Bugged Out

As busy as I am, I feel the need to thank the handful of anonymous posters who have offered advice as well as sympathy and their own personal accounts of bed bug agony. Your entries have not gone unnoticed or unappreciated. I will happily respond to each and every one of them as soon as I can.

I was just eating a soft-baked chocolate chip cookie with my coffee when I saw on the back of my thumb what looked like a bit of chocolate chip. I licked it and realized it was a bed bug. Ewww…. They’re so brazen that they crawl up on me even when I’m not on the bed or sleeping.

It’s on.

As one could imagine, I have been searching the Web for fumigation options to eradicate my bedbug problem. From what I’ve found, I keep encountering the same two annoying obstacles:

1) The services are primarily designed for houses, such as the great big fumigation tent fumigators will throw over a house. That does nothing for me, because, like many New Yorkers, I do not live in a house. I live in a 10-story, 110-unit apartment building. You wanna throw a tent over that?

2) Even the exterminator services admit that their treatments are not completely effective, and that re-treatments are often required. My guess is that whatever they’re using, it’s probably designed to kill a different species of insect, like termites or ants.

But then I came upon an interesting article in Pest Control Magazine, which from what I’ve read on its website, is a trade publication for exterminators. The article talks about Vikane, a substance made by Dow Chemicals. It claims to be powerful enough that only one treatment is needed. Another claim I like about this Vikane is that it is more environmentally-friendly than other fumigants and that you don’t need to wash your clothes, dishes or bedding after the fumigation is over.

Not surprisingly, I cannot find anything on the Dow website that estimates how much this treatment costs. I guess Dow will let contractor exterminators break the bad news to consumers. I am still a bit suspicious of this Vikane chemical, mainly because even Dow admits the chemical is designed to combat termites. Shit, I wish I had termites instead of bed bugs! Everybody seems to know how to get rid of those pests.

I’ll provide updates on additional information on this product as it becomes available, especially how much a local exterminator would charge for a Vikane fumigation.

I came across this ad in Craigslist on how to make money blogging, and not just the pennies promised by Google’s AdSense program. It’s called Blogitive, and the way you make money is not as subtle as having AdSense post a tiny list of links on your page. It works more like product placement, in which you casually mention one of Blogitive’s sponsors

I know it may sound crass and commercialistic, but there’s nothing wrong with mentioning a commercial sponsor as long as the reference is done so within the context of an actual post and not just creating a post just so you can mention a sponsor.

So for anyone who has a blog, especially someone with a bed bug blog and needs some cash to pay their exterminator, this seems like a cool way to make a few bucks doing something you were already doing for free.

For those who didn’t know, a new episode of “King of Queens” aired last night, and the premise was that Arthur (the father-in-law) had came back from his Florida vacation with bed bug-infested hotel sheets. The bugs spread all over Doug and Carrie’s house and when Doug found out the exterminator (played by Chris Elliot) wanted to charge $1,100 to cleanse the house of bed bugs, Doug decided to use a bug bomb. Just like in real life, those bug bombs do absolutely nothing to kill the bugs. And according to the exterminator, it just made them horny. I don’t know how true that is.

Then the exterminator informs them that because the horny bed bugs mated and laid eggs, there are even more of them than before, and the cost of removing them all will now cost $2,500. With no other choice Doug lets the exterminator do his job while he and Carrie find a place to spend the night.

Overall, I thought the bed bug episode was really good, considering this is supposed to be a sitcom. When Doug called Carrie’s job and told them she had bed bugs, the stigma of bed bugs truly came out as people treated her like a leper. Finally she goes into New York mode and turns to the people in the elevator who were afraid to even be near her and goes, “Yeah, I got bed bugs. What? You want some?” I laughed my ass off.

The constant itching by Doug and Carrie from the bed bugs was also a good dose of reality, although Doug went a little overboard with the physical reactions. When he went to Deacon’s apartment to see if he could sleep on the couch, it looked more like he was convulsing than itching. Then again, that character is an exaggerated one to begin with.

Television shows are often criticized with not showing a true depiction of the issues and scenarios in its storylines. I think this is one episode where the writers can rest easy and know that they did a good accurate job and still managed to keep me laughing.

I tried calling the number given to me by the gorgeous lady I met a few days back. Turns out she gave me an unlisted number.

Guess she didn’t buy that meat tenderizer story after all.

I think the toughest part about being a twentysomething single male in New York City (as if dating in this city wasn’t torture enough) is that you don’t want to tell anyone that you have bed bugs, but eventually someone will ask, “what are those marks on your arm?”

For those unfamiliar with the after effects of bed bugs, their bites sometimes turn into something that resembles reddish welts.

I don’t want to say I have a skin rash, or some type of STD that makes your skin break out. Two days ago this beautiful girl asked me what the series of reddish marks were on my arm. I literally told her the following, and cannot believe she bought it.

“I was fighting this guy in his house, and he ran into his kitchen, came out with a meat tenderizer and started swinging it at me. You know those old-fashioned tenderizers that look like mallets? I kept using my forearm to block each blow until I punched him in the throat and ran out.”

I don’t why I came out with that lie. I guess it was because when she asked, I didn’t have an alibi ready, and I didn’t want to tell her I have a bed bug infestation, and as you can imagine, I sure as hell didn’t want to make up having some kind of illness or STD. Illnesses that mark or deform the skin are usually contagious. Besides, the story makes me look macho because my imaginary enemy was attacking me with a weapon and I took him out with my bare hands.

I totally got her phone number. Score.

The site I am reviewing today is Save Jeffy.

This site is definitely different from other professional and/or personal bed bug related sites. Definitely an entertaining browse, Save Jeffy humorously depicts bed bugs and his experience with them in such an over dramatized context one usually sees only in Hollywood action movies in which an impending disaster threatens the peaceful lives of many people. Think “Deep Impact.” The site is riddled with disaster references like “How to Identify an Invasion, Signs of the Apocalypse”, etc. Even the site’s splash page features the following plotline which could serve as an excellent voiceover for any action/horror movie.

As you can imagine, the greater goal of the Save Jeffy site is to solicit donations via PayPal to pay for new furniture for Jeffy. The splash page features a photo of a toddler which, by the brownish tint of the image, suggests this is the baby picture of Jeffy who I presume is all grown up.

Save Jeffy’s best feature is that it doesn’t present bed bug information the same way you might find it in, for example, the New York City Department of Health website. Save Jeffy does try to entertain as well as inform. And why not? Anyone living with bed bugs can use a good laugh. For example, when listing what one would need when combating bed bugs, Jeffy includes vodka, of course for yourself and a torch for those embracing an arson fantasy.

Please visit Save Jeffy, if for nothing more than to learn some new information you may not know and a good chuckle. And if you have a few dollars to spare, I’m sure clicking on the PayPal link would definitely send you some karma you way.

There hasn’t been much to report while I’m waiting for Councilwoman Brewer to introduce her anti-bed bug legislation. So in the meantime I will begin reviewing bed bug-related web sites.

I met this girl in school about a year ago. She is drop-dead gorgeous. I mean, we’d walk down the street together and I could see all the men’s (and women’s) eyes on her. At some point, after a few dates, we just kind of drifted apart. Fast forward to yesterday. We’d been hanging out a lot together this past week, and yesterday she says she has a few hours to kill before class and then asks if she can hang out at my place.

That one came right out of left field. Without missing a beat I said, “Sure,” but in my mind I’m thinking, I better cover up my sheets so she doesn’t see the bed bug spots all over them.

Bed bugs can really put a hold on your love life. What female is going to want to slip into a bed that is either crawling with bugs or has small specks of blood and/or bed bug feces on it? New Girl was going to be the first woman I would bring to my place since my girlfriend dumped me in mid-December. I fooled my ex by changing the sheets before she came, and of course, I would always spend the night at her place.

The minute I brought New Girl home, I told her to wait in the living room while I “fixed my room up a bit.” I quickly dashed to my bedroom and covered the sheets and pillows with a heavy blanket. Problem solved. She hung out until 7 p.m. and we watched my DVD of “The 40-year Old Virgin.”

As I walked New Girl back to the train station, I started thinking about what would happen if she wanted to spend the night. She lives with her parents, so me staying over at her place is out. I know she’s going to find out about the bed bugs if she stays at my place overnight. I really don’t know what to do at this point except not let her sleep over until I get rid of the bed bugs. That might work out for the best after all, as she may interpret my reluctance to spend the night as “taking it slow.”