It’s a bedbug’s world now. We’re just sleeping in it.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    My wife works in a public library and they regularly have a bedbug-sniffing dog come in. She tells me it’s very cute.

  • derf82@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Check any hotel you stay in. Look under the mattress and in crevasses and seams. And don’t put your suitcase on the bed. Use the luggage stand or a desk.

    And even if you check carefully, put your clothes straight from the suitcase and into the dryer and run for 60 minutes on high. The heat will kill bedbugs. If you can, also heat the suitcase or keep it sealed in plastic.

    Also, protect your stuff. Put your mattress in a zippered encasement.

    • ADTJ@feddit.uk
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      2 years ago

      Why would you put things straight into the dryer without washing them first? Wouldn’t washing the clothes also help kill bugs?

      • derf82@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        You need 122F+ for several minutes to kill bed bugs. So maybe with hot water. But just washing may not do it if the water isn’t hot enough.

  • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    What if bedbugs evolve resistance and take over the world eventually. Bet no one had that on their Great Filter bingo card.

    • TenderfootGungi@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      They already have evolved resistance to the chemicals we use to kill them, hence the resurgence.

      Edit: from todays Morningbrew:

      It’s possible that France really is suffering from a bedbug epidemic. The critters have been making a comeback globally in recent decades after being nearly eradicated in the 1950s using pesticides. Bedbugs have since developed a resistance to these chemicals, and high levels of international travel also haven’t helped.

      However, French exterminators are saying that the public might be overreacting.

      The creator of the pest control website badbugs.fr told the BBC that 75% of bedbug inquiries his company receives are false alarms. Normandy-based pest controller Romain Morzaderc explained to the Ouest-France newspaper that in 99% of cases, other “nasty black insects” get mistaken for bedbugs.

    • theodewere@kbin.socialBanned from community
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      2 years ago

      i think it shows a healthy sense of humility to admit that even the bedbug could unravel this mess at this point

  • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.eeBanned from community
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    2 years ago

    God, my brother once brought in a couch he found outside for his room about a year and a half ago. First time and only time I ever had to deal with bedbugs. Didn’t help that the people in charge of the apartment complex took forever to do literally anything about it. I hope I never have to deal with another infestation ever again and that we find ways to completely eradicate them. Even if it means destroying an ecosystem or food chain, I’d be happy to see them go the way of the dodo.

    • Huschke@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Well, their food chain is us and honestly we’re doing a pretty good job of destroying it already.

  • FrostKing@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    As someone who’s had bedbugs multiple times… Yes it’s very much worth throwing away your entire wardrobe if you have to. Do everything you can to prevent getting them.

    • GeekFTW@lemmy.zip
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      2 years ago

      Yup. Had em 3-4x in this very apartment. First day we discovered them I was hauling my box spring the fuck outside and dumping it by the trash downstairs at 3am while my wife was panicking.

      Thankfully been several years since I’ve seen em and I aim to keep it that way.

    • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      The first time it happened, I remember killing everything with fire. I even slept on a plastic covered mattress and did daily vacuuming for like two months. Even worse, the bug bites caused my cat to be extra irritated, forcing him to clean himself nonstop from all the bites and having us lock him out of the bedroom else he go through another “obsessive bite cycle”.

      It was near impossible since the neighbors didn’t care and solved it by moving.

      I don’t recommend it at all.

  • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    I’m sure there are multiple reasons, but I think the biggest cause is how much international travel people are doing now. It’s kind of nuts how many more people travel for fun these days than even 10 years ago. Any place that is even slightly known in the tourism circles has about a billion people showing up every day, so the bed bugs are just being shipped around more efficiently these days.

    Yes, I’m one of those people who are traveling internationally much more often than I did 10 years ago, so I’m not disparaging them or judging them. It’s just a fact of the world we live in now that more people have the money to go to more places now.