It appears to me that once one acquires bed bugs, they never really get rid of them.
After trashing my bug-infested bed, mattress and headboard, washing every single piece of clothing I own and throwing out countless pieces of paper, I was shocked last night to find a bed bug crawling on my inflatable mattress. I quickly scooped it up, deposited it into a tissue and squeezed said tissue into my fist until I saw the brownish stain of its squashed guts.
I’d been sleeping in my own room, on an inflatable mattress for a few weeks now, and the first night in my bedroom was spent with M on my bedroom floor with only a thick blanket separating us from the linoleum. I had bought the mattress already, but stupid me neglected to notice the box the mattress came in said “Pump not included”. Another trip to Target.
The mattress kicks ass by the way. The brand is called Air-Tek. It’s a queen-sized mattress (a new venture for me since my previous bed was only a twin) which claims to support up to 600 lbs. It was on sale for $30 at Target, and the pump was another $10. It’s kind of hard getting used to an air mattress when you’ve slept on conventional mattresses your whole life, but it still makes for a comfortable night’s rest.
But I digress.
Even after the whole aftermath of committing bedbug genocide, and losing my mattress, bed, headboard, gallons of detergent and even more gallons of hot sudsy water in the process, I was thoroughly annoyed to see that they were still here. They’re like the Iraqi insurgents: the many, the scattered and the persistent.
So the fight still rages on.