of the most stressful experiences of my life, and my heart goes out to sufferers who are reading this. Hang in there!
THE NEW YORKER | THE TALK OF THE TOWN
DEPT. OF ENTOMOLOGY: NIGHT VISITORSMark Singer | Issue of 2005-04-04 | Posted 2005-03-28
Life is, like, so unfair sometimes. Case in point: Alexis Swerdloff and her friends Laura Perciasepe, Avni Bhatia, and Anna Arkin-Gallagher, a quartet of eye-on-the-main-chance nouvelles Yale graduates who late last summer set up housekeeping in the East Village, in a four-bedroom apartment that they really, really liked, but then realized that they liked a lot less when, not long after they moved in, all were viciously assaulted by bedbugs. . . .
The roommates considered starting a bed bug Web log, then discovered that one already existed, the handiwork of a young woman, a recovering bedbug victim, who seemed to have been even more aggrieved than they were. (“Please bear with me. I need to do this. Fuck you, you fucking motherfucker! You have been sucking my blood and irritating my skin for fucking months now! I fucking hate you! You crawl into my bed, into my shirt, up my pants, and fucking bite me! … Prepare to meet your maker, motherfucker! The Exterminator is finally coming, oh yes, he is coming!”)
2007
In 2007, I suffered another infestation of bed bugs, in the same dwelling as previously. However, I didn’t believe it to be a re-infestation from the 2004 incident. In 2007, I was living in a different bedroom (a bedroom that was not effected in 2004), and it had been far longer than 18 months since my last infestation, which is the amount of time they say a bed bug can live without eating. Also, the entire apartment building had a problem with bed bugs, so it wasn’t entirely surprising that the six floors of residents, where hundreds of people lived, were never fully rid of the bed bugs. Because I knew what I was looking for, I identified the bed bug problem quickly and suffered very little in comparison to the 2004 ordeal.
