E36 M3. Bed bugs. Any tips?

DIY extermination? Orkin? Terminix?

It is a rental, but a house. Is it is the Landlords responsibility?

In theory, that's the landlords deal. In practice, who knows.

mndsm wrote: In theory, that's the landlords deal. In practice, who knows.

Are you sure about that? What if he brought them?

Check your lease. I state on the lease that any pests brought in are the tenant's responsability.

The best (and I think only way) is to tent the house. Make sure you specify it is for bed bugs.

Leave everything inside, including your car.

Have you spent much time in hotels lately?
Any recent house guests?
Sleeping with any new whores?

best way is tent the house and crank the temperature of everything up to max. They essentially bake your house to over 115 degrees F, since bedbugs are super weak to heat. That's expensive and inconvenient, though. Also look into this place: http://www.bedbugsupply.com/

We thought we had them once in an apartment in the Boston area (trains are a GREAT way for them to spread) but before we could confirm/deny that, we went all out in prevention/cleaning and they seemed to go away.

Putting anything through the drier on normal/high heat will kill everything on them, but good luck fitting your mattress in there. You can steam clean anything else, block off power outlets (they hide in the walls, too) and anywhere else a vampiric grain of sand with legs could hide.

Slippery wrote:

mndsm wrote: In theory, that's the landlords deal. In practice, who knows.

Are you sure about that? What if he brought them? Check your lease. I state on the lease that any pests brought in are the tenant's responsability.

Therein lies the rub. If he didn't bring the bugs- it's nearly impossible to prove otherwise, hence the in practice thing. If the landlord is a toolbox- he could tell him to go pound sand. In other cases, I've had it where landlords will acknowledge the problem came from elsewhere and clean it up. YMMV

JohnRW1621 wrote: Have you spent much time in hotels lately? Any recent house guests? Sleeping with any new whores?

She works in a hospital, we're guessing that is where they came from.

Had them from my upstairs neighbor in undergrad (good lordy). Put one in a glass of clear oil and brought it to the leasing office, asking them what they wanted to do about it especially since I have chemical sensitivities to most pesticides (yeaaaaaaahhh.....).

Fortunately, my place had tile flooring (again due to above sensitivity and ADA compliance). The solution was to pull everything away from the walls, sprinkle diatomaceous earth around the entire perimeter of the apartment, double-bag the mattress and box spring, and double-dry all my clothing. Only God knows what they did with ground zero upstairs.

mtn wrote:

JohnRW1621 wrote: Have you spent much time in hotels lately? Any recent house guests? Sleeping with any new whores?

She works in a hospital, we're guessing that is where they came from.

Perhaps the answer is to get a different whore that doesn't work in a hospital.
Or, at least try a new one, ya know, for science.

JohnRW1621 wrote:

mtn wrote:

JohnRW1621 wrote: Have you spent much time in hotels lately? Any recent house guests? Sleeping with any new whores?

She works in a hospital, we're guessing that is where they came from.

Perhaps the answer is to get a different whore that doesn't work in a hospital. Or, at least try a new one, ya know, for science.

This made me laugh

Burn the house down.

Challenge your landlord to a game.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: Burn the house down.

This was gonna be my suggestion.

ryanty22 wrote:

Kenny_McCormic wrote: Burn the house down.

This was gonna be my suggestion.

Same. One of the worst things that ever happened to me.

Clean and double clean everything. Then move. Once they're in the walls they're damn near impossible to get rid of. They'll burrow into furniture too, couch cushions, bed frame cracks and crannies, etc.

This thread terrifies me.

Since my wife travels for work now and is in a different city/hotel every week.

In reply to z31maniac:

Just have her burn her suitcase in the yard when she gets home from each trip.

skierd wrote:

ryanty22 wrote:

Kenny_McCormic wrote: Burn the house down.

This was gonna be my suggestion.

Same. One of the worst things that ever happened to me. Clean and double clean everything. Then move. Once they're in the walls they're damn near impossible to get rid of. They'll burrow into furniture too, couch cushions, bed frame cracks and crannies, etc.

Hence the actual solution being to tent and cook the whole house a few days.

I've never heard of them getting into walls. If they do they are clever little barstards.

One of my college professor's job during WWII was to sprinkle DDT dust in bunks on NAVY ships to control bed bugs. It was very effective. So much so that he tried to get the bedbug put on the endangered species list (he had a cynical sense of humor and this was in the 70s). The man even looked like a beetle. Banning DDT was the beginning of the resurgence of these little critters.

Kenny_McCormic wrote:

skierd wrote:

ryanty22 wrote:

Kenny_McCormic wrote: Burn the house down.

This was gonna be my suggestion.

Same. One of the worst things that ever happened to me. Clean and double clean everything. Then move. Once they're in the walls they're damn near impossible to get rid of. They'll burrow into furniture too, couch cushions, bed frame cracks and crannies, etc.

Hence the actual solution being to tent and cook the whole house a few days.

Hard to do that in an apartment building.

They don't really bite their way in to the walls, they just go in through the holes for lit switches, electrical outlets, etc and set up nests in the walls once they're there.

kylini wrote: sprinkle diatomaceous earth around the entire perimeter of the apartment

Sounds like they called a Witch, not an exterminator. Guess it worked, then.

diatomaceous earth is supposed to be a physical barrier to these pests … though a friend of mine, who is a professional exterminator, claims it's mostly wasted money

I went through lice (twice) from wee kiddies and fleas once from our four legged friends. Both times I came close to killing the house with fire and starting over.

Good luck.

For those of you keeping score at home, we've moved out of the bedroom and onto the futon in the living room. We're slowly bagging all of our clothes in trash bags, and taking them to the basement where we're washing and drying all of them--those that can be washed in hot water are being washed in nearly boiling water.

I moved the bed and all the furniture away from the walls, and the bed away from the rest of the furniture. I sprayed the bed and box spring with alcohol, along with the bed frame, carpet, and in the corners of the room. Tonight we're renting a steamer and steaming the bed, the carpets, the couch, the curtains, the... (get the point?). Then, we're going to put the mattress and box spring in a mattress bag, and put Borax or Diatomaceous Earth around the perimiter of the room, the bed legs, the dresser, and the night stands.

Hopefully that should have killed everything, but if it hasn't, we'll re-evaluate from there.