Bed Bugs
 

When you buy fabric etc. at goodwill, garage sales, etc. worry about bringing home these little pests? I love going to these places also, but wonder if I could bring them home.

Goodwill & garage sales are not the only places that the bedbugs hitch a ride. Major department stores are having to deal with this issue lately. They are transported from place to place because of our shipping industry. It reminds me of when I was a kid & you had to check the paper grocery bags for roaches.

My laundry is in our garage. I wash them before bringing them in the house. I'm horrified by the thought of bedbugs too.

I'm glad you brought that up. The bed bug issue is all over the news these days. I will be extra careful now to throw any new fabric into the machine right away. I don't even really know what a bed bug is, but I don't want them!

There was a report on the news that said it is become a huge problem. Warning that motel and hotel are breading grounds for them. I think I will sleep in my car. lol :lol: :lol:

They are a HORRIBLE thing.... my niece has them in her apartment and just had it sprayed for the 3rd time. It has nothing to do with how clean/dirty you keep your house - they love it anywhere. It is a complete nightmare to prepare your home to be sprayed and you have to get rid of furniture that is infested. She is extremely allergic to them and has been fighting a terrible rash and finally discovered them in her apartment. I feel so bad for her - all I can say is wash in hot water if in doubt.

I'm so glad that I have a steam cleaner which puts out really hot steam. I sanatize my mattress and furniture frequently. The steam should be hot enough to kill them. So far I haven't seen any! I'd freak out if I did!

You can also bring home moths and carpet beetle larvae. Keep everything in a plastic bag (don't be eco-friendly and reuse a bag here) and wash and dry it on a fairly high heat asap.

The librarian in our area found 2 in a book. No place is safe!

I have a big chest freezer so I put fabric I ordered from online or from thrift stores in a plastic ziplock and freeze them for several days or until I remember about them. It may do some good. I do this with rice, meal and flour too. I do not need weevils getting a foothold. Also bedbugs can get in alarm clocks, furniture, shoes, eyeglasses, anything that is around where they are. I am very Leary about motel rooms. Even the extra nice ones get bedbugs.

I don't know if it's not a problem in areas with colder winters (although I don't imagine a winter in Lansing, MI is T-shirt weather LOL) but in almost 40 years of secondhand shopping I've never had a problem.
OMG the very idea of bugs in my completely essential eyeglasses is horrifying!! YUCK :thumbdown:

I really had never heard/thought about bed bugs being "real" until the recent news about them.

We would say - Good night, don't let the bed bugs bite -

but it was said the same way we said


After while, crocodile - or

See you later, alligator

I'm familiar with those sayings! :lol:

My daughter had them in her apartment and she was COVERED with bites. I had her come home and made her leave everything that she owned. Because of the infestation she was able to get out of her lease. When she came in the door, I shut it and made her strip and threw the clothes away. I helped her replace everything. I think we went through two bottles of calamine lotion. We shop at garage sale a lot. When I buy material I take it straight to the washer and wash it in hot water. You can even get bedbugs from the seats in a movie theater! We have Comcast so until this invasion is over we will have to wait until we can see the new releases Good luck everyone.

Oh no! I just went to the theatre and watch Wallstreet....ugh bed bugs.

ya'll are making me itch and I will never get a motel again

Bed bugs can be spread when you have guests in your home.
My neice says she does not allow her children to spent the night at a friends home or have sleepovers. After spending several thousand dollars to get rid of bed bugs she said no more. The children agree to these rules. They don't don't care to be bitten.

Hot water wash helps but the dryer really does the job. My DD is community liason for a local Councilman and all she seems to do is answer bedbug complaints!

Yuck!

I thought these were a thing of the past, like in the 1800's past. I see the reports on the world news, but I haven't heard what started them up again. What part of the country are they worse in? I haven't heard much on the local scale here. I will steer clear of the thrift shops, etc. for awhile though.

When the inexpensive insecticide used to kill the bedbugs completely was outlawed, they have made a come back. I read that the stuff used to kill them now is too expensive for the general population overseas to buy so the bed bugs are spreading. It's like head lice, it's a nightmare to get rid of them.

I also wonder about buying on e-bay or for that matter and PLEASE don't anyone take this the wrong way but getting fabric from a swap.

Guess they are a big, expensive problem to get rid of! The thought of it makes my skin crawl!!

I read this list on our local news put out by the Terminex company.
These are the cities with the most bedbug infestations:
Cleveland, Louisville, Indianapolis, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C.,Dayton, Columbus, Denver, Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, Philidelphia,
New York City

They say a special high heat is teh only way to get rid of them and may take several treatments. Yuck!

Another good reason to immediately wash all fabrics, new clothing, new bedding, etc.

does anybody know how big a bed bug is? i'd like to know what i'm looking for since i've never seen one. like compared to a pea or a bean or a grain of rice? and what color too?

My DD travels for her job. She has learned to strip the bed, turn over the mattress and look at it with a flashlight. You can see if there is an infestation. She has turned in several hotels for having bedbugs. She learned her lesson when she had to toss a an expensive suit and shoes, purse, and a full cosmetic bag. She sure was glad she didn't bring her suitcase and computer to the hotel room. It's very expensive to get rid of them once in your home.

What brand of steam cleaner? I'd love to sanitize my furniture, carpets, mattresses, etc.

This is the one I have. http://www.amazon.com/McCulloch-MC-1...5432082&sr=8-2

There was a big discussion on these a couple years back on Pattern Review and I got this from unanimous recommendation of other users. I love mine and it gets really really hot! It will clean just about anything.

The exterminator told me steam would not kill bedbugs or lice. It would be like giving the bugs a steam bath that they love! Very hot dry heat will kill bedbugs, lice, and fleas but it takes about 30 minutes of continuous heat.

Bella - Is it really obvious when you strip the bed or turn the mattress? In some hotels the mattress doesn't budge.

Can you put the fabric into a ziplock and throw in a flea collar with it before going into the house? I'll wash it when ready and everything is DEAD.

My DD says she can spot them with a flashlight between the mattress and box springs or on the edges. And if they are bad, there will be tiny rusty/bloody spots on the mattress pad.

Bed bugs are resilient. Nymphs can survive months without feeding and the adults for more than a year!!!

Unfortunately, bed bugs will hitch a ride anywhere and everywhere including briefcases, handbags, back packs, the clothes on your body stuffed animals, wooden articles. These creatures are nasty and near impossible to get rid of. Even if, by some small miracle, DDT were brought back into use tomorrow, it would do little good, since these bugs have built up a resistance to that too.

This is very scary.... wonder if we could see them on a bolt of fabric.....watch now, all of us are going to go to the quilt store with our flashlights....inspecting the fabric before we buy it! Wonder if we would get kicked out! LOL!

Bed bugs also live in the walls...We were staying in a Hilton in Pittsburgh about 5 years ago, my daughter and her friend received over 50 bites that one night. The kindly gave us a comp night for their distress........still makes me laugh- like we would like to stay an additional night :)

OMG!!! No kidding!! :thumbdown:

VERY hot water is what kills them. Some places in Maine have them so the cold weather areas are not immune. Thankfully I don't have them. The adults are the size of an apple seed in some cases. The babies are the size of a poppy seed until they are feeding then they get a little bigger and are red because they are transparent and you are seeing the blood in them.
I like the idea of the steam cleaner also but they still get into many other things as well.
I would throw away anything that you see them in or on even if it is an expensive mattress or chair. They are so hard to get rid of that cleaning may not get them all and all you need is one or two to start it all over again.

I just wash any fabric, even new from the store in the wash, as you never know!