sleep is not an option.

So tonight, like nearly every other night, I apply anti-itch cream to my bites and prepare to hop into bed. "Prepare" means to lift the mattress and look for bugs, inspect my pillows, look at my sheets. And tonight...oh, tonight.

During this "routine" inspection I notice something new. There's a wrinkled crease in my anti-bedbug boxspring cover, and inside the crease are...bugs, shells, and excrement. I feel simultaneously horrified and victorious to have finally identified (one of) their hiding places.

I go get my camera, delete the photos from mere hours ago cataloguing my bites, and start snapping new photos of this new, disturbing proof. But then I don't know what to do...

If the city housing authority needs to see evidence of infestation, this is it. But if I clean up the mess, it won't be here during their inspection (still not scheduled). But if I don't clean it up...how the hell can I sleep in my bed?? Knowing I will be chowed again tonight??

I considered the sofa, but it's hot tonight, and my only a/c is in the bedroom. I know the sofa would be hot and uncomfortable, and possibly equally infested. So...why not attempt the relative comfort of bedbugs WITH air conditioning, instead of bedbugs without.

Now I am lying here, wide awake, itchy, with all the lights on and the a/c blasting, wondering not IF I will be bitten tonight, but when, where, and how many times.

What's so insomnia-inducing about that??

okay seriously.

okay seriously. a new bite appeared while i was sitting here uploading photos and going over old posts. what the fuck is biting me at 8:00 in the evening while i'm sitting at my desk??? are they in my clothes??? AAAUUUGHHHHH!!!!

chomp chomp.

i could have sworn i did a bite check this morning and saw only one, but i was totally exhausted and might have been looking through squinty eyes. but just now, in response to itching, i looked in the mirror, and there are four new bites on my left arm, and one on my right.

sounds like another bedsheet changing is in order. (*sigh*)

and the city hasn't called me back yet to schedule an inspection. they said they'd call within 72 hours, so...excluding the weekend, i guess that means tomorrow. (*sigh*)

back at the laundromat...

The first reason I took the morning off from work was so I could call 311 from the privacy of my itchy home and file my complaint without my coworkers overhearing my embarrassing plight.

The second reason is this: laundry. Now that the bugs are undeniable, it seems wrong to do drop-off laundry, because they won't do the hot water and extra hot dryer I need to render my clothes "clean."

So I packed up my load, walked down to the big laundromat, and filled 4 washing machines (3 doubles, 1 triple). When the wash is done, I dry for extra long on extra heat. Then I put the "clean" clothes into plastic space bags and live out of them for weeks to come.

I'm annoyed I had to take (another) day off to deal with this (again), but waiting for the weekend seemed like a bad idea.

Here's to coin-free laundry and available machines...

Formal complaint day

I just got off the phone with the housing department. I filed a formal complaint for bedbugs in my apartment. I have a complaint number, and someone will contact me within 72 hours to set up an appointment.

Ever since bedbugs redux started up (not that it ever went away, but since they started biting me en force in my bed again), I'd been meaning to get the privacy to make the 311 call. Then, two days ago, I ran into my neighbor on the elevator. Our conversation went like this:

Him: "Hey, how you doin?"

Me: "You know. Okay. You?"

Him: "Girl, we got a SERIOUS bedbug problem goin on on our floor. I can't get rid of 'em, M down the hall's got 'em."

Me: "And I've got 'em too. You should see the bites on my arm from last night."

Him: "You have to call the city."

Me: "I know, I know. I keep meaning to."

We then lamented about how we feel like social pariahs because we don't want to invite any friends into our infested homes, nor do we want to bring bugs with us and infest anyone else's homes. He told me he got rid of his bed. I told him I spent a few hundred bucks protecting mine. I said all my clothes were in plastic bags, he said his were too. I said whatever the super sprayed didn't do shit. He agreed.

So when I called the city today, I made sure they knew that my neighbors were also having problems. For what it's worth, anyway. We need to all have complaints filed so the true severity of the problem is known and recorded. I think I got myself a new mission!

midnight snack.

*Huge sigh*

Two mornings ago, I woke up with a few bites in a few places. The most visible collection was on my right arm - a cluster of 3 or 4 bites right where tricep meets armpit. I moaned and groaned and cursed as I showered and got dressed. I could no longer deny that these blood-sucking little bastards had found their way back into my bed.

That night, I worked until 7:30, I got home at 8:30, I cooked dinner and ate, watched a bit of TV, and was thoroughly exhauted when I wandered into my bedroom at 11:00. And I stared at my bed knowing that I will be bitten again. It's an awful sensation, knowing that your place of supposed respite from the noisy chaos of life is providing no respite at all, because as you sleep, tiny things crawl all over your body and eat you. Good luck sleeping with that on your mind!

But I crawled in anyway. I tossed and turned all night. I would wake up suddenly and scratch furiously at my elbow. Or my knee. Or whatever tickled spot I felt at the moment. I twitched and jolted and whimpered through the night. Sleep? What sleep.

So I get up in the morning (yesterday) and do my daily mirror inspection. To my horror, I find that they've bitten me in the same tricep-armpit spot, and now there's a HUGE red cluster of nasty blotches. And there are two other bites on the back of my arm. And two on my knee. And one on my elbow. I KNEW I'd felt them biting my knee when I woke up in the middle of the night - and here is my evidence! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?

I take a shower and cycle through my limited wardrobe (all my clothes are in plastic bags) to find something with long enough sleeves to cover my disgusting red splotchy arm. Not having the right clothes to cover it just depresses me, and I sit on my bed pouting and trying to think of other clothes. I finally dig out a wrinkled mid-sleeve shirt and throw it on. I don't even care anymore.

I trudge through my day at work, totally exhausted from not getting any sleep, and feeling like shit in general for being so itchy (I know carry benedryl anti-itch cream in my purse) and dressing so sloppily. I work late because I arrived late, and get home late, and eat late as a result.

Then, as I march into my bedroom, I realize I cannot make myself get into this bed. I turn to look at what replacement bedding options I have. The last two sets of sheets are in a bag, waiting to be laundered. (I can't do laundry as often as these damn bugs require.) I have nothing else...or so I think. I dig out a box on my closet floor, and find two sets of clean sheets!

I was so exhausted, so emotionally drained, and yet I stood there at 11pm and stripped my bed. I put all the stripped sheets and pillowcases into trash bags and tied them up, air-tight. I put my only light blanket into a trash bag too, as well as the PJs I'd worn the night before. I lifted my expensive-bedbug-proof-covered mattress up and examined it and the boxspring to look for bugs, and saw none. I checked the zippers on the mattress cover, the boxspring cover, and my pillow covers. I put the new sheets on. I pulled the bed away from the wall, put on clean PJs, and fell into bed. I slept fitfully with only a sheet covering me.

This morning, I woke up with no new bites. So I wonder if the little fuckers are in the trash bag with the sheets, or if they're just trying to find their way back to me from the wall.

Either way, I hope I can sleep a little better tonight, just this one night, and avoid being a midnight snack. I'm sure they'll find me again in no time.

Photos taken of the bites before (left) and after (right) my shower.

Updated on 6/29 to add photos (finally).

More evidence.

Last night, I was in a foul mood. I mean, really fuckin' cranky. Miserable to the point of silence, really. I had no emotions left in me. I just wanted to watch TV and zone out, but I couldn't.

My cousin, who had been spontaneously tossed out of her sublet in Manhattan and was crashing on my couch for the last couple of weeks, was finally, FINALLY cleaning up her crap that had spread across my livingroom both horizontally and vertically.

As she filtered through the sedimentary layers of her strewn clothing, she yelled "UH OH!" She ran to me with a section of shirt pulled taught between her hands, and we both observed as a full sized, recently fed bed bug dashed across the fabric.

"Fuck." I said, without emotion.

"Do you want me to save it for you?" she asked.

"No." I said. "Just kill it. I don't fucking care."

In hindsight, I should have said yes. Another specimen for my collection. But I just couldn't deal this time. I couldn't deal with the reality that her finding implied: that the itches and tickles I felt at night were not just my imagination; that they were still very here, and still very hungry; that all my clothes in plastic bags were going to have to stay that way for a while longer.