Ben H. Winters’ Bedbugs (September 6, Quirk Books) is the horrific story of a woman coping with a persistent infestation of bed bugs in her new apartment. Or is she? Are the bed bugs real, or all in her head? Or maybe this is something worse than bed bugs. Zombie novels may disgust you. Ghost stories give you a chill. Bed Bugs will get under your skin. Don’t be surprised if you’re scratching at phantom bug bites by the time you read the last page.
Bed bugs are horrifying enough in fiction, but the real creatures may be even worse. Here are just a few reasons why:
Bed Bugs Leave a Trail.
Bed bugs leave other signs of their presence beside bite marks, and you don’t have to be much of a sleuth to find them. Look for smears of blood and feces. Look for the tiny little bodies – bed bugs are small, by the way: the adults are no bigger than a small apple seed.
Bed Bug Love is Savage Love.
Bed bugs reproduce by a process called “traumatic insemination”. It’s just a creepy as it sounds. When two bed bugs love each other very much, a daddy bed bug takes his special, spiky boy part and pierces mommy’s abdomen. He deposits his seed inside her tummy and then ten days later begins to excrete around five eggs a day until she has excreted three to five hundred of these special little eggs in her human friends’ home. Twelve days later these brand new little babies are ready to take their first meal. Don’t believe me? Ask Isabella Rossellini. No, really. I’ll wait. Go watch that.
Bed Bugs Can’t Wait to Swap Spit.
Bed bugs don’t just bite, they inject two feeding tubes into their human prey: one slurps up the blood, the other injects saliva…bed bug spit. Bed bug saliva functions as an anesthetic and anti-coagulant, enabling the little demons to feed in peace. Incidentally, it’s the same saliva that provokes the itchy skin reactions in human beings.
Bed Bugs Don’t Mind Waiting for a Meal.
Think you can take a vacation and starve out the bed bugs in your home? Think again. Bed bugs can go months without a meal…almost six of them. Not scary enough? Some reports indicate that they can go without food as long as a year.
Bed Bugs Love a Vacation.
Imagine: You’re taking a vacation to get away from the itchy, scratchy hell hole your apartment has become, only to discover that the bed bugs have come along for the trip. Even worse? Maybe you don’t have bed bugs yet, but if you travel a lot, you may bring them home. The little buggers hop from hotel to home, hitching rides in luggage. They’re everywhere, too, from the sleaziest no-tell motels to the finest hotels in the world.
Bed Bugs do it in the Dark.
Bed bugs wait until nightfall to find a meal, but don’t worry, you won’t need to leave on your nightlight for them to find their way. They’ll find you…because they can track you by your breath. It’s the carbon dioxide you exhale. It’s like ringing the dinner bell.
Bed Bugs Get Inside Your Head.
No, not literally, but many people dealing with a bed bug infestation experience extreme anxiety. They can’t sleep. They feel helpless. It’s understandable.
Bed Bugs Are Everywhere. Or Are They?
Your home is crawling with bed bugs. You can feel them on your skin. Perhaps so, perhaps not. Ever heard of delusional parasitosis? It’s the persistent delusion that you’re infested with parasites. They could be bed bugs, scabies, fleas, ticks or worms. The only thing that’s for sure is that they’re not there at all. Of course, it goes without saying that just because you’re delusional it doesn’t mean that there aren’t real bed bugs in your house, too.
Bed bugs Don’t Like to Say Goodbye.
It is very difficult to get rid of a bed bug infestation, just Google it and you’ll see dozens of websites, each with tons of suggestions on how to rid your home of the horrible little monsters. Some of them probably work. Some don’t. Strong pesticides can kill them. So can extreme heat. You’re going to have to call in a professional, and even then, you’re going to have a heck of a time saying goodbye to your bed bugs. They hide in nooks and crannies. They hide in clothing. They hide in mattresses and sofas. They hide everywhere. You may think you’ve gotten rid of them, only to have the horrible biting begin again just a few days later…
I had bedbugs, as my name suggests. It was one of the most awful experiences of my life. I tried all kinds of things to get rid of them and I experienced a lot of what was written above (anxiety, thinking they are on me when they aren’t, not able to sleep etc.)
Most of the stuff you find on store shelves will not help against bed bugs due to the way they hide. I called Orkin and they wanted $1,000 a room to clear the bedbugs (and there is no guarantee they will be cleared). It was insane. I moved to a new house and they moved with me despite all the care I took to get rid of them. The first few days was bliss because I was not bit (I appear to have a more severe allergic reaction to their saliva causing me extreme itchiness and pain) but then I started getting bit. So I knew only a couple of them made the trip. Luckily at this time I read a forum post where somebody said use Diatomaceous Soil. It’s pretty much just crushed fossil algae.
Anyway, I read that this stuff was basically razor blades to insects. As they walk across it they will be cut and bleed out and die. It was only 10 bucks off of Amazon so I thought I would give it a try. I spread it around everywhere I may sleep (it’s white power so it will look awful and gets into everything) which included around my bed legs, in my bed cover, under my sheets, the lining around my walls and I even blew some underneath outlet covers (not into the socket naturally). After a few days the bite stopped.
A week later I got one single bite. Two weeks later I had been bite free for a week. A month later 0 bites. Making yourself a honeypot and putting Diatomaceous soil everywhere a bedbug would need to walk to get to you guarantees that they will die.
So yeah, 10 bucks and living with white powder everywhere fixed everything for me. I have been bed bug free for over a year now.
Hope this helps anybody who reads it as I was once helped by a random forum post found via google after months of searching.
[...] New Health & Healing Books – Madness & Insect Sex August 21, 2011By adminBen H. Winters’ Bedbugs: A Novel, is the horrific story of a woman coping with a persistent infestation of bed bugs in her new apartment. Or is she? Are the bed bugs real, or all in her head? More info… [...]