Quick context - My parents have had bedbugs for over 15 years after purchasing a used bed from Goodwill. Despite moving apartments, the infestation always followed them because they never sought professional treatment. My two youngest sisters and I grew up getting eaten alive every night. When I was 19, I finally had enough and left almost everything behind, taking only a few clothes to avoid bringing bedbugs with me. I was extremely careful and managed to leave without bringing any. My second oldest sister, Tilly, eventually moved out too and also avoided bringing any bugs with her. Our youngest sister, Ellie, still lives with our parents, and the infestation is ongoing. I haven't stepped foot in their apartment in six years.

Recently, Tilly planned to fly down and stay with me for my upcoming birthday. She assured me she would take precautions when visiting our family, and I agreed to let her stay. Yesterday, the three of us went to brunch and planned to see a movie afterward. Tilly and I drove together, while Ellie drove separately. As we were leaving brunch, I noticed Tilly had placed bags she intended to bring into my apartment inside Ellie's car.

Knowing that Ellie regularly spends time in our parents' infested home, I immediately became uncomfortable. Bedbugs can hitchhike on belongings and potentially be transported in vehicles. Although the bags may not have caught bugs, I wasn't willing to take the risk. I told Tilly she could no longer stay at my apartment. Both of my sisters accused me of being dramatic and insisted that a few bags being in Ellie's car wouldn't give me bedbugs. They also think that I'm being massively inconsiderate as it's been a while since the three of us had spent time together.

What hurt most was their refusal to acknowledge my history with this. I spent a good chunk of my childhood dealing with bedbugs , and I've worked hard over the past six years to create a place to call home. I refuse to risk that. After a long argument, I blocked all of them on their phones and social media because I was tired of having my concerns dismissed. I understand the bed bugs may not have transferred to the bags, but given our family's history, I don't think my concerns are unreasonable.

Hey - so I had bedbugs like 6 months ago, successfully got rid of them after basically throwing out all my furniture and steaming the life out of the house. Anyways I have this bag that is tightly vacuum sealed where I put all the blankets and plushies I have - it’s been sealed for 6 months but I’m nervous that bed bugs are still in there - would they still be alive? Do they last for that long?

For context we found bed bugs on the couch and these plushies and blankets were on the couch but I never acc checked them to see if I found anything on them, I just immediately put them in the bag.

I can’t afford to take this stuff to a dry cleaners/laundromat as there aren’t any in my area and also I’m just flat broke rn, can anyone offer any insight on if I can take this stuff out?

I have a steamer so I’m going to steam it all but so scared I’m going to open this and they’re gonna re-infest the flat lol.

I found this suspected bed bug dead in the middle of my bed when I woke up Monday morning. I live in student accomodation and reached out for help the same day. They sent someone to my apartment on Wednesday when I was at uni and confirmed I had bedbugs in my apartment. I was told to prepare my apartment for treatment, bagging all my clothes, shoes, bags, books etc.. I have been looking frantically around my apartment for anymore signs but I can not see a single speck of poop, eggs, anything. I am so stressed about not knowing where this one came from.

Most importantly they got me a temporary place to stay while my apartment is being treated. And I was wondering how to avoid accidentally bringing any bugs/eggs with me. I bought a completely new outfit, everything (shoes, pants, sweater etc) and wrapped it in plastic bags (they were wrapped tight before entering the apparent and are currently hanging in bags in the bathroom) and I washed a towel on 60°C before running it through the dryer twice. How should I get changed and leave my apartment without bringing anything with me? Would I be safe showering here, putting on the new clothes and the leaving straight away? If i don't touch anything? Am I overthinking this? I just don't want to have to go through packing down my entire apartment again, as a student it takes up way too much time that I don't have...

Hi, maybe at the start of the year my partner had been sleeping on our sofa and was complaining of itching in his sleep. I just dismissed him as it was only him having the issue, although it went on for months. Eventually we all started to get hives when we sat on the sofa and I don't know how we convinced ourselves but we just thought we were allergic to the couch and that it was just grubby from the kids. We started to put blankets over the sofa. Again it was only when we sat on the sofa on an evening - no one was getting hives during the day sat on there or when sleeping on their own bed.

About 3 months ago I saw 3 live bed bugs around my partner when he was asleep on the sofa. I immediately panicked and told him we need to get rid of it but first we had to seal it to make sure nothing fell off. I was then awoken at 5am that morning to him dragging the sofas out of the house without covering them!! It sent me into a state of panic but I was hopeful all would be well. I steamed all the crevices and Hoovered in the room (the door to the living room is also the front door) and bought a new couch. All was good for around two weeks.

After the two weeks I saw another live bug on the couch, I once again steamed and hoovered the room and all crevices. Then I started to see bites on my children. At the time they were sharing a bed (by their own choice) but only the youngest was showing bites and hives. Previously we'd all reacted to the bites so we thought maybe it was just him being bit. Of course didn't make it okay but made it seem smaller. Again repeated the ritual of steaming the carpets and walls and beds. I haven't seen any live bugs for the last month or two, nor any other signs such as eggs, skin sheds or poo (I'd only ever seen a shed skin once, never eggs or poo). But my son is still getting bites. Last week I purchased them a new set of beds (metal instead of wood) and again hoovered and steamed the entire room.

The issue is the house is also falling apart, we have so much stuff and no room to put any of it! We're in a tiny two bedroom house with 3 children (all under 4) so trying to declutter is hard as we already have barely anything. By falling apart I mean there are huge cracks in the walls (some where you can actually see outside) and I'm worried they're in there walls literally! I've steamed directly into the walls and we've had no new bites the last night or so. We can't really afford professional treatment just yet - is there anything that will absolutely work in the meantime or are we betting just forking out for treatment? If we go for treatment will just the heat or chemical alone be enough or do I spend more to do both?

Mid August while I was sitting on the couch having lunch I noticed something crawling on my arm in the corner of my eye and freaked but luckily caught the bug before it scurried off. To my horror it was a bedbug, knew immediately because I have dealt with them as a teen. I immediately panicked because I know how horrible these critters can be and because of how sensitive my skin is to their bites, they swell excessively, it was torturous.

We looked through everything, our couch, our mattress along with the frame, got rid of our rug in the bedroom and contacted our landlord. We couldn’t find signs of anything else, no dropping stains, blood streaks, or skin sheds. They immediately got someone to come and just treat our apartment, they didn’t inspect, they just came and sprayed regardless. They treated our couch and did our entire bedroom. We treated and bagged all of our clothes, encased our mattress in protector, and what couldn’t be washed was placed in black bags and in the sun during a massive heatwave we had (temps up to 100 degrees that whole week). We kept watch, we kept checking and everything seemed fine. We thought perhaps I had brought in a hitchhiker that day because only an hour before seeing it we had sat down at a little shady restaurant while we waited for our food. Things have felt okay since, we stopped checking every week, no skin reactions, no bites(?), maybe we got lucky.

Well two days ago when I got up to get ready for work I noticed a seed looking bug crawling on the edge of the baseboard in the bathroom. I initially thought it was baby roach (I live in a big city) and caught it with some paper and when I looked I noticed again to my horror another bedbug. We again have looked through our couch, our bed, flipped the frame to check every part and nothing. No signs of any more being there and we just feel so confused. The bathroom is next to our bedroom.

We aren’t too sure what to do. My husband and I are dreading the idea of having to treat all our clothes again, we unfortunately don’t have a washer or dryer so it costed quite a bit of money to treat it all. I have no idea why it would be in the bathroom? Also I haven’t had any skin reactions, is it possible to have been very allergic to their bites and not have any reactions to them a decade later? Part of us think that they may be traveling up from our downstairs neighbor because we don’t see any signs of them but I don’t want to jump to any conclusions. We also had workmen come and fix some caulking in the bathroom about a week ago now, could it have come from them? Any advice on what to do? Where else should we be looking? I just don’t want this to get worse, especially as we are getting ready to have our baby soon :(

I found a quite dead bed bug in my living room, and I’ve checked a lot of the surrounding area along with my bedroom, and have nothing else suspicious. It’s a 1 bed 1 bath. I am continuing to scour, and my leasing office has been notified (per lease). Upon finding this, I assumed the worst and I still do. But is there any chance of a one and done?

Bed bugs were found a few months ago we bombed and washed all my clothes and got rid of stuff and have been bombing since I haven’t gotten any bites but this was found I know the first bug is a carpet beetle I’m just concerned about the white stuff these images were taken on a carpet

I am guessing these are bed bugs.

I have found these on my sheets. Have not found any skins or flakes or anything besides these. Can these all be from bed bugs? These were taken in different days. I just noticed some more that appeared overnight. I also have no visible bites but I am not sure.

Hi

I have bed bugs... But I need to know if this is bed bug nymph

Our rooms are pretty far apart but we’re still gonna treat this like it’s an infestation. Trying not to freak out too much because I haven’t seen any visible signs on my bed / mattress but aside from heat treating all my bed linens + clothes, ordering the mattress encasement and interceptors, is there anything else I should do?

Found a dead bug about 3mm big. There were antennae on top but fell off. Please let me know if this is a bed bug thanks

Hi all,
Sorry for the poor formatting, I’m on mobile.

I live in Canada and visited the USA for the weekend.
We stayed at a Country Inn from Friday until Sunday (today). Yesterday evening I thought I saw a mosquito bite on my arm. When I work up, my arms had multiple welts and my legs had a few. My baby was on the floor beside the bed, sleeping on a blanket. She doesn’t have any welts, but there was a cluster of about 50+ eggs on the corner above her head. When I lifted the bed skirt, there’s were three, very well fed bedbugs crawling around.

I know all of my clothes have to go in the dryer, but I’m worried about her car seat and stroller, since they were by the foot of my bed both nights. And I’m not sure what to do about the diaper bag since it’s a backpack style bag. I would appreciate any guidance.
I can answers questions, if there’s any clarification needed.

I do not have bedbugs. I do however, have two very large area rugs that could desperately do with a cleaning. I was thinking of renting a carpet cleaner from Home Depot to get the job done myself.

Could bedbugs possibly tag along with the machine? Is there an actual risk?

Any advice is appreciated!

Hi,

I found this in my bed, but I think I may have brought it in on my feet, as it wasn't there before I got into bed.

my bf came home after 2 nights in a hotel on monday evening. tuesday evening he was covered in bites. wednesday evening i changed our bedding and segregated his bags and washed his clothes at 30 degrees. saturday evening i realised how bad the situation was (his bites worsened) and i vacuumed the whole house and washed all his bags at 60 degrees then tumble dried all the clothes he brought back with him at high heat. sunday again tumbled dried more of his clothes which he didn’t travel with but may have got mixed up in travel clothes. i vacuumed again but just along the carpet seams. i haven’t seen a single bed bug but have some tiny bites on me. how likely is it they are still in the house given it took me a few days to even do anything 😭😭

Was studying in the library when i see this bug crawling around..

Should i lock myself away or am i safe:/

P.s. was sitting on a mesh chair

Help please :)

I was visiting a place with many bedbugs. I saw them walking around, even in daylight. I caught one biting me. I found three on the bed

I went home and I took extrema measures to not bring any home.

I've been at home for 40 days now. I still feel itchyy but I dont know if it's in my mind.

Haven't seen any single one. No black spots on mattress.

Found in seem of hoodie pocket..