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Bedbugs.

In our approximate decade living in Cambridge, the latter half in an apartment, we have had three close but thankfully not that close brushes with bedbugs.

One. The winter of the first year of my PhD, right when my first semester of final projects was due, they moved into and through the lower floors of the building, increasingly higher, increasingly closer, making it as far as an apartment sharing one edge and a lot of drywall with ours on the floor below us. The person management was blaming, who lived on the second (technically first, 0-indexed from the basement) floor, had all her belongings in trash bags in the hallway for days or weeks or a week and insisted it wasn’t her fault and furthermore that her life was falling apart. Management said she was filthy. She didn’t seem filthy. She moved out.

Two. They came back again more recently to our building—and again they stayed in the lower floors, not making it as far up this time.

Three. This past year, one close friend’s roommate brought them from NYC.

The latter two times, thanks to the preparation and work we put into the first, were unpleasant but easy. It took us less than an hour to prepare our apartment for the possibility of bedbugs and to protect ourselves and our belongings.

The first time sucked.

I was approaching my usual end-of-semester burn-out and feeling invisible and directionless at work. Worse, my partner had been laid off the month before, which meant we were both frayed. It also meant we were both living off my stipend for an unknown length of time. His life wasn’t going the way he’d planned. My life wasn’t going the way I’d planned. And then bedbugs.

The prospect of needing to pay—money, time, energy, all in limited supply—to dry-clean, throw out, or replace all of our clothes, mattresses, cloth furniture, cherished stuffed animals (our plushies!), other fabrics, possibly books (our books!), possibly other furniture—almost everything, actually—was…not nice. Rather than face whatever that would have been like we read everything we could find about bedbugs and took extensive preventative measures. They worked, by the way, along with a massive dose of luck, three times.

The key takeaway is that, after a lot of suffering the first time through, we were ready—not only for the first attack, but for the second and third as well. In our case, the prophylactic was time pressured and very inconveniently timed. In your case, it can be stretched across any more convenient length of time, to whatever extreme you prefer. I want you to be ready, and that’s why I wrote this blog post.

When it comes to bedbugs, you have three goals:

1. avoid bringing the bedbugs into your apartment;
2. in case they do show up, don’t give the bedbugs anywhere cozy to live; and finally
3. in case they show up and stay, make it as fast, easy, and cheap to deal with them as possible.

0. Helpful information about bedbugs

First, some helpful information about bedbugs:

• Bedbugs don’t mind if you’re rich.
• Bedbugs usually bite people when they (the people) are sleeping. If you’re allergic to bedbug bites, the bites turn into itchy red dots, which might be arranged in a line or a cluster. If you’re not allergic to bedbug bites, you probably won’t notice them. If you get bitten, you might notice spots of blood on your sheets. This is because they (bedbugs, also vampires) drink your blood. (For this reason, it can be helpful to switch to white or light-colored sheets and pillowcases—so you can see the blood if you get bitten.)
• Bedbugs can move three or four feet per minute. They don’t jump or fly.
• Bedbugs don’t harbor human diseases, as far as we know.
• Without food (blood), bedbugs can survive two to three months at room temperature or a year if they’re cold.
• Bedbugs die at 119°F and bedbug eggs die at 125°F (though the exact temperature varies depending on what you’re reading). This means you can rehabilitate things that are potentially contaminated with bedbugs by putting them in the oven or the dryer. (Our close friend who recently dealt with bedbugs recommends this steamer for things that do not fit in the oven or dryer, with a warning that reviews for its bedbug killing abilities are mixed.) Here is a study testing bedbug survival at various hot temperatures.
• Bedbugs and their eggs die after four days at 0°F (though the exact temperature, again, varies depending on what you’re reading). This means you can also rehabilitate things that are potentially contaminated with bedbugs by putting them in your freezer or, if outside is consistently below 0°F for four days in a row, outside. Here is a study testing bedbug survival at various cold temperatures.
• Bedbugs, being larger than air, don’t fit through airtight seals. This is a fact we will use to our advantage.

1. Avoid bringing the bedbugs into your apartment

Your first line of defense is to decrease the probability that bedbugs get into your apartment. By the time your neighbors find out they have bedbugs, they (the bedbugs, possibly also your neighbors) have probably already visited you. There isn’t too much you can do about this, but you can try. If there are holes in your floor or walls, caulk or spackle them.

Otherwise, you can take steps to avoid bringing the bedbugs in yourself.

When travelling:

• An unknown proportion of hotel rooms has bedbugs (and the unknown is scary). If you are travelling and staying in anything other than your own tent or car, store your clothes and other fabrics in airtight ziplock bags in your bookbag/suitcase. Storing your fabrics in ziplock bags has the added benefit of making them much smaller, which is nice if you fly Basic Economy for long trips or if you like to travel with just a backpack (or both! probably both). Roll your fabrics up tightly, slide as many as you can into a ziplock bag, and smush the bag down as you close it. If you want, you can organize things bag by bag. It’s amazing how much it all shrinks.
• Bring a trashbag for your dirty laundry. Here’s a Nature paper showing why. Put your dirty clothes in the bag as soon as you take them off and seal the bag in an airtight manner.
• If you want to be especially cautious, keep all your travel clothes and fabrics (dirty and clean) in their sealed airtight plastic bags when you get home and dry them on high heat (possibly also wash them, if you’d like, especially the dirty laundry, but that’s not relevant here) before you reintroduce them to your life.

When acquiring “new-to-you” things:

• Don’t bring any fabrics in from the street. Only buy or otherwise acquire second-hand mattresses or other fabric furniture items with known full (bedbug-free) history and from people you know and trust. If you see a mattress on the street, stay far away from it. Maybe cross the street.
• Non-fabric furniture can also be a risk if it has cracks or cozy places for a bug to hide. Most of our furniture is from the street or hand-me-downs, so this one is a bit upsetting.
• If you buy clothes second-hand, dry them on high heat or freeze them for four days before bringing them into your apartment.

On public transit:

• If you are able-bodied, don’t sit on fabric seats on public transit or fabric seats anywhere else in public where many people sit. Standing in a moving train or bus is a great workout.

2. Don’t give the bedbugs anywhere cozy to live

Your next line of defense is to make your home less appealing to bedbugs—if they visit you, which is not entirely in your control, you don’t want them to stay. This is a list of changes, some of them easy and some of them substantial, that I hope you are able to incorporate slowly, long before bedbugs become a threat, and maintain from then on. A lifestyle.

The easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to protect your bed(s) and your couch(es):

• Buy mattress covers for all of your mattresses (and for your boxsprings, if you use boxsprings) and zip your mattresses into them under your sheets or couch covers. Pay attention to the dimensions to make sure your mattress or boxspring will actually fit, which is very important, and that the fit is snug rather than baggy, which is less important but will make your mattress prettier and nicer to use. We bought this 15-inch-deep mattress cover for our bed and this 11-inch-deep boxspring cover for our couch/futon. (We also bought this baby bed mattress cover for my giant stuffed animal turtle.) We expected the mattress covers to be plasticky, but to our surprise they are soft and comfortable and not different from the usual texture of the mattresses.
• Buy pillowcase covers for all of your pillows and zip your pillows into them under your pillowcases. We bought six (two sets of three) of these. Like the mattress covers, they are surprisingly comfortable and do not at all detract from the experience of using the pillows.
• Buy bedbug traps for all the legs of your bed (and anything else with a mattress, if you’d like). Our close friend uses these, which come in white or black so they can match your bed. Bedbugs can’t walk on the slippery interior surfaces of the trap, which is how they get trapped. In addition to trapping the bedbugs, bedbug traps will also display the bedbugs to you, which is helpful when you’re wondering whether or not you have an infestation. (We tried these sticky traps the last time we were worried about bedbugs; they are indeed very sticky, which meant they stuck to our socks and were very unpleasant and also somehow surprised us each time they attacked a sock and I don’t personally recommend them, though I imagine they work.)
• Scoot your bed away from the wall, at least a little bit—just so it isn’t right up against the wall.
• Put any blankets and pillows not actively being used into sealed plastic bags and into storage.

The next thing you should do is to have less stuff. Sift through all of your clothes and donate anything you don’t love. Ideally, sift through all of your belongings in general, especially all fabric items. This is the most challenging step and should be repeated at least yearly, at least when it comes to clothes. You can get inspired by Marie Kondo while you do it.

(I am assuming here that you do not yet have bedbugs or risk of bedbugs. If you do have bedbugs or might have bedbugs, please do not donate your clothes and therefore your bedbugs.)

Here are two photos of me sitting in front of and then next to my possibly largest belongings cleanse in early February 2019. The bag was the size of me. I had to order an Uber to get it to Central Square. (The Uber driver was very alarmed and poked at it a lot; I like to imagine maybe he thought it was a body, especially with the way I was dragging it heavily (because it was heavy) across the pavement.)

If you live in or near Cambridge, I recommend donating to CASPAR, a local organization running a network of shelters and other programs helping people who are struggling with homelessness or drug addiction to get back on their feet. CASPAR is often especially in need of professional and interview clothes for any gender, warm coats and shoes in the winter, and men’s clothing in general—but they have other needs as well (like baby clothes and clothes hangers) and those needs change seasonally. Follow this link and email to determine if your items are needed and to set up a drop-off time. (Again, I am assuming here that you do not have bedbugs or risk of bedbugs, and that you are downsizing your closet ahead of time. Please don’t donate clothes if you have or might have bedbugs.) Please also consider donating money if you can; the pandemic has been extremely challenging for homeless shelters.

Another excellent cause, especially for any clothes that CASPAR does not need at the moment or ever, is Boomerangs, which is where this entire particular giant bag went, in part because it included sweet finds like my five-inch yellow chunky plastic open-toed sandal-heels from high school and in part because I did not yet know that CASPAR existed. Boomerangs is a family of second-hand stores that funds HIV/AIDS prevention and support.

Now that you have less stuff, especially less fabric stuff, you can enjoy and properly protect the things you have left. You are going to need trash bags and packing tape.

Your clothes:

• Store your underwear and socks in airtight ziplock bags. This is actually very nice even if you don’t care about bedbugs. Before, my underwear and sock drawers were a mess. Now, they’re organized into ziplock bags.
• Store any clothes and coats that live on hangers in hanging space bags. We use these—I think two have broken but they have otherwise been sturdy and convenient. Space bags have the added benefit of smushing your clothes (even if you don’t suction the bags after you close them) and giving you a lot more closet space. You can buy cascading hangers with hooks on them or cascading hanger hooks for your existing hangers to fit a lot of clothes into each bag. The space bags were the largest piece of advice bestowed on me by our neighbor with her belongings in trash bags in the hallway. (I actually didn’t know what space bags were at the time but didn’t feel confident enough to ask, which greatly enhanced the interaction.)
• Store your larger folded clothes in large clear zipper boxes/storage bags. I find clear zipper storage bags/soft boxes very convenient for sweaters and pants. I bought a large (18 inches x 42 inches x 5 inches) one that opens from the top for my sweaters (I have a lot of sweaters) and a less large (15 inches x 18 inches x 9 inches) one that opens from the side for my pants. The zippers on these are not airtight, so I recommend you tape over the place where the zippers meet.
• Smaller folded clothes are more challenging. I keep mine in a hanging organizer with the folded clothes in a sealed trash bag in each cubby (with the opening to the trash bag at the opening to the cubby, so the trash bag is more of a closable lining).
• Store your dirty laundry in a closed trash bag in the hamper, not directly in the hamper itself.

Your other fabrics:

• Keep your absolute favorite shoes and bags hanging up and in your shoe cubbies. Put the rest in sealed trash bags in storage. (As a bonus, you won’t have as much stuff hanging up or in your shoe cubbies.)
• Any other fabrics you’re not actively using (hats and scarves and coats if it’s not cold, shorts if it is; plushies that aren’t actively on display; the big bag of fabric scraps and yarn for arts and crafts) should also be in taped up, airtight plastic bags. For storage, I find it helpful to put sealed bags of things in big, stackable storage bins.

Your walls:

• Bedbugs can hide in wallpaper. Avoid having wallpaper. If you do have wallpaper make sure it is not loose against the wall.
• Avoid hanging posters loosely on the wall.
• Caulk or spackle any gaps or cracks in the walls where bedbugs could hide.

Cardboard:

• Any cardboard boxes you absolutely need (packaging for products whose warranty has not yet expired or just enough boxes to sustain your secret book selling business) fold up and wrap entirely in plastic bags and tape shut. As a bonus, your cardboard boxes will not get horribly dusty.
• All other cardboard throw out. As a bonus, you’ll have more storage space.

3. Make it as fast, easy, and cheap as possible to deal with bedbugs if you get them

Here is some advice that our friend who had bedbugs wants to share with you, once you are infected, in her own words.

On detecting them:

• I think there’s this misconception that they are too small to see. Maybe if they just hatched and haven’t fed—but those don’t multiply, cause they baby. And if you have baby, then there’s def a mom somewhere, which you should be able to see.
• If you do kill the mom, you will need to search again in a couple weeks to catch whatever eggs she laid once they are big enough to move around and feed. They won’t reproduce unless they are feeding, but that’s why exterminators usually come back for another round of inspection.
• They aren’t invisible. They liked the corners of my bed, creases, and tags. If you look around you will find them easily. (I watched two sets of inspectors do this check and talk about all the hiding spots.)
• If you think you have bedbugs and put your stuff through the dryer, you should be able to find their shells or dead bodies in your lint trap. Bed bugs are small, but visible.
• Wash your sheets regularly to look for small blood stains, and kill any that might be there. All my sheets and pillow cases are white now.
• Check behind tapestry (especially the point of hanging, just take them down every now and then, it will be obvious if they are there), around outlets, and any spots where your bed might be touching a wall.
• If the bedbugs are dark, it’s cause they fed. And you really can’t miss the black flat circles they leave when they poop. Seeing those is a definitive sign of activity and usually is all around where they are hiding.
• Just checking every now and then should be enough, and then calling an exterminator as soon as you see them. Save the one you find or the shells if you can—the exterminators won’t believe you if they can’t find proof too.

Working with exterminators, she ended up using her body as bait to lure the bedbugs to her bed and trap them. Which is horrifying. Here is her advice on that:

• Limit time on places not your bed (no napping on couch) and they will come out of hiding to hunt you and get trapped in the bedbug traps.
• This spray will repel them. But if you’re using the you-as-bed-bait method, do not spray on bed—you want them to go there and not hide. I spray my couch with this instead.

And finally—

• My biggest mistake was the giant pile of stuffed animals I had and didn’t disturb for too long.
• If you get encasing for your mattress neveeeeerrrrr take them off.

If you’ve done everything in Step 2, even if you’ve since gotten more relaxed, most of your belongings should be safe. If you find out that there is some risk of bedbugs, either in your building or from a friend, airtight-seal all not already closed bags containing fabrics and put any other non-essential fabrics away as well. Leave out and use only those fabrics that you are comfortable drying on high heat, consistently the same items, preferably less than one load of laundry. Anything that was already in a sealed bag or encasing (which should be almost everything) is safe and guaranteed to be bedbug-free. Your preparation not only reduces the chance you’ll get bedbugs, it also dramatically reduces the time, energy, and money the bedbugs will cost you if they settle in your apartment.

That’s it. You’re ready. You can do this.