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Bed Bug Bites Bug Bite Pictures from people around the world and their stories
How to Treat Bed Bug Bites What to do when your are bitten by bed bugs and how to stop the itching!
Bed Bugs Photo Get up close and personal with this bed bug! Rotate it yourself! - Also Bed Bug Videos
Bed Bug FAQ Everything you wanted to know about Bed Bugs (or perhaps didn't want to know)
Bed Bug Checklist A must have list of signs that indicate bed bugs are in the room!
Bed Bug Treatment How to treat for and get rid of bed bugs (solutions from our visitors)
Bed Bug Traps How to make your own bed bug trap for less then $10!
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Does alocohol kill bed bugs & what is the %?
Hi, I have a question. I just woke up one day and about mid day discovered some bites on my ankle about 2 or 3 on one ankle and about 2 on the other ankle. it itches really badly and I have checked my bed and my mattress and have found nothing I also sleep with one of those egg crate things on top of my mattress and then have my fitted sheet that covers it.
My husband sleeps in this same bed and on the weekends sometimes my granddaughter will fall asleep in it and then I transfer her to her bed. Neither of them have any bites on them only me so I am trying to figure out what is going on. Can anyone tell me if it was bedbugs wouldn’t it be biting my husband and granddaughter as well??
Thanks, Pat
please comment on Chicago Intercontinental, Michigan Ave, as well as Toronto Intercintinental Yorkville, on Bloor St.
Hey I woke up yesterday morning me and my husband and we were bit up from bed bags! It bite me on my eye led and fore head, right arm, and left finger! That was not cool!
I told the landlord, and he new about the beg beds but failed to tell us! So we stop paying the rent, and were finding some where else to live because the apartment is a mess, and they never updated anything in it! Which is sad! Because I paid my rent always on time and they never bettered the apartment!
They always wanted their rent on time or they would pick with you and bother you about it when they never did what they side they would do! I have roaches in the apartment as well! It’s just crazy, we have to move soon!
The landlord is not right and his business needs too be closed down for good! I live in Detroit, MI downtown please help is there anywhere I can go to talk to someone about the landlord not having apartments up to code?
My family and I found bed bugs in 5 different rooms in the Comfort Suites West of the Ashley in Charleston, South Carolina on Oct. 19,2009. I insisted that one of the desk clerks come to the first room and look at the bug and she confirmed that it was a bed bug, but the manager insisted that his hotel did not have bed bugs via another desk clerk. When I asked the other desk clerk to go check the rooms she refused. Even after my step-daughter was bitten.
This is in regards to bedbugs and your mattress. i agree that you do not want to soak up pesticide while you sleep, and would like to offer another solution to this problem.
STEAM! lots of it! a powerful steamer,(rent if needed,but I’ll bet most of the afflicted will justify the expense),that will deeply penetrate is best.if not a good quality steam iron with a strong PUFF of steam will help greatly, if not cure the bed without poisoning you.
Warning! check your settings with an iron and try not to melt your bed!steaming should be done every few days for quite a while (30-60days?). steam will kill both adults and eggs,but you will never get them all in one sweep.they are a tough and nasty foe!
i hope this helps,and i wish you all luck.
The last couple of weeks, I have been waking up with really bad bites, and it’s getting worse. This morning I woke up with it covering my shoulder. It’s on my ankles, my wrists, and there is one on my knee. I checked my back, and there are a few there too. I know it’s not acne on my back either, I can tell the difference between a bite and a pimple. Plus the same marks are on my wrists and ankles.
I told my landlord about it, and he asked if he could check my bed. He didn’t tell me if he thought they were bedbugs but I thought about it after he left. Is that whats causing all these bites? I’ve never had a problem with them before and I’ve been in this apartment since March. It’s just recent.
I have just found that I have bed bugs ,and I am have been bitten severely. Can bed bugs live in human hair and lay their eggs there?
well…it looks like I have bedbugs…blahh..I have not found any or any blood spots… or dark spots. But it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the pattern and looks of bites. I am presently trying ALL the solutions. (hard to find bugs at 0400 when you need #4 reading magnifiers.) My specific question is about BOOKS. I am a serious bibliophile. and have literally 1,000′s…on the floor, against walls, two deep…and bookcases everywhere.
??????? HELP!!
OK, so you have bedbugs and can’t get rid of them? I found a way to at least keep them off you at night. They hate tea tree oil. I started putting about 10 drops in my bath water at night. Never had another bug bite after that. I even wash my hair with products containing tea tree oil because they used to bite my head. Make sure you buy the pure tea tree oil and drop some in your shampoo bottle.
I just moved from an old apartment that was infested by bugs. We got sprayed a couple of days before we moved and were very diligent on having all the bedding, linens and clothing heated in the dryer and kept in secure tightly knotted plastic bags until moving day.
I had a nest on a sheet that was covering my box spring so I had put on rubber gloves, bundled up the blanket (being careful not to lose eggs or bugs) and put it in a garbage bag and immediately disposed of it. We have now lived in our new place for a month and a half and last week on monday I found a bug.
I had spent the weekend at a friend’s cabin so automatically my mom assumed that it came from there. We’ve been checking our beds, boxsprings, frames and baseboards every day multiple times but have seen no sign of nests. We hadn’t seen anything until last night, 9 days after the last one. It was not too far away from the place that I saw the first one on the wall by the baseboard.
I want to believe that it’s coming from below us crawling up through the crevices and cracks for electrical or between floors, but what if we had eggs on some of our stuff and they’re maturing now getting ready to nest in some place in, under or around the carpet?
I just bought a new bed too. Almost $2000 with taxes. I can’t afford to deal with this crap again. We bought mattress bags for both the boxspring and mattresses and I have my bed on plastic bed raisers (mostly for storage purposes) but now I hear that they don’t really like walking on plastic.
Tonight we’re buying sticky traps to see if there actually ARE any in our suite and if they’re moving around. I want to believe that it’s coming from the apartment below us, but even if we spoke to our landlord, its not like she’s going to go snoop around in their residence for us.
Having bed bugs is a situation that makes you feel so powerless. There’s absolutely nothing you can do to prevent it from happening.
I just had a baby one week ago. For the last five months of my pregnancy I have been dealing with a rash that my ob doc,the infectious disease control doc and dermatologist could not diagnose. Today as I was on the computer I saw a bug crawling on the curtain. I got a hold of it and researched.. BED BUG I looked in my mattress and found more bed bugs. I was wondering if any one knows if these bites affect pregnancy??
what is the best remedy for bed bug bites. they itch like crazy and the cortizone cream barely helps me. what is the best cream i can get???
After enduring several weeks of bites that I thought were mosquito bites, I saw a bed bug crawling on my comforter. We immediately called the landlord and the next day an exterminator and cleaning service arrived. They’ve cleaned and exterminated twice.
I’ve also washed all of my linens, threw out an invested futon, covered my mattress with protective covers, and washed any clothing close or near to the bed and ground. I’ve been bite free for about a week.
Today while putting away laundry I found one live bed bug folded in a t-shirt. Naturally I flipped out! The exterminator thinks it is a “straggler” as they usually don’t nest in clothing away from a human host. Has anyone experienced this?
Your insight is greatly appreciated!
Hi i live in a 500 apt building the whole building is infested with bed bugs, help, help, help, i am going mad! I just brought new furniture and even every one on my floor has them in their place. I’m crying help. talk to building manger the saying us tenants are bring them bull
My husband stayed at LONDON PARK LANE
ONE HAMILTON PLACE, PARK LANE • LONDON, W1J 7QY • ENGLAND
Front Desk: +44-20-74093131
and was bit up by bed bugs. Hopefully after washing his clothes and vaccuuming out his suitcase outside we won’t have any come in the house.
Here are some pictures of bedbug bites and how they progress. A very painful experience that can leave scars!
I can tell you that these bed bug bites are terrible! The bites are very disgusting and very sore. I use vinegar to clear up the bites and kill the bed bugs and believe that the vinegar keeps the bedbugs of your legs. I don’t drench myself with vinegar, I just rub it on the parts of my body (legs and arms) that seem to be bitten at night.
Dear Jim,
I have bedbugs in my hair or should I say scalp. They itch so bad and hurt. I have tried lice treatments and even Malathion. Nothing works except for pulling them off my scalp. Then it bleeds and another one takes its place. I am a very clean person. I don’t know what to do. Please help me. I know this sounds strange but they have been identified as bedbugs. In desperate need of help. thank you
Hi,
My workplace is infested with bed bugs and I am constantly feeling sick and having nightmares of being in contact with bed bugs. Could you recommend in what I should do about this because its scary to have too handle mattresses, etc where bed bugs are hiding. I fear too bring them home to my family.
Nikki
Okay So a few days ago me and my sister saw a spider in our dinning room. A daddy long legs we killed it. Then the next day we got bites. I thought it was a spider, the swelling went down but the next day I got a big bite on my left leg. Just one bite not a lot. It got very swollen though, and it’s been two days but it’s still swollen and pink. If you look closely you see two little dots. Do bed bugs bite more that once? cause I only have ONE bite. Could it be bed bugs or a spider?
PLEASE LET ME KNOW!
I live alone now. I noticed one day at work that i was itching very badly on my arms back and face. I’m thinking i must have woke up like that not noticing. The bites began to swell with the scratching and i had 60 of them. They did not ooze anything out.
Then i woke up again with them on my neck and face and one on the bottom of my foot which was agonizing. my husband saw a couple of bugs on the comforter. they were little and round. they looked red to me. i squished them and they were full of blood. i called the landlord and maintenance. they had someone check (ecolab) and we found one. It looked like some of the pics above, and so do my bites.
We however found only one and no traces of anymore. (mattress, bedding, ect.) He said it wasn’t bed bugs. I’m still getting bit though. They think they are spider bites. LOl i called a pharmacist about the itching. They recommended coraid cream and benidril cream. They both work! I use them both together and the bites are shrinking and disappearing not to mention the itching subsides.
They do have mattress covers that zip the whole bed in. they are specifically for bed bugs. They kill and stop them and saves your mattress and boxspring. you can find them on these bed bug sites and at JC Pennys. I’m getting one before it gets bad and i suggest you do too. they are a little spendy but my mattress was 1,100 $ so 90.00$ to save my bed and stop being bitten is excellent relief to me! and worth the money!
After my mother gave me a mattress and box springs about a month and a half ago, my kids started getting bit. I assumed that because it was summer that it was misquotes. Then my mother-in-laws dog got fleas, so I blamed it on that too.
It wasn’t until last night that my husband actually found a bug crawling on one of our kids, when he cut the bedroom light on, he found more in the bed. He immediately took the bed and threw it away at 3 a.m. I’m so freaked out, it was the most disgusting thing in the world to me, and I’m afraid that because I live in an apartment, I won’t be able to get rid of the bed bugs.
I know that other people have been getting bit, but we all assumed that because certain tenants have pets, it was fleas. If I can’t get rid of these things, I will be packing my bags after a thorough cleaning and moving out. I’m so freaked out, I CAN NOT live with bed bugs.
I noticed my 4 month old son had 2 bright red round welts behind his ear this morning about 1/2 an inch apart and then a third red round welt on his chin. They didn’t look like they had actual bite marks in the middle though.
The bug bites were a little bit lighter in the center and also when I cleaned them with mild soap and water they were hard. They didn’t seem to be bothering him at all, even when I was washing them. They still look the same even 17 hours after I first noticed them.
Does anyone have any idea what they could be? I thought bed bugs but there isn’t the mark in the center like most of the pictures and like I said, he doesn’t seem to have any discomfort with them.
After my third night in my hotel, I woke up at 2:30am to go to the bathroom and when I came back to the bed there was little spots and smears of blood. I knew this was an indication of bed bugs. I moved over the blankets and and there were a few bed bugs, then I looked in the pillow and they were everywhere.
To make a long story short, the hotel told me that they had thought I they got rid of them in that room, and the fact that I researched them so much, I know that my room was infested with bed bugs. I took the proper precautions and made sure not to bring any bugs or eggs into my house. A few days later (which is common) the bites started to appear.
I have around 100 bites on all over my body (pretty much only where my skin was exposed at night). Some bites are horrible, some aren’t so bad. I fear them getting infected so I’m going to the doctor to get some really good itch cream and a prescription for Antibiotics just in case. What is more troubling for me is not the itching, or the bites, or the fact that I had to throw everything away, but the psychological ramifications of these critters.
I’m really scared to travel, I’m paranoid and not sleeping well. I travel a lot for my job and this just stinks. FYI, I did contact the county health dept and the Dept of Agriculture in the state I was staying in. They told me that they had reports of bed bugs in 15% of the hotels in this particular state.
My daughter just took people in overnight because their apartment had bed bugs and was being fumigated. These people slept over the house with pets and I’m wondering if there’s a chance that they could have brought the bed bugs in this house???
We have bedbugs and my 1 yr old daughter is getting ate up by them shes literally covered with bites. They sometimes need popped but they leave very small nearly invisible scars. I put off on her to try and keep them off her but it quit working after a while.
We sprayed i bet you 30 times with bayer advance and nothing, the bed bugs just get worse. My biggest concern is her I don’t want her to continue getting bit.
Does anyone have any advice on what I could do for her? we’ve had her stay with her grandmother for a month. Any advice would be great Thanks
I suspect we have bedbugs on our trailer (not at home), though I’ve found no evidence yet except for the 30 bites on me (none on my husband) that I acquired in one weekend. How have they got on to the trailer (neither of us have been near a hotel)?
I started getting bites about a week and a half. I have no evidence of blood stains or any common signs of bed bugs. I just ordered mattress and box spring encasements along with spray & dust and will be treating soon. I pulled my bed apart and I have not slept in my bed since Friday. Is there anyone out there that can help me not lose my mind?
Regarding bedbugs: Diatomaceous earth also kills bed bugs. There are rather expensive mattress and boxspring covers that also trap and kill the bugs.
It takes up to eighteen months for them to die as they can live for 18 months without feeding. They love wood for all you waterbed users so that’s where they are living.
I had 50 or so bites on my legs and arms and found one single bedbug one that’s it. They are hard to see and the larvae ones just hatched are clear so you cant see them at all. It is recommended that you have someone come to your house for an entire year to spray but throwing everything away and using diatomaceous earth worked for me.
I have been free for over a month now and the eggs hatch after 1 to 2 weeks so spray for a little longer then that.
Bedbugs itch so bad you will scratch then until you bleed; i used a brush on mine that’s how bad they bothered me. Only a 3rd of the population shows signs of being bitten. I have done my research i searched site after site for days till i found out what i needed to know.
Good luck to all of you and one thing that helps is VACUUM, VACUUM, and carpet shampoo then spray your entire house like i did. My complex is infested but for me so far so good they haven’t returned yet :)
My family and I have recently been evicted from our home of 6 years and we are now homeless. We went to our bishop and asked for help. He gave us 3 local motels to choose from and said he could pay for us to stay for a week. We chose The Ogden River Inn. I caught a bed bug and put in a cup, took it to the ER with me. They ate me up. However, neither my kids nor my husband were bit once. I want to sue this place it was disgusting. any suggestions?
Hi There,
Just thought I’d update everyone. I was scared to death that I had brought the bedbugs to my mothers house because bite marks kept appearing on me 2 weeks after staying in the hotel. I finally went to a doctor who said I was either still getting bitten or was having an allergic reaction to the bites. She started me on a round of steroids and antihistamine and it stopped. I am so relieved!!!! The marks are still on me, but getting smaller and not itching. There is hope!!!
I’ve been getting bit for about 2 months now. I washed everything in my room, threw out my mattress, box spring and pillows and bought an air mattress and new pillows. Regardless of the air mattress, I’m still getting bit!! Why? I’ve never seen a bug or their evidence. Could it be something else?
There are companies that sell a combo of Diatomaceous earth and pyrethrum that non toxically and naturally will kill bedbugs, their eggs and keep them from coming back. It works not via chemical agents, but through physically dehydrating the insect. To us it’s harmless (it’s even added to flour to prevent flour bugs), but to an insect it’s like shards of glass!!
Once you put it in all the nooks and crannies, it will remain there to continually kill them, until you sweep it up. But if it’s out of site and hidden away in cracks etc., then why would you even want to sweep it up. The ONLY precaution would be to wear a mask to protect your lungs. You should avoid breathing Diatomaceous Earth. But once it’s applied, it’s pretty heavy and shouldn’t get into the air like dust would. It pretty much stays put.
You MUST absolutely make sure you ONLY use “food grade” Diatomaceous earth, NOT the stuff that is heat treated that’s used for pool filters. If it’s heat treated or sold in a pool store and is not ‘food grade’, then it is very dangerous to ingest or breath in, PERIOD!! USE FOOD GRADE ONLY,NON HEAT TREATED! WITH THAT SAID…this stuff works like a charm for all kinds of insects, but especially well with bedbugs and fleas. It is even used internally to kill parasites in livestock and humans.
The following is a definition of the two:
“Pyrethrum is a natural insecticide from the flowers of chrysanthemum. Insects HATE the stuff and it not only kills them dead, it repels them also. Totally non toxic to us.”
diatomaceous earth is the following:
A friend of mine learn that he has bed bugs and he has been going crazy, he called me late this evening (morning) asking me what he could do, being he don’t have access to a computer I went searching and I am so glad that I had found this place. I returned his call and gave him some useful information from all of the suggestions I found here.
I also suggested that he is to make up a paste of Baking Soda and apply to the bites before he starts scratching the bitten area. Otherwise the baking soda will only burn if the skin is broken.
I have used Baking Soda for spider bites, bee stings and flea bites for years this has works wonders for me. If you care to try to it and withstand the itching without scratching yourself to death, then mix Baking Soda with Hot Water into a paste, apply to bitten area, let stand for 15 minutes, rinse in hot water, repeat this two more times.
The Baking Soda zaps out the poison or neutralize it. You are not left with a scar from constant itching plus the itching is gone.
I hope this helps everyone out there and as for my friend…he decided to sleep in his bath tub.
This is our first encounter with bed bugs. I never knew what they were but had always heard the saying. Anyway, about 3 months ago, I started getting the worst mosquito bites. I had never had them before and they itched like crazy. They were also much bigger and lasted forever. Then, these bites started turning into little red bumps like the pictures shown here.
Right now my arms have little bumps, scabs, and scars from where I had been scratching. Needless to say, I have figured out that these were bed bugs. I finally realized that I only itched at night, in bed and not during the day.
My husband has not been bitten and we are sleeping in the same bed. We traced back to when I first started noticing the bites and it occurred around the same time my husband helped a friend move into a new place. This friend was moving because he had bed bugs and couldn’t get rid of them. Anyway, yesterday we took the mattress and box springs to the dump.
We finally put two and two together Sunday morning when my husband and I were brushing our teeth in the bathroom and I noticed this bug crawling around in his hair. We took it out and sure enough, it was a bed bug! EWW! So, our bedroom and closet are completely empty.
We have bagged all of our laundry and bedding and we are in the process of washing it. We are sleeping on a blowup mattress in the living room. I got down on my hands and knees and vacuumed the carpets and he steam cleaned them. We moved the dressers out to the garage. When we moved the dressers away from the wall, there were these black dots left on the wall. So gross.
I called Orkin today and they are going to come and give us an estimate. I’m glad other people are experiencing this because my mother thinks we are these awful dirty people, but we aren’t. I am scared though because I saw one bug come out from the socket in our bedroom and I am afraid our baby and two toddlers are going to be bitten eventually. I have inspected their rooms and have not seen anything.
What is funny is that months ago when I started getting the bites, my husband lifted up the mattress and vacuumed it all over and we never saw anything at that time. I am hoping this works but thanks for all of the tips. I am willing to try anything at this point.
I was staying in a hotel for 3 days with my husband and daughter. My husband had a business trip that coincided with moving my daughter into her dorm room. On the third night I woke up at 4am and saw a bug on my daughters pillow. I threw it in the toilet and when I came back out I saw another bug. Alarm bells went off then and I picked up her pillow and sure enough there were bed bugs and also streaks of blood.
I flipped out and called the front desk. We were asked if we wanted clean sheets or a new room. We packed up and left the hotel and traveled 30 minutes down the road to my mothers house. We washed our clothes at a laundromat, but I didn’t think to check our bodies, hair or clothing we were wearing.
The hotel did give us the money for new suitcases.
It is now 2 weeks later and a week ago I started getting bites on my arms and legs. my daughter also has bites in her dorm room. I have no idea if we brought the bugs now into my mothers place and my daughters dorm room or if these bites are appearing from the hotel. Please help!!!
I’m ready to have a nervous breakdown. I woke up this morning to three more bites on my leg. I’m a nervous wreck and not sleeping at night. What do I do???
Jim,
How do people cope with bed bug bites. I have been dealing with bites now for three days. My doctor put me on all sorts of antibiotics itch stuff steroids for the inflammation and benadryl. Nothing seems to do anything. I don’t even want to leave my home. I live in Phoenix Arizona and I am at the point to where I am wearing long sleeves and pants and scarves to hide the bites when I do leave my home. This is unlike anything I have ever dealt with and again I am really trying to figure out how people cope with this problem. Which leads to my next question how long before the bites go away even with the treatment and a new bed?
Thanks Jim
Hello,
I have a quick question regarding how to kill bedbugs. Diatomaceous Earth sounds promising but what about Boric Acid? Could this also help, what if I use both together? The bedbugs are in the baseboard behind the head of my bed and in the wall, so i feel that some heavy duty chemicals are needed since they are in such a difficult place. Please Help! Thanks
This is a more recent obsession. There is somewhat of a bedbug pandemic in the area of Brooklyn and Manhattan but I can definitely understand. The fear that is more than justifiable, is irrational to everyone else, I’m dealing with a diagnosis of OCD and retarded doctors (not really an oxymoron).
I’ve been staying awake at night picking away at balls of lint on anything fabric,and have slept on a vinyl couch after I decided to tear up the carpet in the main bedroom. I also began over washing clothing and bedding and scouring my skin, pretty much completely off, it doesn’t help that I am heavily tattooed and am having difficulty in determining whether the raised areas over my arms are a recurring allergic reaction from the pigment in the ink or bites.
I haven’t seen any of them in action, or found evidence other than the existing bites but I’m convinced I’ve come in contact with either scabies or bedbugs, not really sure how or when, which is even more terrifying, the avoidant behavior is getting progressively worse and I’m starting to withdraw from my dorming friends and public upholstery.
I’m too afraid to look at pictures of any actual infestation because it will definitely exacerbate the psycho schematic episodes. I apologize for the ramble, but the fact that something could be both internally and dermatologically destroying me is debilitating, I also work in an office and i have been coating my cubicle with an antimicrobial sanitizer, the janitor and I have become bffls, but to my colleagues I now look, not only like a psycho, but a kleptomaniac for the unexplained copious bottles sitting under my desk.
I’m surrounded by ignorant people in denial, including my roommate who likes drinking the thrift shop and my father, a brooklyn sanitation worker who believes he is indestructible until a proper diagnosis and a good CBT, this phobia is incurable.
I went camping with a group of friends this weekend at a KOA in La Selva Beach, CA near Watsonville. My friend that slept on the bottom bunk the first night complained that she was up all night and could not sleep because she said it felt like there were spiders on her. Friday night she slept in my SUV outside and I took the bottom bunk thinking she was just being paranoid.
Sunday morning I woke up at 2 AM to something crawling around on my neck. Immediately I assumed it was a spider and I smacked my neck to try to kill it. I felt liquid, smelled blood, jumped out of bed, and threw on the light to discover this image!
It was an adult BEDBUG!!!
I had blood on my fingers and my shoulder and found 8 bites around my neck. I woke up our friends in the cabin next door and they said they did not think their cabin was infested so they stayed. Everyone in my cabin was so disgusted that we packed up and left at 3 AM. One of my friends took a few photos of the bedbug and my bites.
I am being bitten in bed and my two favorite chairs. I can’t find bugs, there are not bites on my body where I feel the bite or sting. I tried raid and it stopped for less than a day. Now I use the personal clip on pest things and no more bites. Hate the smell of those clip on things. I want to get rid of the bed bugs but can’t find out what they are.
My son has some blotchy red bites around his shoe line no bigger then a dime but they are grouped together roughly 5 within a 4 inch area I’ve tried looking up bites but haven’t seen anything close to it we live in middle Georgia. there is no sores on them were i can see a actual bite mark. do you have any links you could provide where i could compare and contrast.
Dear Bedbug man,
I have been waking up in the morning with bites for quite some time now. Sometimes I have the sensation of something crawling on me. I was doing some research on your page a couple of weeks ago and thought for sure it must be bedbugs. So (slightly freaking out) I stripped my (brand new) mattress, checked it over really well, washed all our bedding and the dog’s bedding in hot water, vacuumed my bed frame (also brand new) but I could NOT find any signs of bedbugs.
I’ve included pictures of the bites below, they include
1. Left breast
2. Left forearm (also have 5 bites on my upper arm, same side)
3. left hip
4. Back of right leg (from a previous attack)
No bugs or bug poop in the cording, or floor, or within the wooden slats of my bed frame. None in my side table, under the drawers, or behind the headboard. So I’m not sure what it is, but this morning I woke up with the worst case of bites so far.
What you think.
Thank you,
Cory
Hi,
I have a lot of bites, mostly on my legs. I started noticing them shortly after going to bed Saturday night (writing this on Wednesday). My legs started itching; so, I got and turned on the light. I had some tiny bites around my ankles as you can see in the picture below.
I pulled back the sheets, even the fitted sheet and mattress cover. I found nothing, no bugs, no feces, no stains. Here’s the strange part. I wanted to see what was biting me; so, I got back in bed and left the light on and the sheets off. After a short time, I felt a pin prick. I looked and saw nothing. I touched the spot and there was a very small, red, welt. This happened quite a few times before I finally fell asleep.
I never did see anything actually biting me. For that reason, I’m questioning if I really have bed bugs. My bites look similar to the ones in Lei’s picture (October 10th, 2008). I don’t think I’ve had any new bites since Saturday.
The last time I was in a hotel was 5 weeks ago. I did go on an all day hike that Saturday. I wore jeans and hiking boots. I know it’s not poison ivy. There was a very short stretch through tall grass. Is it possible that I picked up something too tiny to see while hiking? Any ideas?
Thanks,
Sharon
A few months ago I started noticing weird red bumps on my right hand and arm and I mentioned to my boyfriend that was happening and then I wake up today and they are everywhere, all over me and I itch all over!
Reading all of these experiences on here I think that I am right. We are moving in a few weeks and I am concerned and do not want to bring bed bugs with us. it might be bed bugs and he thought I was crazy. Well it kept weird little bumps on, not sure if they are bed bug bites or not…
Hi Jim! We just discovered that we have bedbugs at our apartment loft. My 1 yr old son and I have been getting bites for the past 4 weeks, before we identified the culprit.
Coincidentally, we are moving in about 5 weeks. What can I do to make sure that I don’t bring these suckers with me? How should I decide which items in my home I should treat or toss before I pack them up? Should I be concerned about bugs hiding in books, boxes, furniture other than beds & sofas?
Here’s what I plan to do – (please tell me if I’m missing something):
1. Hire professional exterminator to assess and treat the problem.
2. Cover my mattress with a plastic cover, and throw it away when we move.
3. Apply DE & neem oil liberally.
4. Wash, dry clean, or toss all clothing, linens and stuffed animals.
5. Purchase a new mattress, new metal bedframe, new pillows, and new bedding for my new place.
What else can I do? Thank you! I do NOT want to bring these critters to our new apartment!
Hi Jo,
I doubt that with all the precautions you have taken, you managed to bring anything back; it sounds like you were on top of everything and even if one did manage to sneak a free plane ride, it wouldn’t cause that many bites.
A week is a bit long, but not unheard of, for a delayed reaction, so if you find new bites, then most likely, you are indeed being bitten by something.
Do you have any pictures of the bites?
Best regards,
Jim
I have recently joined the cult of bed bug paranoia, please help. Recently, I visited a few friends in NYC who happened to have bed bugs. The apartment was sprayed twice while I was there and I followed all the policies in bagging up my belongings and washing/drying them on high heat. Additionally, the moment I got home, I stripped down in the laundry room and shoved everything into the washer. I even froze the books I brought with me and unscrewed everything on my laptop just to be safe.
During my stay with these friends, I didn’t experience a single bite (though a few of them did), but the moment I got on the plane, I noticed four itchy red bumps on my arm. For the next few days after (it’s been five now) I keep finding a few and now my right arm is covered in small bumps, both isolated and clustered, and I have a couple elsewhere (though most of those have stopped).
Yesterday, I moved from home to my dorm room in college. The sheets I use have all been in storage all summer and were not in NYC or home in AZ with me, but I still woke up with two bites on my arm.
I thought I did everything to prevent an infestation. Is it significant that none of these bites showed up until after I left New York? Does this mean I simply have delayed reactions and am only starting to see the bites I received there now?
I’m amazed that these bugs could find and bite me in the one night I got here when all the bedclothes were new… But… is it possible? for them to survive all those preventative measures?
I feel like I’m going crazy. I can’t concentrate, I can’t sleep. I just want some way of knowing for sure whether or not I managed to bring some back with me.
My friend is having me keep his cat while he gets exterminated? Will i end up with bed bugs?
HELP!
Approximately 48 hours ago I noticed what I think are bug bites of some type on both of my legs and shoulders. The following morning I had 70+ bites. Below are the pictures I have taken today.
The bites seems to have a little bit of a blister at the center and are approximately dime size. The bites on my legs are now turning in to what looks like bruising.
Tonight when I get home from work I’ll be searching to see if I can find any bed bugs and/or blood stains on my bedding. I AM FREAKING OUT!!!
I live in Colorado.Until the last like 5 years, I haven’t heard, or had to DEAL with bed bugs. Now I have had to deal with them TOO much. In at least 4 of the last 6 places I’ve lived. Some worse than others. I don’t know if they like women’s blood better, or if women put out more carbon dioxide, but I’ve found that my fiance, and other men that have been around during these infestations, have either not gotten bitten at all, or very very little.
I don’t get it. All I know is that I’m SO TIRED OF THEM. I currently have them in my apartment now. I just killed 2 adults today. After they had already bit me of course. The landlord has had people come and spray, but I’ve lived here over a year and they’ve only sprayed 2 times. From what I know, you need to keep spraying. I don’t know.
I get so tired of walking around with bites that are visible, and having people ask me what they are. Since it is summer now, I just say that they are mosquito bites, but that wont last long. I just want them GONE. So I suppose I’ll do whatever I need to to try to get rid of them. I PRAY to GOD that it works. I know my fiance is also tired of hearing me complain about my bites, since it seems he doesn’t get bit. lol.
I’ll look more into what I can do myself in order to get rid of them. The professionals, I know, have a hard time getting rid of them, admittingly. I’m not a “dirty” person, but having them makes me feel dirty. The stigma that is associated with them, and when people overhear that I might or do have them. They look at me like I’m nasty, which I am not. Its not my fault that I have them. But I hope it IS in my control to get RID OF THEM.
I have the same kind of bites as the other Emily who shows the pics.. I too have no signs of any bugs, not even blood spots. I thought they were fleas (even tho i have no pets) so i bombed every room in my house and cleaned from top to bottom and vacuumed my bed. The worse part is, I’m the only one getting these bites. My boyfriend and our 2 toddlers are bite-free! I don’t know what to do and I’m sooo itchy and sooo miserable…
Hi Jim,
Our granddaughter, who has severe allergies–numbers off the charts–and severe excema, started manifesting these weird bumps about four weeks ago. She would arrive back at our house from her father’s scratching much more intensively than I had seen her doing before.
Here are some pictures and if you click on the picture, you will get a close up of the legs.
There would be clusters of little bumps and varying degrees of larger ones and some quite red and hot, some with peaks in them, some looking like a boil. They seem to run a course and eventually turn into just little flat purplish places, kind of like a scar.
She has the spots mostly on her legs, the worst ones, anyway and on her arms but none on her back and stomach. We wonder why they don’t show up on those areas if they are bed bug bites, but her spots sure look like many of the pictures on your site.
Is there some way to verify for certain what is biting her?
Liz in Indiana
8/28/09 – Update…
Turns out these weren’t bug bites at all, but a nasty Staph infection! A heavy duty barrage of antibiotics and other treatments ordered by the doc is making headway against it. This is nothing to fool around with as there is a high risk of MRSA–the bacteria resistant nasty stuff!! Liz
I am really having a problem coping with this problem..I’m also going through depression and this isn’t helping me at all..If you have any suggestions please e-mail me,thank you..Jim
so i guess the mystery is NOT solved :( i went back to the doctor because was i MISERABLE even after eliminating the contact with the carpet beetles or whatever. they said that it was “odd” and they wanted to treat for scabies just to rule it out even tho they weren’t convinced that’s what it is. they said to use the cream treatment and bag everything for 2 days and if i still have new spots on Monday morning to call and get a referral for a dermatologist. SIGH. any other suggestions or ways to make this more comfortable would be greatly appreciated.
and TONI – you would have LOTS of bites. at least more than one. if you have just one it is probably a spider/mosquito bite
would you only see one bite or would you see more then one bite. do they only bite once at a time.
Have you heard anything about the hotels in Montreal, specifically the Quality Hotel (midtown & Downtown),
If you know of a bug free hotel list that would be a great help in making reservations. Thanks
MY BUG MYSTERY IS SOLVED!!!!! Thanks so much for your help. In my quest to find bedbugs, I discovered Carpet Beetles. Then I gave up because I read that they do not bite. Then I found more “bites” so I continued my online quest for information.
I have learned that they do not bite but cause allergic reactions that RESEMBLE bedbug bites!! Who would have thought?! It also explains why I have “bites” and no one else here does, because I have very sensitive skin and lots of allergies.
My suggestion to all of you out there that think you have bedbugs but can’t find them, check deep down in ur carpets along the baseboards – in any room. Also look up the life cycle of a carpet beetle bc they completely morph through their life. That way you will know what to look for.
Best of luck to you all! I feel ur pain!
Hi Stefany,
Have you gone through my bedbug checklist to see if there are any signs of bed bugs?
It’s hard to tell if those are bed bug bites or not, but they do resemble them. Without proof of bugs, it’s hard to tell.
Set your alarm clock for 4:00am and use a flashlight to check your area, they are most active during this time.
Once you find out what is biting, you can come up with a plan of attack!
Please, keep us posted on your efforts!
Thanks,
Jim
I went to urgent care yesterday because I couldn’t take it anymore! They gave me an antibiotic to take and told me to put cortaid on it 2 times a day but I’m still MISERABLE. I can’t sleep, I can’t sit still and I woke up this morning with MORE BITES! I don’tunderstand. please help me :(
I have 20 plus lesions all over my legs and a couple on my arms. i thought they were mosquito bites because that’s what they look like and they itch like CRAZY. i have one on my elbow that has swollen and hardened the skin to almost 2 inches across.
On my thigh i have a long line, almost 3 inches long but it is one single bump, not lots of small ones. the big one on my elbow and a group of 4 the back of my calf has pus yellow/orange/clear liquid.
My mom and i have been sharing a bed for 5 days and she doesn’t have a single bite. any suggestions? I have included some pictures below:
I have tried Tylenol / benadryl / triple antibiotic ointment and nothing seems to help. the Tylenol takes the edge off the itch but nothing makes it go away – even for a short time
PLEASE HELP
I am almost certain we had bed bugs this spring-had Orkin out and they did a through job. But…I seem to have an on going skin irritation. mostly on my legs where the majority of the bites were. Seems to crop up in different places.
Itching, red spots.Legs still itch-good if I put a lotion on containing medera but if something rubs them or I slightly itch it becomes intense again. Can someone have something in their system from being bitten? Dr visit helpful? If so should it be a dermatologist?
Hi,
I woke up to find myself with these bites. Can you tell from the bug bite pictures below if they are bed bugs or something else?
Thanks,
Melinda
I think I have bed bugs. I have gotten bites for the past few days, always several in a row that really itch. I have not been anywhere to bring them in. Nobody else in my family is being bothered. I have searched with a lighted magnifying glass and seen nothing. I am so obsessed that I wake up in the middle of the night and search the bed and see nothing. I have washed all the bedding in hot water and put the pillows in the dryer. I have used the shop vac to really suck up the carpet, which is brand new. My mattress is only about 5 years old. I need help! I am so freaked out.
Here’s an update to my last post. I had asked the manager at the Inn for a new pillow since the pillow in my room was stained. I also asked if I could be compensated for the annoyance. He informed me that I would be defrauding the company I work for since the room is payed by them.
We just checked out of the hotel and he phoned me to inform me that the exterminator found nothing. He told me then that I brought a flea into the hotel with me. Because I am the first complaint ever. He blamed me. Ha ha. I guess making me stay quiet wasn’t an option for him. He’d rather lose a lot of business from us. Btw. What is the best way to stop the itching?
I recently have been staying in an hotel in high river Alberta, Canada. I have been waking up to bites. I have 40 on my hands and forearms alone, see the picture below for details.
I am still in the room, however changing rooms any minute now. The manager said he can do nothing else for me. Ha ha. I guess a bad rep for his care in handling the situation will be my gift to him. We stay here a lot. We have spent thousands in his hotel and restaurant alone in the last 7 days. Thanks for all the info and stories. Hope you all get help with your bed bugs and I am praying I don’t bring min home.
A small heads up too, I had them at my old house pretty bad.
Spraying them with alcohol kills them on contact, but make sure you find their eggs and dispose of them.
Also, if you sleep with your mouth open at night, that gives you 4x the chance of getting bit due to their attraction to carbon dioxide.
I have been getting bites on my arms and hands for several years, but thought they were from spiders. The bites look like the bed bite pictures on your web site. I can’t find any evidence of bed bugs. I have even switched bedrooms, but they continued, and no one else in the family gets bitten. The bites have scarred, and I still can’t stop the bites. How can I get rid of them for good?
Hi,
I have just come to United States for my further studies. I never had allergy or any kind of skin problems. It took me months to figure out that all marks on my body were due to bugs and not any allergy to water or lotion. I cannot sleep at all because of this bites. I have to wear jeans and long sleeve tops as my legs look horrible with those marks.. I am mentally sick of this now…
I fell asleep on the couch the other day and when I woke up, I had reddish dots on my face. I’m not sure whether or not these are pimples or bug bites. My mom thought they were spider bites but said it might be I’m scrubbing to hard when I wash my face (Which I doubt it is).
I just found this site too, and I’m becoming paranoid if there’s bed bugs. I have 5 reddish dots on my nose in a group, 3 on my left cheek, 4 on my right cheek, and one near my chin. If they are bug bites of some sort do you have any tips on how to get them to go away?
I had bed bugs in my house, so we sprayed and I still got bit. Then we sprayed again and by this time I moved into my mother-in-laws house because I couldn’t heal and they were driving me nuts!
I only took what was necessary and washed all my clothes in hot hot hot water, I went out of town last weekend and washed all my clothes again before I came back into the house. I haven’t got bit until this morning, but the bite is different, it has two bite holes in it.
Is this just a spider bite? Because all of my other bites are healing and I only got this one and its in my inner thigh.
Can I also just say…… JIM! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! for this site. :o) You are so caring, informative, and not out to sell us something like all the other sites that I have found. I’m not sure if anybody has ever thanked you as I have read a lot on your site and haven’t seen any thank you posts, so I just wanted to take the time to tell you how informative and helpful your sites is and again how caring you are to those of us crying out for help. HUGS!
FYI…. those bed bug covers for the mattress and box spring ONLY save your mattress & box spring but the bed bugs can and DO live in the creases of the plastic covers. I originally covered my son’s mattress & box spring with a cover that had plastic on the inside but had cloth on the outside.
It seemed to work but then 3 months later the bites started again. I looked and low and behold, they were there again. I then got the more expensive covers that were ALL plastic. Again, it seemed to work but then a couple months later, during a periodic check, I found 3 to 4 adult bugs living in the creases of the plastic boxsrping cover. Sigh. Again, I vaccumed and cleaned the mattress & boxspring covers then about 2 months later, I began getting bites.
I sleep on the couch. Staying awake one night, out came the bugs. Grrrr! I’m still fighting them and seem to be losing the battle. When I pulled apart my son’s bed about 10 days ago to put the DE, I foudn 1 adult bug on the carpet under the bed, no bugs on the cover but did see bug poop. I vaccumed & cleaned everything and put the DE everywhere. Sadly, they seem to be coming fast and furious in the living room. When I get my disability check on the 1st, I’, going to double my attack by purchasing a steamer and use it WITH the DE.
Knock on wood, I pray they stay away from my baby. My heart just breaks when I see the bites on his little arms and legs. :o( I wish and pray that somebody would come up with an easy, non expensive, nonpoisonous(I have 2 cats), sure fire way to kill these darn things quickly.
Hi I have a one year old daughter who, about 2 months ago developed what looked to be misquito bites . We then thought they might be flea bites because we have dogs and a cat who are always infested with fleas.
Yesterday my mother mentioned that they might be bed bugs and she is just getting a terrible reaction to the bites. We ripped up the mattress today (which was over 4 years old). We never really ever saw the bed begs but when she sleeps elsewhere besides the crib, she does not seem to get bit and she sleeps like a baby, which she did not when she was in the crib. She is only one but she knows she is getting bit in that room, in that bed.
Does anyone else think that these could be bed bugs? Because no one else is getting bit but her. Thanks for your help.
Those of you who have wood bed frames, I got rid of mine and purchased a metal bed frame. I also got rid of my mattress and put it in a mattress enclosure that’s bug proof, yes they do make them.
Buy fly paper, usually comes in a pack of 5. Unravel one pack, it does have a knack of curling back up, at the base of each bed frame leg and up about 2 or 3 inches, wrap each leg twice around making sure the overlap of fly paper is smoothed out and is sticking to each other. Do this on each remaining 3 legs of the bed frame. Check every couple of days to make sure fly paper is still sticking to the frame and not curling back up. The fly paper was designed to catch flies, small and large, it will catch and hold bed bugs.
As to the above comments, that bed bugs hate plastic and smooth metal surfaces, this is another reason to switch to a metal bed frame, but when starved for food the bed bugs will at least try to climb any surface. So far after two years I have had no bed bugs bites after years of suffering.
Hope this helps and good luck…
hi um i have a little brother and he woke up with some bed bug bites. Do these bites have any health hazards on a 9 month old baby? would it be a good idea to fumigate the house? thanks
So I have a new significant other and about 2 weeks of staying there I noticed a few little red bumps that itched like crazy on my neck and a few on my fore arms. Well everyday since then they have seemed to have gotten worse. She has 3 kids and none of them nor her have ever had this issue before.
I am terrified that I am some circus freak! I have been to 2 different doctors and they just say its hives and give me steroids and anti itch stuff or tell me to take zertec. My significant other doesn’t seem to believe that these are bed bug bites but I know I am not imagining what I am seeing on here by the way of pictures and then comparing it to myself and they are identical.
I have never seen a bug in her bed or on the couch but then again i have never thoroughly looked either. I have yet ANOTHER doctor’s appointment for the dermatologist hopefully he can diagnose me correctly so that she will take whatever precautions she needs to to get them out of her house so that I can stay the night there again. I just want to stop looking like this and itching so flippin much!!
do these bedbug bites cause a small scab without being scratched or do they just react like a mosquito bite?
I know we’ve had bed bugs but I thought we’d narrowed down the problem and extinguished it for the most part. Then I bought a new sofa – brand new! I think it came with bugs of some sort. Anyone who stays up really late watching tv or spends hours on the sofa seems to get bit but I haven’t found one bug. I thought it might be an allergic reaction but it doesn’t seem so. I’ve discovered it could be itchy mites – maybe since the sofa was from the east coast. I don’t know but its embarrassing when its brand new furniture. Don’t give up the fight!
I stayed in a hotel in London for 2 nights, 9 days ago. On the morning we came to leave, my friend (who had been staying in a room 2 doors down) was covered in bed bug bites. Myself and my partner thought our room was not affected because we had no bites and didn’t see any tell tale signs.
Nevertheless when we got home i took my friend’s advice and took all the precautions, washing all our laundry and tumble drying, and keeping our luggage away from the bedroom etc. Have also laundered all our bedding on hot.
However the last 3 mornings I have woken up with bites (not many- 10 the first morning, 5 the next and 2 or so today). I think they are bed bug bites looking at the pictures on here.
Help! Could it be that they have only just appeared from the 2 nights in the hotel? Or is it more likely that I have brought bed bugs back home? Did anyone else have bites that look this long to come up? I can’t find any bugs or blood marks in the bedroom so I can’t tell if they are here or not!!
Thanks
I moved Feb 15th from a condo apt upstairs to another one downstairs 3 months later i was noticing some bites but thought nothing of it till it formed into a rash. Thinking an allergic reaction to something but only on one side of my body until one morning i woke up at 4am feeling something crawling on me. I jumped up, got my flash light and low and behold there they were!
My room was infested with bed bugs! I had the apartment sprayed 3 times already and went through great expense throwing away bed, pillows, doctors visit, etc, etc.. This amounted to almost $1,000!
What rights do i have as a tenent to get my money back seeing as these bugs were here waiting for someone to move in. Now, i still have them and my kid is getting bit! arggh please respond ty
I’m not sure if I have bed bugs but what i do know is that the past two nights i have gone to bed and awoke with these bites:
They are very red, about an inch and a half in diameter, they were just red but they soon turn Purple or blackish in the middle! I’ve only had them for the last 3 days!
Have you had any bed bug bites that look like this?
What do the blood spots look like? Will they be on my sheets or just the mattress?
I haven’t found any bugs! i really thought they were spider bites but i went back to sleep last night and awoke with 1 more bite! I probably have 3 or 4 bites total!
Someone Please Help! What do you think? I feel creepy crawly
My mom and I were outside weeding in the flower beds for about 2 hours. At the end of the day we both noticed that we had a few bug bites that were making us itch. The bites are on our back and stomach and a few on the upper arm.
The next morning we both agreed that we noticed new bumps/bites popping up and that they all had a hole in the center of the half inch red and swollen areas. My moms bites have turned into bruises and have been keeping her awake at night because of the itching. I am now experiencing soreness in my stomach muscles which I guess is from all the scratching?
We have been using Z extra which the pharmacist recommended and a solution of vinegar and baking soda. Seems that the vinegar and baking soda works better than the Z extra? No headaches or nausea though? Not sure what the heck got us but UGH are we miserable! Will check with the doctor Monday!
What a itchy fourth of July this has been.
Jen in Kentucky
Does anybody know of anything that will help with the itch from a bed bug?
I live in pittsfield Massachusetts. i began itching and breaking out in a rash which appeared to be poison ivy or oak, i went to the emergency room, and they told me it was poison oak.
They obviously misdiagnosed me. two days later the “poison oak” started to turn into what appeared to be hives, i returned to the emergency room and they again misdiagnosed me and said i had hives. The next day several people that live in the seven floor building that i am currently residing in told me that the building was infested by bed bugs. I then returned to my apartment and looked at the box spring and seen BEDBUGS scattering.
I was eaten alive and the building did not warn any of us in the building that several other apartments were infested now our apartment is infested and we have to wait over a week for the exterminator, we are in federal housing and they refuse to pay for a place for us to stay while we wait.
Everyday that goes by the bed bugs are multiplying. i can not even find a anti itch cream or antihistamine that takes the itch away or that will even ease it am still covered up in itchy bites and welts.
Hi, my mom and dad have bed bugs in their bed spring that they had for 11 years, should they throw it out?
Hello!
I just discovered what I think are bed bugs, after having had mosquito-like bites popping up on my body, at random times every day, for about 2 months now. I couldn’t find any mosquito’s nor other insects, but after I’ve informed myself about these bed bugs, I started to look for them and found 3 this morning. I scanned them in and attached the pictures below.
Are these bed bugs? Do bed bugs have wings? At one point I crushed them, to see if there was any blood, but I could only see some creamy substance (insects blood) coming out of their bottoms. As you can see on the picture above.
Thanks in advance, and hopefully these pictures are helpful for the rest of you.
Good luck everybody!
Gijs
I believe I have a bed bug bite on my right side from about a week ago. Ever since then my stomach, back, neck face, chest and my right leg has been itching like crazy. I’ve noticed more of them but i went to the doctor and they couldn’t see anything other then small bruises from where i had been itching the most. I got atarax for itching but not helping! what do i do?
Stamford motor lodge in stamford ct is the most rank, degenerate-run hellhole I have ever seen. After 2 minutes in a room (after we had already paid in our road delirium), we tried to get our money back, then were told they have a policy where you can’t get it back if more than 5 min has passed.
The conniving clerk gave us a ‘new’ room, which reeked of what I’m certain now were pesticides, and we left and took the 70 dollar loss. In our new, cleaner-ish la quinta hotel, we smashed a blood filled bud that crawled off of me and now I’m so grossed out and furious with myself for even setting foot in that nasty, mean spirited dump with mean, lying employees and a major bed bug infestation! Don’t stay there (why would one stay anywhere like that without thoroughly inspecting the bed!)
I’ve had these bed bug bites and have a total of five!! and for three days now!
they are sooooooooooooo Itchy and I can’t stop itching!
This is the first time this has happened and I hope it doesn’t happen again!
How long does it take for bed bug bites to heal?
Unknown,
Where were you staying? Did you take any pictures? Can you take some pictures and I’ll make sure to post them – perhaps once they are up on the site the management will have a different attitude!
Good luck!
hi for the past three months or more I’ve been getting random bites all over my body, but not every day sometimes two to three time a week. same with everyone else in my house what do you think it is. don’t bedbugs bite every night?
I’m currently staying at a hotel and have been here for a a little over two months, one night we saw bed bugs in our room. I went and talked to the front desk the next morning and they said they would move us into another room and after remodeling our room they would move us back into the same room. We moved that day.
The next morning I woke up with bed bug bites on my face, back, legs, stomach and ankles. They itched so bad :-( I have never had an itch like this before. I talked to the manager and showed him the bites. His response was i don’t understand how this happen and you’ve been here all this time.
We stayed in that room waiting for the the other room to be completed. In the mean time since being in the room they moved us to for almost a week, I was still getting bit by bedbugs every night. I went to the doctor who confirmed they were bed bug bites and I told this to the hotel management again and he said after the other room has been complete, he will have it inspected for bugs and then move us back into the room. In the meantime I’m still being bit by bugs every night.
Finally I decided to look for the bugs in the room since I had not seen them in there yet but have been waking up with new bites everyday. I raised the mattress and box spring of the bed and saw the bugs on the box spring. I then called the front desk and asked was the other room ready yet, I also asked the desk clerk to come upstairs so I could show her the bugs. She saw the bugs and went down stairs telling me to come get the key to the other room.
Then with a nasty attitude said the other room has been inspected and if you receive bites again there’s nothing else we can do for you. I asked to talk to the manager and he said with an attitude we have never had this happen and I can not extend your stay at the end of the week you have to leave. I was shocked at his reaction.
This was a horrible experience.
Help! I’m getting attacked by these bugs, and i don’t know how to completely get rid of them!!
Yvonne gets small blister like bumps and red dot type bites that are driving her crazy with the itching. Do these sound like bed bug bites?
We are on the road all the time together as we drive a truck long-haul, the trouble with diagnosing whether it is bed bugs is she is the only one getting bitten and the only one with the small blisters and bites,, and the only one itching all the time.
If it is bed bugs why is she the only one being affected. Any help or suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated. Thank-you.
Jeff and Yvonne
Are these bed bug bites?
At first i thought it was fleas from my dog but its on my belly and arms too, but not big welts like the ones behind my leg as in the pictures to the left.
I’m confident these bites are not from anything associated with my dog and am worried they might be bed bug bites.
I hope someone can help me!
Jim,
About 1 week ago I woke up at home with a cluster of bites on my stomach. Then I had some on my back and they keep popping up every day – I find some new ones. They don’t itch – the mostly hurt.
We moved into a new home with hardwood floors about 6 weeks ago and have no animals. We trimmed our trees outside and when I first saw these bites, thought they were spider bites. We had an exterminator come out and there are no signs of bed bugs – but he suggested mites or spiders.
Meanwhile, we did get rid of our bed set and are getting a new one. Ortho states that they have memory foam in their mattresses and that bed bugs don’t like the foam – is there any truth to this?
Also, if I’m not itching all that much – but the spots are red and continue to show up over time – do you think these could still be bedbugs? They are mostly on my left side around my stomach and mid back. Any help from you would be appreciated. Looking for an answer.
Susan
I am staying in a hotel and on the third or so day I found a couple of bites. I assumed they were mosquitoes and though nothing of it. The following day I had even more and by the fifth day I had probably around 30-40 bites.
I had the hotel change my room and wash all my clothes. They inspected the original room and didn’t find anything (though I think they simply did not look hard enough). I have been in my room for about three days and new bites keep forming. my question is, could this be still showing up from the earlier infestation or are they in this room too?
I have heard that it can take up to 9 days for bites to appear. If this is the case should I be expecting new bites for the next week even if the room I am in is clear?
I’m a home attendant and was at a client’s home over night. I sat and slept in a couch. One night i went home, took a shower, went to bed woke up itching like crazy. When i looked behind my arm i saw reddened area and a lot of other smaller bumps. i went to emergency they said it was allergic reaction to food.
So i went back to work not knowing that when i woke up the next morning the same thing now on my hands. any where i was exposed there were bites. i am so afraid that i have brought them home with me. My sister gets bites in her room she thinks its mosquitoes i just don’t know.
Okay, I have had bed bugs before, but can’t remember what the babies look like. I am wondering because a woman gave me a baby bed for my son, and the mattress had some insect crawling around the edges of it, but they didn’t look like bed bugs.
Theses were not round like bed bugs they were longer, but very small, like maybe the size of a chigger. Regardless I threw the mattress away and I inspected the frame and everything else and didn’t find any eggs.
Should I trow the frame away as well?
These bed bugs have invaded my scalp! I have developed huge sores from scratching them…at first we thought it was lice on my head, so I tried the two treatments of rid x without luck. A picture of one from my head is shown below:
I called my doctor and he said to try the nix, so I tried two runs of it and still no luck. Went to the doctor again and he gave me a cortisone shot and some itching pills.
We have exterminated and threw away a lot of items, I’ve tried neem oil, shampoo, Listerine, Vaseline, lavender oil, vinegar and even sprayed my scalp with insecticide yet I still have bed bugs!
They are driving me INSANE!!!!!!…so PLEASE….if anyone has any solutions out there they would be greatly appreciated!
My niece is only 2 years old were not sure if she got bit by a spider or a bedbug.But its in 4 swollen places. We had her dad look at it but at the time it wasn’t swollen so he said it was nothing.
After awhile it got bigger so we put ice on it to see if it would go down. It’s yellow on the outside and a red ring going around it. Her dad said if she feels light headed or running a fever let me know. She said she felt hot but she wasn’t that hot, then she said it hurt really bad and she started to scream an jump. Her leg is almost fully swollen.
What should we do?
I am the unhappy owner of an infestation, and have been on the net, trying to figure out what to do. Apparently, I have had these bed bugs for a couple of months. Was localized to my daughter’s room, but we thought it was mosquito bites, so she moved to the couch!!! Now, the bugs are in my $4000 overstuffed sectional, which is just over a year old.
HELP!! I steamed it and that helped for about a week. Should I just keep steaming? I have the mattress covers, I bought the goodnight spray, I kill them whenever I see one. But I can’t afford what the exterminator is asking. And I certainly can’t afford to ditch my couch. Any suggestions for getting the bed bugs out of my couch?
I have been having problems since last Nov. The nasty things came from the apartment downstairs and are in the walls. Both places have been sprayed a minimum 10 times. The landlords are sick of me telling them I am getting bit. I have done more than required to take care of my end of it.
I have gotten to the point I don’t want to even come home. I definitely cringe at the thought of even going to bed. My cat stopped sleeping on my bed after a month of getting bit. I have had around 300 bites so far. I hope to move someday, but will have to throw most everything away in order to be sure I will not take anything with me. I have already thrown away so many items. I am very frustrated at it all.
One big mistake landlords make is when there is more than one place infected, they need to spray all apartments at the same time because the bugs just keep going up and down the walls to find fresh food. I had to keep telling the landlords what was happening but they listened with deaf ears until finally an exterminator told them. Not only do we have to fight the bugs, we also have to fight the landlords who are in total denial.
Now, they said they have sprayed so much, I need to come up with proof of a bed bug. Duh!! I have found some and my cat has found some before. But, still denial and don’t want to be bothered.
Hey everyone…hopefully someone can help me out! This has been haunting me for months.
I have been dating my boyfriend for almost 3 years now and I always sleep over at his house for a few days every week. This past December (08), I was home from college and was staying over his house as I usually do and woke up one morning covered in huge bug bites. It looked like regular mosquito bites, which I always have a bad reaction to, so I thought nothing of it until I started noticing more bites appearing throughout the day. I stayed over again the next night and got more bites. The weird thing is, they were only on the right side of my body and randomly spread out on my face, arms, chest, legs, feet. I got one bite on my left arm, but that was it. My grandmother, a nurse for over 20 years, said it was hives, but I was taking Benadryl constantly & it did nothing. Once the swelling went down, I noticed that most of the bites were actually 2 or 3 smaller bites next to each other. So I had somewhere around 20 bites on the one side of my body alone.
My boyfriend never showed a reaction like I did or as soon as I did, but he did start getting bites on him as well. I stopped staying over his house & was constantly nagging him about getting an exterminator, which never happened. This all nearly ruined our relationship, as I was afraid to go in his house or have him come to mine after reading information online about beg bugs & how easily they travel.
We’ve used double sided carpet tape around the bed, which found nothing. An exterminator came in just to look and found nothing. We’ve searched the bed and room thoroughly, numerous times, and never found anything. However, he gets up at 5am for work, so I told him to check the bed and run his hands over the sheets. He never actually saw any bugs, but he ran his hand over the bed in one spot and it left a blood streak, then again in another, and he said he saw small white bugs along with it..maybe the nymphs? (This was back in December).
He couldn’t afford any exterminators (plus he has never believed it was beg bugs), but he bagged everything up, took almost everything out of his room & washed it, cleaned everything thoroughly, and threw out his old bed & mattress, replacing it with the one from the unused room next to his. It is now 5 months later, I have been staying over there occasionally for the past few months, and he’s come to stay with me in my dorm at school as well as my house when I’m home and there have been no bites.
Of course there is a BUT. I slept over his house this week. We were in his kitchen/backyard late one night, which was FILLED with mosquitoes, as it is every summer. I always get bit like crazy in his yard every summer, you can see the mosquitoes everywhere. I have a cluster of bites on my right arm going into my armpit of probably 6 or 7 bites in that one area…and that is all I have on my whole body. I was sleeping in a t-shirt which covered that area and I had never been bit in the past in covered areas…so I’m hoping this time that it’s just mosquitoes….but the bites are huge and so itchy that they are waking me up (just like in December).
No one has ever had a problem in the house besides us, and there are a lot of people that live there.
Any advice or thoughts about this whole situation? I am terrified of these things and I’ve never even seen one.
Thanks!
-Shari
Don’t know if this works for bed bug bites. It seems to help when I get cat flea bites. Hydrogen peroxide applied to a piece of tissue and left on the bite for a few minutes. (Hydrogen peroxide helps break down the protein left behind in some insect bites).
Worth a try.
Completely freaked out. I’ll never sleep in a hotel or motel again.
Dalila
Hi:
After some investigation I found out that I have bedbugs. A person that has a pest control business for 30 years came to my apartment and said that I don’t have them, but the very same night he said that I found a bedbug in my bed that bet me all over. Obviously he doesn’t know very much about these insects, and has still a lot to learn.
In the past I have dealt with head lice, and most of the shampoos that are sold at the pharmacies do not work. I also dealt with mice and the pest control came to my house and started to put traps for them. I told them that I didn’t think that was the solution. At the end it was me who found the solution to the problem. As you can see I don’t have all this people in high esteem.
An exterminator for bedbugs charges a lot of money. If I am going to pay all these money I would like to be sure I am not going to have the bugs anymore.
Any suggestions? I appreciate your help
Vivian
I Need to know whether I have bed bugs or not. I notice things crawling on me when I woke up twice and thought it was small beetle. Thought nothing of it. Then I saw something black on the ceiling. It was was about 10 of them in the corner grouped together.
I do not notice any bites on my body. However, I am terrified of bugs so I am not sure what to do. They look similar but are more blackish and aren’t flat looking. They are about the same size though. Can you please help me? Thanks!!
Hi Jim,
I hope you have time to review these pictures and (hopefully) put my mind at ease.
I am praying that I have mosquito bites… spider bites… anything other than bed bug bites. I recently quit a job working at a shelter for the homeless because of their infestation. There were bedbugs scurrying up the walls, the mats, the people. I tried to be so careful – visual inspections, stripping off my uniform at the front door, showering immediately when I got home…But yesterday I woke up with bites, and now I’m absolutely panicking.
I can’t see any bugs. I’ve stripped and flipped the mattress and box and I don’t see any signs (bodies, poop, blood stains). The bites are just on my hands (which are usually outside the covers), and my partner wasn’t affected at all.
The bites are red and puffy. If I pull the skin taut, the skin appears yellow and there is a small, flat bump, the size of a pin head in the center. They are crazy itchy and the itch is radiating out along my arms and hands – not limited to the actual bite site. I’ve been putting hydro cortisone cream on them and taking oral benadryl, but it’s having next to no affect on the itch. The ones on my wrists are especially torturous.
I cried myself to sleep last night. I made my partner sleep at a friend’s house. I can’t focus for the itching.
Please, if you can take a look and let me know, from your experience, if the bites look more like Anything else.
I’d appreciate any feedback!
Thanks,
Valerie
Jim, thank you so much for easing my mind!
I spoke to a nurse/friend and she immediately thought they were spider bites. The itch and inflammation have gone down but the bump in the middle is still there and the surrounding area remains red.
Whatever it was, there have been no return visitors – thank heavens! I can’t imagine why they only went after my hands, but who cares, as long as they’re gone!
Thank you again for your wonderful site and personal reply, it really kept me from freaking out completely!
Gratefully,
Valerie
My husband woke up yesterday with his chest broke out in what we figured was an allergic reaction… Today, my face AND chest were broke out with the same thing. Both of ours went away in about 2 to 3 hours. What is this?, bed bugs ???
Hi Shawn,
The red marks are right on your hair follicles, correct?
They could very well be bed bugs, but if that is the case, a good review of your room should reveal them (check out my bedbug checklist for details on where to look, etc).
Fleas can do this as well, but usually bite the legs, not the stomach and sides like you mentioned.
Chiggers which are microscopic (usually from being outside in the grass, etc), can leave these marks, but they usually occur under tight clothing, such as socks, etc.
There are also hair follicle mites, but these are considered harmless (and microscopic).
I’d check the room out real good for signs of bed bugs before considering something else.
Let us know what is happening and what you find out!
Thanks,
Jim
Ok, my roommate and I both started getting bug bites two nights ago, I have a lot more than he does though.
My bites are on both of my ankles, side, stomach, arm and hand.
I have included some photos of the bed bug bites where you can see very large patches of bites.
I worried about this and will try some of the suggestions you offer.
Both of my daughters 4 and 3 have bites on the back of their neck and shoulders the bite starts out a dark red small circle and then gets swollen and larger. The color changes too it goes from dark red to light pink – I also noticed dried blood around the bite – small dark scab like balls of blood. Is it bed bugs or something else?
I haven’t found any bugs or fecal matter (as discussed in some of the comments) I did find a few spiders but got rid of them and the bites still appear. The bites are only on their neck and shoulder area and in their hairline where the hair meets the back of the neck – What is this??
A lot of the pictures that I see here are definitely not from bedbugs, but from the Triangulate cobweb spider: Steatoda triangulosa.
More information can be found here: uark.edu/depts/entomolo/museum/steatoda.html
“This small household spider is easily overlooked as it weaves cobwebs in the dark corners of houses, basements, and outbuildings. The body is only about 1/8 to 1/4 inch long.
In North America it is widespread and abundant locally in and on houses.”
And sometimes they appear to come out of nowhere, suspended from irregular webs, the Triangulate cobweb spider and wait for unsuspecting prey.
“It has been known to prey on many kinds of arthropods, including ants, spiders (including the brown recluse), ticks, and pillbugs (Guarisco 1991).”
They also eat bedbugs. If there are bedbugs and you’re in North America, there are probably a lot of triangulate web spiders around. We had a massive infestation (think: the film Arachnaphobia) when we actually did bring bedbugs into our home after staying at a hotel. We also had an ant problem around the house.
Once the ants and bedbugs disappeared, we became their food.
These are very easily overlooked because some are nearly transparent. What may seem like a floating piece of dust is probably one of them. We found numerous ones that were barely the size of a pinhead.
I don’t know how often this site frequented, but I hope this saves some of you the discomfort my wife experienced. The people at the ER asserted they were not bug bites and it was not typical of bed bugs to bite in the manner in which they had. Some people are not allergic at all – others, well, you can see in the photos above – most certainly are.
If you walk out into your front yard in the morning (especially New England) and see what looks to be a ‘tent’ on the lawn, you are, in all likelihood, looking at a triangulate cobweb spider’s web. Check after rains or a nice morning dew.
Common flea/tick/spider sprays will take care of this – I forget the name of the particular chemical, but child-safe and pet-safe sprays do not contain it.
I have been reading all these articles trying to diagnose myself because I went to the doctor on Wednesday and my doctor told me that “they look like flea bites” because a few of the bumps are aligned in a row. I explained that I’ve never had this problem before and I don’t have any pets. I’ve been living in my apartment for 3 years now and never experienced anything like this.
At first I thought it was an allergic reaction but I haven’t changed soap, detergent, or eaten anything different. So then I told the doctor that I had just gotten back from a weekend in Corpus Christi and we (my boyfriend and I) stayed in a hotel. The doctor insisted that It was fleas and sent me home saying that I should get a antihistamine for the itching.
I’ve been using bendryl anti-itch cream as well as aveeno hydrocortisone. it helps temporarily but i really want to know how long do the bites itch. And after researching information on bed bugs, fleas, and other insect bites, I’m sure i have bed bug bites. When we were at the hotel I remember seeing dark reddish-brown stains on the sheets and we thought it was blood and got the hotel to change our sheets..I never saw any bed bugs though… now I know….
oh and I forgot to describe the bites as shown above. Mostly red, swollen itch a lot, when i scratch too much little brown dots appear in the center of the bite. they are on my arms, shoulder, back of my neck, near my armpit, hands, scatted along my legs, a few on my buttocks, and a few on my feet.
and strangely my boyfriend only got like 3 bites and they are all over me…I’ve checked my apt to make sure we didn’t transport any back with us to Houston…
Hello~
I recently just moved into an apartment complex about three months ago, and hadn’t had any problems, except with German Cockroaches, but I got rid of those….
The problems just started recently- after we adopted our two cats from Pet Smart.
I talked to my neighbor, who knew the tenants before us, an elderly lady, and she used to complain of bites…and moved out early because of them.
I figured it could be just the cats- having mites or something, but we had bathed them in a flea, tick, and lice shampoo….I figured it would kill the mites or whatever has been biting my boyfriend.
My Boyfriend has now over thirty bites all over him, mainly on his back, arm, and neck.
The Bites start out small and slightly raised, until irritated, they are almost flat, they are sore to touch lightly, and then as the day goes on, they begin to itch.
The bites I have seen on this website have been confusing me- the bites he has looks like mites, and bedbugs.
I have one bite on each hands- and some of you have mentioned not getting bit as much as the other.
When I thought we had mites, I took the bed spread off, washed everything, vacuumed our mattress, inspected for bed bugs, and sprayed everything, and I mean EVERYTHING off with Lysol.
I don’t know if it’s possible for me to have them, because I have seen them at my friends house, but that was MONTHS ago- and in which, I flipped, left, took ALL my laundry and bed spreads, and washed them ALL.
I’m a bit of a clean freak, so when the scaring of possible bed bug infestation is there, it’s freaking me out, I can’t sleep on the floor or any where’s else….
It just seems like they came out of nowhere, almost as soon as my cats came home to us…but they don’t have mites…
Help me please- I’m scared out of my mind, I can’t sleep, and I am scared for my boyfriend, he’s being eaten alive.
I just want peace of mind…I have yet to see a bedbug, but I am terrified to look again…. If I have bed bugs, this would mean I have to break the lease and move some wheres else, and the leasing office could care less….
Help! Help!
I hate bedbugs and have dealt with them on a few occasions. No amount of cleaning or sanitizing will get rid of them. It’s a long and tedious process. You will need to either call an exterminator to help rid them of your home, or try over the counter stuff such as raid etc.
I took the over the counter approach, and it seemed to work but as I said above, it’s a lot of work and takes awhile. Any over the counter product you buy for the treatment of bedbugs or fleas etc is generally not safe to inhale. So once you use it you should avoid the sprayed area for at least 8 hrs, this means pets too!!!
Spray baseboards, bed frames beds couched any wooden furniture basically spray everything. Pay special attention to base boards as well as sitting and sleeping areas and furniture.
I would suggest taking all linens and stuffed toys pillows, dog beds, anything like that ANYTHING. out first. I put all of mine in black garbage bags and took them to the laundry mat. Wash them all and dry them all on high heat. Anything that can not be washed should be sealed in a garbage bag free of holes tightly for a long while, or if possible thrown it out.
Its not recommended to spray eating areas such as the kitchen most times bed bugs will not be found in these locations. Also when using your own approach, its safer to keep the spray you choose to use away from your food/ and food areas.
Bed bugs from my experience don’t always have to be in the bed for you to have them. I did not get bit myself nor did my husband, my 18 month old however did. And she sleep in her crib in the same room as my husband and I. She broke out in a huge rash, blotchiness everywhere with a few white welt looking bites. She clearly had a reaction to them. We found nothing in her crib, or her crib mattress. We did find the little suckers in the baseboards and surrounding area.
When you find even one bed bug in your home, I would suggest treating all rooms (with the exception of the kitchen) they are spread easily. Pets can carry them, from room to room, kids can also carry them on there clothes as well as you from room to room.
If you have children. you should take all toys out of the room before its treated. You dont want harmful chemical on your children’s toys which he/she will touch and and come in contact with.
It could be much easier to call a professional to do this, but it is A LOT more expensive. You can get rid of them yourself if you stick to it and have the patience. This was my approach and it worked well for me, it may not be what everyone chooses to do. But good luck to all in getting rid of these pesky suckers :)
I recently have been getting bites when sleeping. I don’t know if they are bed bugs or fleas. I have only gotten the bites on ankles and feet which I’ve read mean fleas.
I have seen no evidence of bed bugs after tearing my room apart. I do not have a dog or animal that would harbor fleas. I am confused. My bites are nowhere near as bad as some of these pictures but they do itch.
I only get maybe 2 at a time maybe once a week. This has been going on a month now.
Any suggestions?
I’ve been suffering from what I think are bed bug bites for about a month. What concerns me however, is that no one else is getting bit! My husband doesn’t have one bite, and our three year old climbs into bed with us often and again not one bite. Does that sound right to anyone?
I’ve not seen one bug. But I did go out of town and didn’t get one new bite, came home and the first night 15 and 2 to 8 every night since. I’ve tried washing in high heat etc. I’m about ready to throw the whole bedroom set away and start fresh.
I think I may have bed bugs, but if I wasn’t the only one in my bed, could I be the only one they want to bite?
One day in the middle of the day my daughter told me she had bites on her leg that were itchy. She had a few little bites behind her knee. Being she had allergic reactions to all bug bites i just put some cream on it and left it alone.
A few days later they spread. She went to school and came home with more bites.. And a fever. I took her to the hospital thinking chicken pox. Well it’s not that. she was put on an antibiotic and given benedryl. The bites went away for about a week. Then she wakes up with about 7 and on her lower belly and very swollen, see picture below.
Again back to the hospital. This time Childrens hospital. They said it doesn’t look like classic bed bug bites. they went away for another week and now this morning at 5:30am she wakes up with more. Belly, Back, and side.
I’ve checked my bed, her bed the couch and everything.. behind posters behind my head board, behind hers, the framing pulled creases in mattresses.. I SEE NOTHING.. i check every night before i go to bed.. I have no bites.. My mother has no bites.. just my daughter.
This has been going on, off and on now for about a month.. It’s driving me crazy.. Any suggestions???? will they only bite one person? where else should i look for signs??? after a month shouldn’t i see some signs??? HELP!!!! thanks..
I have been fighting with bed bugs for a while. i currently had to move out of my apartment because they were making nests in the corners of the walls. i got a new bed and still notice i get bit at night. please help, what can i do to get rid of them?
I would like to know if you stayed in a hotel and brought bedbugs home, how long before you would see signs of them in your bed? I am not sure whether I am having a reaction to a lotion that I have been using for 2 weeks or I am being bitten by bed bugs.
If I was bitten by bed bugs, can the bites show up 4 – 5 days later? Is it possible to have been bitten in the hotel but not bring them home with us? I have checked my bed and the futon in my spare room and found nothing. We even have to mattress toppers and I found not evidence of bed bugs, it has been two weeks since I was at that hotel.
I first noticed just 2 areas (my thigh and forearm) and since then I have more but they are all on extremities.
Please help!! I am very concerned.
Hello Venessa,
Don’t wait on your child, get it checked out!
Karen
My 11-month-old son got bit by a couple mosquitoes yesterday on his head and legs. Its been about 30 hours and now there is lumps that are quarter sized around and off his body by about 1cm. They are leaking clear fluid also.
I myself have bad bug allergies too but nothing like this has ever happened to me… Do you think its just an allergic reaction to them or should i get that checked out?
Thank you,
Vanessa
Hello,
I am not sure if these are bedbug bites, but I’m not gonna take that risk. There is about 7-8 bites on my back, and 3 on my right leg. For the past two nights I have felt very itchy. I recently showed my mother them, and she had said they look like welts, so I assumed they might have been bug bites. None else in my family has them. They do not seem to have been long since I only started getting bitten a few days ago.
Is there any way to get rid of them, and treat the bites that I have received so far? If so, I’d love to hear.
Thanks,
Shaun.
I was at church sitting on a chair (which has material, cloth, etc) when something bit me on my lower right leg, mid calf in front . It started itching a little later. I went home and woke up with about a dozen all over me.
Three in a row on my front leg, about 5 on my right hand, 1 on my left hand, 2 up near my collar bone and 2 on my upper left arm in back. They itch and have a pimple in the middle and have bumps around the pimple, like when you get goose bumps.
They are red and the size of a nickle now. I have taken benadryl for 24 hrs and have a cough somewhat too now. Could they have been in the carpet at our church? That is where i got bit, i know it.
How i got more i don’t know? It must have gotten on my hand when i scratched my leg cause there are bites on my hands, then my collar bone and left arm next. I’ll wait to see if more come.
How can i find out if they are bed bugs or spider or flee bites ?
actually I have a question, Can you get Staph Disease from Bedbugs?
I had small red leg bites after sleeping in a hotel room. But it turned out to be flea bites rather than bed bugs. The hotel owner’s son & his dog had stayed in the same room the night before.
Hi,
I’m wondering if I may have bed bugs. I found three little raised bites in a row on my stomach. They have been itching for a few days. I checked underneath and around my mattress, sheets, etc., and have found no signs of any bugs, eggs, spots, or anything unusual. I am also not even sure if I got these bites at night. One thing I have noticed, though, is that they have been getting itchier as time goes by. I have not traveled anywhere recently. Does it sound like I have bed bugs (I really hope not)? What else could they be?
Jersey City
Hello,
On Monday October 20th, 2008, new tenants in this condominium building, next door to me, made a complaint with the receptionist about bed bugs in their apartment. The receptionist informed the building’s superintendent. The superintendent told the tenants to contact an extermination company on their own which does not follow the building’s protocol for such a situation. There are a number of different versions regarding what was done to help them with their situation, from the superintendent, the property management company and the condo board president. Ultimately, nothing was done.
They followed up again with the superintendent in mid November and again in December and once again got the runaround. The superintendent telling the tenants to call the management company, the management company telling them to speak with the superintendent. Once again, the problem was allowed to continue unchecked. Keep in mind that no other tenants, be they renters or owners, was ever made aware of what was going on until it was too late.
On Saturday morning, February 14th, I awoke to find 2 bugs. 1 on my bed and 1 on my pillow case. I took a photo of the larger bug, searched the internet for pictures of bed bugs and confirmed that this is what I had found. I informed the super that morning of the situation. He asked me which apartment I lived in. After I told him my apartment number, he looked at me and said “I know where they are coming from”.
After speaking with the condo board president, the superintendent told me I would have to wait until Monday for treatment as the exterminators were closed for the weekend. After scheduling an appointment with my own choice of extermination companies and informing the superintendent, I was told to “cancel my guys” the in house exterminators would do an emergency treatment the following morning (all this occurring while I had visible welts on my neck). The exterminator arrived Sunday morning to do an emergency treatment. He confirmed that source of the infestation was my new neighbors. The condo board president also appeared at my door that morning and said, “First of all we are very sorry that this has happened but we are only coordinating this for you because you have been effected by this situation. We were not responsible for doing anything until a neighbor has been effected”.
There are many, many details I have not included here. I do have a very detailed time line of all events since the tenants 1st complaint in October. I have time/date stamped photos of the bugs as well as dead specimens. My apartment has been exterminated 3 times yet I have seen 2 live bugs since my last treatment. I have since hired an extermination at my own cost ($535) for a single treatment.
The reason I decided to write to you is that the condominium board has decided to charge the exterminations separately to each effected apartment, which also includes another apartment which I share a common wall with (she was forced to do the extermination even though she has not seen a bed bug and a preventative treatment was all she needed do do). The superintendent, the management company, the receptionist (and likely the condo board president) where all aware of the situation back in October and allowed it go unchecked for 4 months. Is this a violation of my civil rights?
Also, I have been unemployed since July, 2008. I am barely able to make my mortgage payments and I certainly don’t have any extra money to pay for a series of extermination treatments that, if handled in a timely and professional manor, should not have been necessary in 1st place. The management company president, told my neighbor and I, separately, that we would not be charged for these services. The condo board has since changed that to bill each apartment separately.
Thank you for reading,
Chris
I woke up last Thursday morning with what seemed like a itchy rash on my left inner thigh. It itched a bit first and after a day it started to get sore, I guess from my thighs rubbing against it. It has now been 4 days and it hasn’t gone away but it has starting to scab with a black spot on it… my symptoms sound like those of some of the other people here… except my I’m really sore…. could i have bed bugs… i haven’t checked but i will tonight if it is bed bugs, what can i do?
if you think you have bed bugs inspect you boxspring then use cooking oil or baby oil and applied to the legs, wheels of the headboard and footboard, as well on the bed frame legs. this will help you to sleep good
Hi there, every morning i wake up with this tiny insects on my body that looks like a spider and they really stick to my body the only way i can remove them is with my nails they leave a small red dot can you please advise? Next time i will take a picture
regards
Hi,
I’m fairly sure that I have bed bugs (I’m staying in a hostel), but am a bit unwilling to tell them that they have bed bugs until I’m sure. Is there anyway that they will appear on an unslept bed between 3-4am? i.e. Were I not to sleep on the bed and come in at 4am, would I be able to see them?
Hi,
I need help please. I move to this house 6 months ago. Since them I been bitten 7 times. The bite is always red, but it only itches for a day after that it hurts.
I went to the doctor twice and the doctor tells me that it looks like a spider bite. However, no one else at home its affected. The bumps are big, sometimes they have a white heads, but in other cases they do not. They seem to be black on the top.
Antibiotic makes it better, however they leave a mark. I looked around my bed, however, I do not see anything.
PLEASE HELP!!!!
I have had ‘something’ here for quite sometime. I feel like I am always itching. I get these ‘things on my skin, many times you can barely see them. All of a sudden I will go right to it on my body, could be anywhere, though more often I find them on my arms legs and on the back of my neck.
They appear to be a little ‘scab’. Looks just like a light brown scab. Scabs don’t usually just appear. Maybe after an insect bite or a scrape, you bleed a bit then then it scabs up; these are scab like… I have to dig my fingernail underneath it to remove them! After I remove them there seems to be a bit of a hole in my skin where this thing has obviously been sucking my blood!
This ‘thing’ is usually flat and does not look like like it’s full of blood by no means!…. and even more disgusting this thing has very obvious white/ clear ‘prongs’ that look like ‘roots that are embedded into my skin which is why they are so hard to pull off of me! I have been to the doctor several times. The doctor insists they are not bugs or parasites! She says I have folliculitis… which as far as I know is no different than any other type of ‘allergy’!
I have one in particular on my upper neck/ right above my hairline in the back. I can’t get rid of it. I swear I’ll leave it alone and expect for it to just go way… and it doesn’t so I start fooling with it.
Eventually I get to the point where I pick (pull, pry, dig) it off of me! There is a bit of a whole there that bleeds a little and then about a day or two later, it’s back again in the same exact place.
I seem to also find these ‘no mistake’ eggs on my skin as well!. I would like to say I have actually never actually seen a ‘bed bug on me! But I think just the other day for the first time I have!!!
I thought it was an ant, but it looked different. And was nowhere as easy to swish and kill like an ant. I am embarrassed to save these things and take them into a doctors office with me. The doctor I have seen was actually supposed to be a skin ‘specialist. I can’t imagine a skin specialist not recognizing the slightest case/ of bed bugs.
Though I’d swear I have bed bugs after seeing these pictures on your site, I have never had these big red blotches that looks like everyone else here has and I have yet to see a photo of what these ‘tentacle’ root’ like prongs look like in a photo. PLEASE HELP!
I once thought maybe I had scabies only because a girl I worked with had scabies. Although the doctor ruled out that I did not have scabies, she prescribed the ‘soap’ that is used for treating scabies. I think i never used it. Will this ‘soap’ kill bed bugs on my body?
Hi, any help would be so appreciated as to what type of bite it likely is and how to address issue. So scared to sleep at moment. The bites I have are shown below, from Wednesday to Friday which is also similar to hobo bites I saw online.
A week after moving in to our fancy new Vancouver place in early Feb I had a bite one bite on my arm and the next day one on my wrist. Both welted up huge radius with a central blister that eventually oozed, scabbed and scared by 3rd week. Pretty bad. Then, a month of no bites and now a set of 4 on my hand so bad this time with 4 in one spot my whole hand swelled up and had to go to expensive clinic. It is important to note I have ALWAYS had a crazy immune response to even just mosquito.
They presented as just an unnoticeable itch Monday, then Tuesday swelled up and itched so much by Wednesday I went to the doctor as I thought I saw a red streak up arm and was sure it was a spider bite.
At first the doctor said it was a hand infection and that I MUST start clindamycin ASAP or risk needing IV drugs. So, I went home in tears (b/c of issues for other condition i have) and started antibiotic (took 3 doses) but read more online about issues it had for my other condition and really doubted and infection so I saw another doctor on Thursday who said it was totally a histamine reaction to a bite – total opposite of first Doctor! She said it was histamine only and to stop the antibiotic and antihistamine which immediately helped swelling go down and now swelling almost gone except for four clear blisters surrounded by red remains, but thank God the horrendous itching is gone. I Am putting neosporin on it now.
Originally, I was sure it was a spider as I thought bed bug bites were always tiny, but as I react so badly to mosquito bites, I now am wondering. I found this site with a pic of someone who overreacted to the bed bug bites and it looks just like my 4 bites on my hand Reaction to bed bug bites and note that Vancouver now has an epidemic of bed bugs even in the fanciest of places – ugh. I am just terrified of getting more than a few bites as my system could shut down after seeing what 4 did!
After looking online I went back in room and noticed brown paint like drops on our baseboard heater I remember noticing when we moved in. After reading, it looks like it could be bed bug excrement. I then found it on a bag my boyfriend had under the bed. Then, found some blood under covers so am thinking bed bugs (ugh!) but would love anyone’s advice. Also, my boyfriend had 2 little red marks on his chest today which look like normal bed bug bites.
I called a thermal exterminator and a regular one but am worried about chemicals and cost but currently scared to sleep in own bed! I’ll keep you posted on what I find out!
Update:
After 2 inspections – the first one said 99% sure no bed bugs because everything is new and no signs at all, then, the second guy came few hours later and guess what – one ran across the mattress! Long story short, our condo strata (although we just moved in 2 months ago as renters) is going to pay for a few units as they found out our neighbors were getting bites for a while but didn’t know what it was. If only people knew so they could stop it earlier! Seems like every condo/rental unit should be informed and make their tenants aware of how to identify the bug, prevent them from spreading and who to inform should one be found.
I think it is important, very important for people and Doctors to know that these bites can be very, very serious. The first doctor didn’t even think it was a bite but wanted me on IV antibiotics which would have caused more harm than good.
My bites fortunately responded to benadryl and are healing faster than the first ones which I attribute to my super healthy diet, Vitamin B, C and Olive Leaf (natural antibiotic) this month are helping.
Why the health departments and cities seem to be not taking this seriously I can’t fathom;
A) it carries blood and other pathogens
B) a few can cause a serious allergic reaction
C) I hypothesize zillions of people are in costly hospital being treated for staph and MRSA only to have bedbug bites and likely respond to Benaydryl unless they pop them which I strongly suggest against.
I have no doubt if I had 100 bites like in some of the pics I would surely be in hospital on IV antibiotics for staph that would only make MRSA resistance worse because wrong diagnosis.
I just wonder how many doctors misdiagnose people and how many people have no idea a bed bug could do this if you are sensitive. Guess I am one of the ‘hypersensitive’ like the article link which looked just like my bites. So thankfully we saw one and are pursuing it urgently. And, I am going to inform the incorrect doctor about it when I am fully healed (It will take a few weeks for everything to disappear).
Thanks a lot and here is hoping the issue is sorted soon – they are deciding on pesticide versus the thermal so fingers crossed. If anyone has advice for getting through these treatments that would be good to know, hope to find out today about which one. I am hoping the thermal as it sounds safer for humans and deadlier for bugs and less hassle of personal items. Here is hoping no more bites and i hope this post helps someone.
HELP! My boyfriend and I moved into this apartment six months ago. Landlord & realtor did not tell us that the previous tenants had moved out due to bedbug fumigation until the DAY WE WERE MOVING IN. If we had known – we never would have signed the lease!
My boyfriend has been getting mysterious bites for the last month or so – I had not gotten any. Tonight we found a bedbug crawling on our sheets. I looked it up online and it was a perfect match. We caught it in a tupperware container to show to the landlord. I also noticed a few bites on my back for the first time tonight. I am absolutely horrified. I want nothing more than to just LEAVE this disgusting place.
What are the first steps we should take??? I’m obviously going to be calling the landlord tomorrow – but there’s no way we want to stay here while they bomb this place out with chemicals….especially if there’s a chance they will return, which there obviously is.
We want to be out of here by tomorrow night (going to stay with relatives..) but how do i make sure we don’t bring them with us????
Please help – it’s 3am and i can’t sleep…I’m having panic attacks just thinking about this mess.
Why is it that the bedbugs are only biting my toddler and not myself or husband?
I have searched my beds from top to bottom several times have found nothing.
Thank goodness for this site because I now know that they are in the play room where my son plays and that may be why we aren’t getting bit. My question is will they stay in one spot or will my whole house become infested?
We’re having the same problem on the apartment we’re staying now… few months ago I and my husband discovered that every night is like an itchy game for us. we didn’t sleep well. we thought it’s because the room is 24 hours AC and the dust didn’t go outside.
Then we notice that something is crawling on our legs & arms but when we check it, we didn’t find anything. Until the time came we’re suffering on those bites, we checked the mattress and bed sheet and we found out that there are lots of insects. i thought they are only cockroach so i didn’t panic on that time. i just catch them with tissue on my hand then kill them. i notice that their body is full of blood. so i was thinking that maybe that blood is from us. so i tell that to my husband that that’s not an ordinary cockroach because they sip blood so when he examined the dead insect, he found out that it is the bed bug! that’s why i felt so scared and very conscious. i don’t want to sleep on that bed anymore.
We slept on the other vacant room for awhile and we didn’t experience those itch. we decided to move on that new room. then the bed sheet was full of bed bugs was sent to the laundry service. hoping that all of them will disappear when they washed up. we used the bed sheet from laundry service then after 1 month here we go again, bed bug bites. Every night is an itchy game. We just ignore and didn’t try to look for bugs yet because we’re afraid to accept that fact that we also have bed bugs in our new room.
Then 1 day when i woke up, after taking a bath and putting some lotion on my arms and body, i noticed lots and lots of bed bug bites on my arms and few on my body. i was so afraid and very worryed. i showed them to my husband. he also has the same bites on his body but the reaction on my skin is very obvious. that’s why, we examine the mattress and bed sheet then i feel hopeless when we found so many bed bugs. they are worst than before! we have tossed the sheet and mattress and bought new. so i discovered that bed bugs didn’t disappear even you will wash the bed sheet.
until now we have lots of bed bugs in our bed. and i don’t know what insecticide i will spray. i just catch them one by one. i’m so tired. bed bugs is really a pest and the #1 problem in your house when you have it. I’m hoping that they will disappear if i will use insecticide everyday. any suggestions that are good for bed bugs? hope you’ll gonna help me on this.
- ruth
Hi,
Just a few weeks ago I started to get bitten by something when I woke up morning. At first I thought it was mosquito. But day after day i was getting up with bites regularly. Take a look at the picture below to see my bed bug bites.
Those were too many for mosquito. My neighbor said that it would be bedbugs and I sprayed one pesticide around my bed. It didn’t work.
Then I changed my room with my brother, and he sleeps in my old room, but nothing bites him. I was sleeping without any bites for week. Last night, he came into my room and said he woke up by pain of byte. Then he decided to sleep on the floor of my room with his big blanket. But I think his blanket brought those bugs into my new clear room and i am now being bitten.
We are moving to new apartment and only thing I wanna ask is do I have to keep those bed which is infected? Or we only throw them away?
Jim,
Yesterday I woke up with an odd shaped red welt on my wrist, see image below.
I thought at first that I had gotten into something at work the day before because I work with a lot of chemicals. I talked with a nurse and she said to put hydrocortisone cream on it and now that some of the inflammation has gone down it looks very much like the pictures of bedbug bites.
I searched the bed last night and found one little corps, but it is so small it is hard to tell if it is a bedbug or not and all of it’s little legs where broken off, see the picture below.
It is starting to sound like it though from all I read. It had a hard black speck attached to it’s rear-end (maybe blood or guts that got squished out when it died?) Anyway – I’m starting to freak out a little – I really don’t want to have bedbugs. It appears that I have about 8 separate bites. Could that all be from one bug in one night or would that indicate an 8 bug party on my tab?
I can’t figure out where we would have picked them up from – neither on of us has slept anywhere else in months. Anyway if we have the little buggers… I was wondering how effective a Rainbow vacuum would be? Since everything is sucked into water and then dumped outside. I’ve seen information about freezing them out and heating them out, but will they drown easily? Also what about the ‘over the counter’ bug bombs, are those effective? Our mattress was bought new and we haven’t brought used furniture into the house in well over six months.
There has been a fowl odor in our house the last couple of weeks – like something decomposing, not sweet, but pungent. It was strongest in the kitchen and bathroom (on opposite ends of the house) and hardly noticeable in the bedroom in between. Could that be another sign of bedbugs? Sorry if I’m asking too many questions, but this has me worried. Thanks for all your help.
Joy
Hi, its Maggie again. To my surprise two days ago i finally spotted those bed bugs, my son was sleeping and around 12am went to look and finally spotted two running, I was horrified!
This morning, I spotted another bug on my older son’s bed. It seems like the whole room is infected and I have no clue what to do?
I’ll try some of the stuff I’ve read about to see what happens. I want to call a pest control but then again i don’t know if it’s such a good idea. I also need something to get rid of these marks. The kids legs and arms looks horrible and as for the itching, if anybody out there knows of any remedies that will stop the itching from these bedbug bites, please let me know. Thank you.
Hi, I live in New York City and apparently we’re undergoing a swarm of bedbugs returning or something. Anyway, I found a bedbug around November and we had an exterminator come by and spray the place. I got a new mattress and everything seemed fine for a while. But just the other day I was looking around my ankles and I saw what I had noticed back when I first thought we had bed bugs.
They were four very small red dots in a line. I had gotten a few of them on my legs when I first noticed the bedbug, but to be honest, I was never sure if they were bedbug bites since they aren’t welts and it doesn’t really itch at all. I’m worried because I know we can’t afford another spraying so I don’t know what we’d do if this turns out to be bed bugs again. They only just started appearing again.
Thank you for your time.
It could be that I’m allergic to bed bugs. I’m so itchy! Tiny little red dots, I itch until they bleed and then they scab and I cant stop itching them even though I know this makes it worse. They’re all over my legs and arms, chest and right around my hips. I’m losing my mind trying to figure it out.
Hi Glen,
That is extreme and I’ve seen this before on BadSpiderBites.com – the red line is NOT a good sign and you should see a doctor. This usually indicates an infection and comes with warmth. I’m not a doctor and you should rely on my advice, but if it were me, I’d go in asap.
If you look at similar pictures and read their associated stories on BadSpiderBites.com, the doctors almost always tell the patient they are lucky they went in, and, it’s usually a spider bite.
Don’t take any chances Glen, get it checked out and please, let us know how it turned out, will you?
Best regards,
Jim
Hi, I’m positive these are two bedbug bites as i woke up while it was light out and my arm looked normal but was itchy, then when i finally got out of bed it started swelling up and the redness appeared to be going down a vein in my arm.
When i got up i found a bug on my bed and it wasn’t moving so i looked up what a bedbug looks like and it was definitely one so i killed it and blood came out.
Anyway, yea I’ve seen a lot of pictures on the internet of bed bug bites but my arm looks like a pretty extreme case, unlike any others I’ve seen so here are some pics.
In the picture above, its my left wrist and it’s swollen to almost double it’s normal size if you cant tell.
Please get back to me asap
UPDATE:
Well, it has been over a week now. I have washed everything I own, got covers for my mattress and box spring, and my apartment has been treated. So far I have not seen anything else, and no more bites. It took a while to fall asleep the first night back in my bed, but bit by bit it has started to feel like home again.
Although my land lord was not nice about the situation, the Exterminator was wonderful. He took the time to explain to me what he was going to do, and told me that that I prepared well for him by removing and washing all of our clothes and bedding, and pull the furniture out for him. He even treated our storage room which is in the basement of our building. I did not get the opportunity to speak with him after the treatment, but he made me feel a lot better about things.
Just hearing other stories about other places he has seen which have been just crawling made me feel like what I found was very manageable. Right now I feel good, but I hope it does not come back. I do not know if I could do it all again. My exterminator believes it is most likely I got them from a hotel, as we do travel quite a bit. I also spoke to the health inspector who was also very nice and helpful in letting me know the buildings history, and he even offered to follow up with the exterminator before he came to ensure he would check other parts of the building.
All in all my stress has decreased, and I hope this is over. Thanks for all the info and support on this site. I will write back in a few weeks and let you know if the problem has stayed away.
My elderly neighbor had been heavily infested with bed bugs about a month ago. I had opened my apartment to her and her cat while her place was sprayed. Well I ended up getting bites all over my arms, torso, and groin area. I knew of course that it must of been bedbugs. I did a lot of research online and became obsessive with trying to find where they were hiding but I had no luck.
My landlord had someone come inspect and they found nothing as well. The inspector said that because she couldn’t find anything that it was probably just one possibly two. She said that they will bite several times before they get a good spot. That’s why their bite marks are in lines or clusters. Also that even just one bug can cause your body to be covered in bites within a few nights.
Now if you have one or 2 bugs and notice that you are getting red bites that look anything like mosquito bite, I would do some serious inspecting and immediately wash all of your bedding. One bug once full grown (which takes 4 feedings) lays 5 eggs a day… within 6-8 weeks you have a full blown infestation.
The inspector recommended drying all of my bedding for 15 minutes minimum, which will kill any bed bugs, and investing in bed covers and pillow covers. Even if you haven’t been infested with bed bugs yet, I would personally recommend getting bed bug covers as to avoid ever having to deal with these awful creatures. Bed covers are a little on the expensive side, but more affordable then loosing and having to buy new furniture and pay for professional help to spray them.
Since I dried everything and got the bed bug covers I have not had one single bite. I still, 3 weeks later, have the bites. They have now begun to peel a little and look kind of like ring worm (not very pleasant). I am still looking for something that would help them heal.
I hope that this information has been helpful!!! I wouldn’t wish these things on anyone.
Hello LH,
Don’t panic – it does sound like you have a small infestation of bed bugs and you do NOT need to toss everything you have.
Go to your local store and buy a mattress cover that is designed to keep dust mites out. The mattress cover should encase the entire mattress and zip shut.
Also go to your local pet store and ask for Diatomaceous Earth – it’s non toxic and you sprinkle it all around your floor boards, base of your bed, etc. When this stuff gets on the bed bugs, it dehydrates them and they eventually die.
Also, on my treatment section, you’ll find a ton of information on what you should do to control the bed bugs.
Don’t worry – you can get rid of them as long as you are methodical about everything.
The fact that you found a bed bug on the wall in the closet is strange? What time of the day did you find it?
The pest control company should give you some good advice, but do all of us a favor and let us know what they say.
As for you lovely landlord, check with the city to see if there are previous complaints. Also, the pest control company may give you some good information as well – ask them if they have been to your place before :)
Best regards,
Jim.
Hey everyone, thanks for posting all your stories. I have had bumps for a while, but they have mostly been fairly flat and round like the size of a nickle. I could not usually see a spot in the middle and after seeing several doctors, some saying bites, some saying hives, I have moved on to a Dermatologist who has taken blood for testing.
I have used the steroids and antihistamines , no change. However, 2 days ago, after several months of paranoia, and my partner never getting bit, I found a bug on my newly cleaned (put on the day before) sheets.
At first I found two bed bugs on my sheets, then one on my wall. I have repeatedly checked my mattress over the past few months but never saw the typical signs. I then discovered several larges bed bugs on my padded head board, and 1 on the wall in my closet.
In the past two days I have spent over 100 dollars washing ever bit of clothes I own, and have thrown away my pillows, pillow top, sheets, and comforter set that was on the bed. I am waiting for a exterminator to come in a few days a spray my apartment.
My Land Lord has been an ass, and is sure that no one else in my building has ever had the problem, and that it is in every way my fault. Although I very well could have brought them in for somewhere I have been, it is very difficult to go through. Almost everything in including my bed and sofas were bought brand new when I moved into the apartment almost 2 years ago.
I also have another couple living with me who have not found anything in their room. For the past 2 nights we have been sleeping in the living room, and I am terrified that they are out there everywhere too, even though I have not seen them.
I am a social worker for child protection, and never thought that this pest problem could happen to me. I feel devastated, and worry that nothing will ever be bug free.
I have 100 thoughts a second going through my head; should I move, should I throw away all the things I have worked hard to buy, do I need counseling? I worry I will never be able to sleep again, although I do not want to throw out my fairly new bed. I wonder if I should be steam cleaning while I wait for the pest control, should I spray my bed and rooms.
They contacted a health inspector who said that the pest control should work, and that I should not be spraying my room before they come as I could be sending the bugs running to another area of the house.
I feel like I am going crazy, I don’t know if I should throw up, cry, burn all my things, or if I just wait it through the next week or so things will be ok.
Any extra advice? Should I be wrapping my mattress and box spring until pest control gets there? I was told that my infestation seems to be minor and can be dealt with easily, but I fear like may of you it will come back. Do they normally come back? Do people recommend disposing of my life’s contents?
Help, my insanity is slipping.
I have tried everything and the bed bugs just don’t seem to finish.
Earlier when a professional sprayed my house i thought they had all gone, but then while i was out i saw one on my bag and on my clothes, and i was so annoyed. so i washed all my clothes and sheets.
The biting started again because the clothes that i hadn’t washed had bed bug eggs on them and they hatched and the biting started all over again.
Then i found out during the summer more of them seem to bite and during winter they only bite when the bed/room is warm.
Every night before going to sleep i cover my self from toe to head making sure my socks cover my pajamas which are tucked in and i wear a muflar hat and gloves all interlocking each other. but then my face would get bitten and i would know when the bed bugs were biting so i would open the light and make sure it was bed bugs – which always were.
I dread going to bed at night because of the bugs and haven’t had a proper night’s sleep for a long time. I even used to make sure the room was boiling hot so i wouldn’t get bitten but then i would not be able to sleep because it was too hot.
One thing i know for sure is bed bugs are attracted towards body heat / respiration because for example if you have a glove and full sleeve shirt on they would be making their way towards my face.
I remember how i got them but at the time didn’t know they sucked blood or that they were even bugs – didn’t know anything about them.
I was having a sleepover at a family friends house and during the night i itched myself really badly and felt like I had massive spots all over my legs and arms, I exposed my legs and arms to see what the matter was and saw massive thick red spots. I thought they were rashes or i was allergic to something. All night i continued to half scratch my self to sleep. In the morning i didn’t want to say anything to anyone because i had know idea what had happened all night. So i phoned my dad to pick me up immediately, he kept on asking me on my reason for wanting to immediately return home, but i didn’t know what to say, as i didn’t know my self.
Ever since then i have had them and found out what exactly they are and that they also live on animals as well. It’s been a nightmare!
I was bitten by one of these creatures when I lived in Japan. I taught in a public school, and often saw the bites on the legs of the female students, so I knew bed bugs were around. When it happened to me, ouch! It didn’t itch, it stung, like a wasp sting, with a welt. That must be an allergic reaction.
Feb 28th, I have noticed big welt like marks on my back and shoulder. They itch and are red. Could these be bed bug bites?
I’ve included some pictures below…
March 6th, Yesterday I noticed 2 more mosquito like itchy red bumps on my forearm. I didn’t scratch them, dabbed Benadryl itch relief on them and tried to forget about it. Today the bumps have turned into raised welt like blisters filled with clear liquid and it’s oozing as you can see from the picture below:
The whole area and lower arm is swollen, red, itchy, stretched tight and hot. It’s like I’m having an allergic reaction to the bites. I’m taking Benadryl to bring down the swelling, continuing to put itch relief on it and I’m about to take an Aveeno oatmeal bath to help also.
I fear this is the same thing that bit me before and gave me those marks in the pictures above (scroll up) I don’t know if I’m infested with bed bugs or not, but clearly these are bites.
All I know is I am “something’s” hot meal at night and this is ruining my life. I’m embarrassed and miserable. I bought mattress and pillow zipper covers, washed and dried everything I own and cleaned my room. The only thing left to do is hire an exterminator or see a dermatologist. I don’t know. Please help!
I also stayed at the phoenix crowne plaza the next day I got itchy in the afternoon. Huge welts on my back. Then the spots traveled to my arms. I am going to the doctor today, at first my greatest of all fear shingles but bed bugs sounds more realistic. Thanks for sharing Cindy!
PS, my wedding photos next week are going to look great with all these red dots.
Hello Julio,
Half off the room! They should have moved you to another room for free and given you a voucher for another stay free of charge – at the very least!
I did some research and found some very disturbing reviews of this hotel. For example, take a look at trip advisor and you’ll see a number of poor ratings, there is also a comment titled “Dried vomit on Bed” on July 18, 2006 that talks about bugs. Another one titled “Hello Bedbugs” talks about bedbugs under the sheets and pillows.
If I were you, I’d ask Renee over at LawRefs.com what options are available to you. LawRefs is a free (yes, free) legal service.
If you search my site, you’ll see a number of very successful lawsuits against hotels that have a history of bed bugs, especially those that fail to work with you. In one case, a lady won a case on the grounds she was unable to sleep in a hotel from that point forward – too traumatic.
Below will give you an idea of the figures involved in these lawsuits:
$20 million bed bug lawsuit filed by a Chicago woman against Nevele Grand Resort and Country Club in Ellenville, N.Y. She claims she received more than 500 bites when she stayed at the hotel for 3 nights. See usatoday.com/travel/hotels/2006-03-08-bedbugs-catskills_x.htm
In 07, Rose M. Pagley-Brown filed a bedbug lawsuit against Stone Motel in Arkansas. She stated mental anguish, embarrassment and humiliation on top of her medical bills.
In 08, An opera singer with claiming more than 150 bedbug bites filed a lawsuit against the Hilton Corporation for $6 million.
The list goes on, from people renting apartments to hotels to even emergency rooms!
If you should ever wake from your stay to find bites over your body, you should not only seek medical attention, but take pictures of everything. Look at our bedbug checklist to locate where the bugs hide, then take pictures. Document everything!
Hotels don’t bring the bed bugs inside, it’s the customers and it can happen to any hotel, no matter how clean they are. As long as they act fast on pest control and have regular inspections, they are doing everything they can.
It’s when a hotel (or other organization) fails to act, has bad reviews and a history of bugs that they open themselves up to legal action.
Julio, please keep us up to date on how your body heals and of your outcome. Feel free to send more pictures and thanks for sharing!
Hello,
This is what I believe I got from my stay at La Kiva Hotel in Amarillo, Texas.
I have them all over my body, in my arms, legs, back, and head, and it got worse the night after, I guess because I scratch a lot, can’t stand the itching you know.
I brought this up to management and they were kind enough to move me to another room at half price.
La Kiva Hotel & Conference Center
2501 E Interstate 40
Amarillo, TX 79104
(806) 379-6555
Julio.
My roommate got bed bugs once and ever since I’ve used those zipper polyvinyl covers for the mattress and box spring, every now and then I’ll take it off spray down the bed with lysol and then put it right back on, these things aren’t cheap, and they aren’t durable, but they HELP, Steam Vac the carpet, steam vac the bed, and cover it with that mattress cover (mattress and box spring) I went crazy and washed ALL my clothes in hot water (clean or dirty didn’t care) I was not going to have bugs… so GOOD LUCK GUYS!
I think i have a similar problem its just that i cant tell what’s eating us like that. we just move to an apartment and in the beginning i didn’t see anything, we went to a furniture store and purchased a brand new bed and mattress for our older son. Three weeks later i see he started itching and bunch of red marks on him. and the little one had his crib that he sleeps on, he also started with itching and those red marks. I slept in the room the same thing happen to me as well.
So i was thinking could that be bed bugs….I looked all over the kids room, the crib, the mattresses, tho box, all over i can’t seem to find any stain of bed bugs. another thing is that after the bite is healed the still itch. My husband is very hairy so they don’t seem to bite him, that’s why sometimes he thinks im crazy.
My question is that …Can bed bugs live inside the mattress? and also we have wooden floors can they also be in the wooden floors?
Can someone tell me if the bed bugs got to be visible because i cant see them but every night i put the kids in bed, they like when i put them to bed and sometimes i fall asleep myself in their room and when i get up I’m all itchy and little red marks on me as well. The marks are a little similar to what I’ve seen but not as much on our skin maybe three to four bites a day.
I moved into an apartment in September 08 and have been experiencing random bites in my bedroom for the past three months. I have vacuumed like a mad woman and washed all the linens in extremely hot water as well as dried them and I am also in the process of removing all of my furniture in order to replace it.
My landlord has exterminated at least three times since I’ve been there due to a “roach” infestation from the tenants that used to reside upstairs, and he has renovated the apartment upstairs as well. Could they have traveled from upstairs down to my bedroom in the absence of the old tenants?
I am replacing my furniture as I mentioned earlier and there will be a period of time before the new furniture arrives that there will be nothing at all in my bedroom so I’d like to take this opportunity to treat the rug, do you have any suggestions?
Bites at both locations seemed to be very swollen pink splotches that are larger than a quarter and seem to be concentrated in a single area (1st her hip, then her neck).
We texted the picture above to you this afternoon of the bites on Liz’s neck. I think bed bugs, she was hoping spider bites. What is your opinion?
I’m from Pakistan, currently living in Saudi Arabia, at night when I was sleeping, I don’t know if a bed bug bit me, next day when I was in office I feel some itch when I saw at home It was red spots at the backside, and day by day it’s getting worse.
In my room some times I can seen some different kinds of bugs/insects, please find the above picture, and suggest me any medicine as soon as possible, I am really horrible from this situation.
Thank you!
Awais Qurni
Update: 13 days later…
Awais used a product that could not be found in the FDA database but has generic names of Nystatin, Neomycin or Gentamycin.
Ask your doctor or pharmacist for a cream and mention these generic names to make sure you get the right product.
Seems like only certain people get bedbug bites, correct? After reading what has happened here, I hope I do not have any for the rest of my life!
I woke up at around 4:50am the other day scratching my hand profusely. I have had bed bugs in the past and this was a sure sign of them. I have had two small red bumps on my hand for the past 3 days although they are not itchy and quickly stopped itching after the bites the morning after.
This is what was strange–usually the bites are itchy for much longer and get much bigger and are in a row of three, not two.
What could this be? I cleaned with bleach, neem oil and cleaner today and sprayed some Pyrethrins and Piperonyl butoxide pesticide all over my apartment. Hopefully this will help.
What do you think it is? Bed bugs, spiders, allergic reaction?
Thanks
Just found a bed bug for the first time on our matress. Small, looks almost like a tick. Came right up out of the mattress. But we’re quite certain they are all over. Mostly babies… like little dots… sometimes impossible to see.
They make a regular meal of us even when we are sitting down, that much is clear.
We’re going to buy some powder and see if that will work.
I stayed in a filthy hotel in NYC 4 months ago on my way home from a trip. I noticed some bites in the airport next day and put it down to bad luck. Its now 4 months later and every few nights I was finding myself being bitten on the face and arms but could NEVER trace the source.
The bites were strange too – sometimes like mosquito bites – small and white and hard, sometimes with a distinctive puncture mark in the middle of an almost-perfect circle. Some even had what looked like a comet tail that curled around.
Today I waged all-out war, took up the mattress and scoured the bed frame. The entire underside (timber) was marked with what I had previously thought were small black mold stains. Turns out there were over 15 small cracks, each of them hosting one of more bedbugs.
Sprayed insecticide, hoovered, dismantled the bed and took it to the dump. So be warned the bedbugs definitely like to hitch rides in luggage.
Hi, I have had these bites now since Nov 08 and my daughter who is 5 and half months pregnant also has them, but not as bad.
We have been treated by 1 doctor as an allergic reaction that didn’t help. We then went to dermatologist who said flea bites although we have no pets; we got medicine for that and exterminated the house but still that didn’t help.
The landlord said the bites looked like bed bug bites but we have had our beds for over 2 years and never had a problem until the after we moved into this house (first week of November). By the third week in November we had bite marks. We do have a really bad case of German roaches and have used powders, sprays, traps and it seems nothing kills them! I killed one that was crawling on my foot and within 30 minutes my foot was itching and now there’s a welt. Are these bed bug bites or something else?
Please, I’m desperate for help.
I have been finding bites for the past few weeks, but they have been very very very tiny (definitely itchy, but I have eczema and am used to itchiness), but never became very raised or puffy. They seem to be healing and going away for the most part and I haven’t noticed any new ones in the past day or two…
Today I realized that some of the bites that seem to be healing are actually configured in perfect little circles. I have two areas like this on my arm, both about the size of a dime and consisting of a thin ring of tiny little red dots like pin pricks, with nothing in the center except for very slight yellowing of the skin. These rings rarely itch and seem to be just scabs from former bites, but I never noticed their circular formation before.
From everything I’ve read it seems very likely that I have bed bugs, but these rings look different from the other descriptions I’ve read.
I also live in the basement level of an apartment, and my room connects to a lower-level storage space that is used by the entire building and seems pretty dirty…
I sleep on the floor on a mattress and can’t afford to buy a new mattress (I’m an art student- no money)
Thanks!
I have bites mostly in a row like people talk about . I keep getting bitten. I have a mattress that is about 2 years old and there is not a mark on it or anything at all in the seams. It’s clean as a whistle.
I have has some little blood spots on the sheets. The box springs look good too. I can’t see any bugs ever. I have frese ( long shag) carpet and can’t afford to replace it right now. So it would be impossible to sprinkle the carpet.
I have tried to isolate the bed, but the problem just seems insurmountable. I would move if I didn’t own the townhouse. How can there be bugs if there is no sign of them? I could never clean all my clothes. I have 70 suits alone. What do you think of the heat treatment to get rid of them?
Hi Summer,
Early in the morning is their favorite time and chances are you have many more if you saw two in such a short time span!
They could indeed be living in your mattress but that doesn’t mean you have to toss the mattress. Instead, check out your local stores and get a mattress cover that prevents dust mites (which will also prevent bed bugs).
Make sure to review my checklist and look around the bed and in the room for signs of infestation.
Please, if you can send pictures, it will be a big help to those experiencing the same situation as you.
By the way – are you waking up with bite marks?
Thanks,
Jim.
Well for months and months now I have been being bit throughout the night. I have 2 dogs, one of which has a flea problem so I thought his problem was my problem. I got him treated, bombed the house, washed the linens and the bites stopped for a bit.
When they came back i knew it wasn’t fleas because he doesn’t have any!
So i started googling bed bugs, and came up with the info and all but saw NO SIGNS on the bed at all.
Last night i had a bit of insomnia and was awake til about 5am. As i was lying there watching tv I see this little flat bug go by. I turned on the light, and caught the little bugger in a small makeup jar.
IT IS A BED BUG!!! so I immediately freak out because I have already read all of the horrid stories about these things, and am so scared I wont be able to get rid of them EVER!
I go back to bed, and before even lying down see another on my pillow!
how could i have not seen any of these before?!
I must ask- if i saw 2 bed bugs on my bed in less than 30 minutes, does that mean i have a lot of them?
I will go with all of the tips on here, but i really will be trying the Diatomaceous Earth. I hear good things about this one.
My mattress has a hole in it, where the dog scratched it, and i was wondering if i should get rid of it due to this. They could be inside INSIDE the mattress now, right?!
I still have the bugs trapped at home and will pic it for the page, and i will take pics of anything i find on the mattress along with my bites!
Yes, what Tim, Kevin, Vaughn are referring to is a spider beetle. This species is called the hump beetle or shiny brown spider beetle, Gibbium aequinoctiale. It’s all fused, no hindwings, just crawls. The larval stage is small & grub-like. They feed on organic buildup, dried plants, dried animals (incl. dead insects), dried food items, probably skin scales, hair, similar to dermestid beetles in the home.
My daughter came to me with a two bites on her leg, that looked liked mosquito bites, then a week later she came with 3 bites on her arms. I thought they may have been flea bites from a neighbors house, but this morning my grandson had two bites on his arm, he slept in her room. Her is the question I am 98% sure that I may have discovered bed bugs but, Nobody goes to bed usually until well after 3:00am so what time should i look for them. The search I did before was during the day and I didnt find anything.
Also has anyone else tried the lavender oil, I would like to try it first before I try the other item recommended.
Thanks
ButterFlyGirl
Vaughn:
Your “bulby bugs” are spider beetles. They are insects (6 legs) with a hard, round, almost spherical body. They’re harmless.
I live in Greenwich village and every time the landlord guts and rebuilds an adjoining apartment I get trouble. Next time I’ll put down a residual insecticide before they arrive. Home Depot sells a House & Garden (Ortho I think) in a white plastic gallon container. It’s the more expensive of the two they carry. May be a problem to pets, especially to birds.
My fiancee has five bites on her, three on her right buttock, one on her cheek and one on her left hip. They are very painful to her, they itch, and looking at them i can see them pulsate with her heartbeat. But we do not know what they are, we stayed in a hotel the other night when our truck broke down, but we sleep very close to one another and i don’t have any at all on me?
I can see points on all of them, but on one it looks very much like a spider bite, the other ones however don’t have the multiple piercings that a spider leaves behind or it may just be that she is too swollen in those spots to tell really well. Sorry i don’t have any photos for you, but any information you may have would be great. Thank you for your time.
This is my first time going through something like this and I’ve been itching the bites and then when I scratch myself a big red bump appears! Please tell me what to do.
I have been getting these little red itchy bumps pretty much all over my body. Mostly my arms, but also legs, feet, hands, lower back and bottom. I live with my husband and my five month old. They do look similar to mosquito or spider bites. I have been getting these bumps for about 3 months or so and they go away but then I just get more.
My husband is not getting any bumps however my 5 month old seems to be developing some, but not as bad as mine. I pretty much get new bumps everyday and I seem to discover them mostly at night before I go to bed or an hour or so after getting up in the morning.
They are seriously driving me crazy and they look a lot like some of the pictures here. On two occasions I have sworn that I saw an almost microscopic little spidery light colored bug making its way across our bed sheet one morning and one also on a book that I had picked up from the couch which it had been sitting on for roughly an hour.
We live in a very rundown apartment with lots of very old wood and lots of cracks and crevices and a dirty old used couch. It’s not always the most clean and sanitary place either. Please tell me that these are bed bug bites and not some rare deadly skin disease which is eating me alive!
Hi Katie,
Bites from bed bugs may not appear right away and may not even show until later in the day.
Hey Missy,
You could send them a certified letter stating your problem and the anguish it is causing you. You could also get in touch with your neighbors to see if they are having problems and send a letter as a group – that would be pretty hard to ignore.
If I’m living in an apartment and bed bugs make their way into my unit because the unit next door is infected, you better believe I’m going to get upset and do whatever I can to get management to act.
Visit LawRefs.com and ask her ‘Renee’ what you should write. She is an attorney that offers free legal advice through on this site – she’ll explain exactly what to do to set yourself up for winning a case (should it come to that).
I would also spread around some Diatomaceous Earth (check out our treatment section for more details on how this works).
Also, there are a number of lawsuits that have been successful listed on the site that may help you.
Keep us informed as to your progress, will you?
Thanks,
Jim.
Hey everyone,
I have been dealing with bed bugs for a couple months now we tried steam cleaning and vacuuming at first but it didn’t work. We have had our apartment sprayed 3 times already and still I’m getting bit. My brother and his girlfriend are not being bitten at all. It is hell to go through I vacuum my mattress boxspring carpets baseboards dressers end tables everyday but they seem to always come back!
I believe others are infested in this apartment and I suggested to my landlord to spray the entire building at once. What did he say? well its not our fault they are here so why should we fork out the money to do an entire building This is ridiculous, I don’t sleep half the time anymore because I’m afraid they will bite and it is hell living with all these bites.
Even having a mattress cover on my mattress and boxspring isn’t helping…I’m so sick and TIRED of this..I’m also wondering if this could be a reason to sue my apartment company.
Wow, I was really freaking out as I woke up this morning and found I have been eaten alive! My whole body has itching burning welty bumps that sting and look a lot like the bed bug pics. The weird part is that i have more bite marks now then what i did when i got up?
Hello, I live in Russia and have been dealing with bed bug bites for more than a year now. I have not heard of this earth material but will try it around the rooms.
Thank you.
I’ve been bitten all over by what I think are bed bugs. There is are little patch / yellow colored bump appearing at the tip of the bites, they itch and hurt a lot! Could those be the eggs? I just took a shower in relief.. sitting down now, comfortably and no itching but still going to go to doctor tomorrow. I’ll let you know what the doctor says.
Ok, so here’s an update…
I put the DE all over the place but to no avail the bed bugs continued to bite and bite! So, next course of action….I went to the exterminators and bought this stuff called Pro Bug X. I’ve spent this last week cleaning and packing everything up in storage bins. The exterminators told me that I needed to wash all clothes and bedding…basically everything in the house in hot water and run it in the dryer for 40 minutes. Then bagging the clothes and twist tying it. So I have been forever doing laundry!!!
On Sunday I sprayed my whole house…cracks, along baseboards, closets…top and bottom, kitchen, living room, couches, box spring / mattress, basically EVERYTHING and removed myself, my daughters and my cat from my house for 17 hours.
Last night I found two little buggers dying on the floor so I know this is working! I have to do the spraying again in 5-7 days because I was told that absolutely NOTHING can kill bed bug eggs. Also, I have to vacuum everyday, sweep and mop, and doing laundry consisting all the bed clothes and clothes that we are wearing.
So in short….I am living out of bags for the next 3 weeks as I have to wait 10-14 days after the second treatment to even think about putting the clothes back in the rooms. This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me but I am soooo glad I caught these lil buggers early before they multiplied a million times!
NOTE: The Pro Bug X active ingredients include (.20% Tetramethrin and .20% Permethrin) which are commonly used as an insecticide and affects the insect’s nervous system. If you want to buy a generic brand, you can ask your local retail / hardware store for a similar product containing these ingredients.
My son has about 6 or 7 red pimple like bumps that are very itchy. They are larger than a pimple and hard to the touch but I have been told the hardness could be from scratching. Right now they are only on his arms. Some of the bed bug bite pics look the same but I don’t know. Does this sound like bed bugs or something else?
I moved into an apartment building a few months ago. The first few days of being there I noticed what I thought was ticks in my bathtub so I bought some flea and tick spray and sprayed my apartment with it. I informed the management of the problem. After a week or so of living here the sent an exterminator to exterminate the whole complex saying people were complaining of spider bites.
Over these past few months I have been awakened at night itching terribly and have bites all over me (on my face, neck, between my fingers and toes, on my back, arms (especially my elbows), my knees and my feet.
I thought I had had an allergic reaction to a transfusion that I had but was check by a doctor who ruled that out. I was given prednisone and other anti-itch medication and was told it was probably an unknown allergic reation to something and sent home. The marks have continued to show up for months. I could not sleep because of the constant itching and burning from the sores all over my body.
Today, 1/17/2008, I was surfing the net and came across some pictures of bed bug bites and noticed how similiar they were to my bites. My husband shows no syptoms. My husband and I went into the bedroom and checked the mattresses and behold there the little blood suckers were. I was horrified. I’m itchng now thinking about them.
I have never seen nor had a bed bug bite in my life until now. My skin looks horrible. We looked for some treatments on the internet and purchased some Neem oil and Diatomaceous Earth to do some immediate treatment. As soon as I sprayed the Neem oil mix, they began to run. I captured some and placed them in a zip lock bag to show to my landlord.
I sprayed my living room and my sofa the carpet and but the DE powder underneath the sofa and the bed and around the cracks of the walls. I, sprayed my clothes with the Neem oil mix. I am now sitting in a chair with my feet propped up, afraid to go to sleep. I have been being eaten alive for three months and now I know how and by what.
I wonder if the bed bugs were what was the cause of the supposed “spider bites” that the complex was exterminated for when I first moved in? I plan on asking my landlord on Monday. I am quite upset. I don’t have any pictures but will submit some later.
What can use to get rid of bedbug bite spots, in my skin. What the best powder I can use to kill them and keep them away?
I Have gotten bed bug bites from a friend’s house and i dont want to perform any legal action against them. Is there a cream or anything i can put on my dark skin to get the spots away.
Great information Krista!
Please let us know how this works out for you!
Thanks for sharing!
Jim.
Ok….so I ran around all over my city looking for Diatomaceous Earth today and the only place I could find it was this place called Cowtown and they only sell 50 lbs bags of it. So I came back home and started looking up this stuff and I found that it is also called Silica Dioxide or Silicone Dioxide which I fortunately had on hand because I used it to kill ants last winter!!! So just to let everyone know, if you are looking for this stuff…you can find it in the ant/insect killing isle of most major stores and its really inexpensive! It’s called ChemFree Insect Killer. Safe for pets and children.
Thanks for all your help Jim! Hopefully this stuff really works. I’ve gotten rid of the infected bed and only found 4 bugs in my room on the floor so *keeping my fingers crossed* hopefully I wasn’t infested too too bad!
*Sigh* Bed bugs might not cause actual headaches but they are a headache!
Hey Jim,
Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. I was wondering if you could tell me if bed bugs can cause awful sinus headaches and pressure and crazy dreams??
—-
No problem Krista,
I have not heard of headaches before, but I would imagine that if you have a large number of bites and your body is not reacting well to them, you could experience headaches (I’m guessing that the bites would be inflamed, etc).
As for the dreams, sure – a bed bug could be crawling on you while sleeping and your subconscious may craft any number of wild dreams!
Regards,
Jim.
Hi Krista,
Bedbugs can zero in on the warmest person giving off the greatest amount of carbon dioxide and this may be the case with your boyfriend. Most likely, you have been bitten, you just react differently to bites that your partner.
Now that you found them, make sure you visit our treatment page and read up on where they hide, how to eradicate them and how to prevent them from coming back!
Good luck,
Jim.
Hey… I found bedbugs in my bed when I was moving my mattress to get a new bed. We immediately disposed of the bed, washed all linen and pillows in hot water, removed all clothing to be washed from the room, moved all furniture and vacuumed the whole room out, cleaned the closet, etc etc….
Until leading up to the finding of the bugs, my boyfriend had been experiencing the bites for weeks. He went to the doctor and they told him that it was an allergic reaction and gave him so hydrocortizone cream. What I am wondering here is why would my boyfriend be noticing so many bites and have this reaction and I haven’t noticed one bite or even a bit of itching?
Hello Lauren,
The smell is important, but if you are not finding any signs of bed bugs, then it leaves me puzzled.
From time to time I get a rash that looks a lot like bed bug bites, but I know it’s a reaction from food – exactly what food, I still have not pinned it down. It happens once in a great while, there is no smell and they itch like crazy!
Have you tried getting up early in the morning and looking around with a flashlight?
Check out the pictures at the beginning of this page – there are some excellent examples of what eggs and dropping look like!
You have me curious, so please, keep us up to date on your findings!
———–
Amanda,
If the bites are not going away and you are not itching them (irritating them) and they seem to be getting worse and not just new bites, I would see your doctor. The bites should only last a short time (people react differently to the bites).
Make sure to document everything as the apartment complex may have an obligation to pay the bills if they knew about the bed bugs and failed to act.
———–
Charissa,
You may very well have a case if the landlord knew about the problem but didn’t act upon that information. If you want a free opinion from a lawyer, I’d suggest visiting LawRefs.com and post your question there – it’s an excellent free legal site ran by a medical malpractice attorney.
———–
Best regards,
Jim.
I’m not sure if its bed bugs……..HELP! So here’s my story. About 2 months ago I got a severe headache that lasted about 11 days straight. The doctors gave me several different medicines that didn’t work at all.
I thought I would have a headache forever until the 12th day when I woke up with no headache but a rash all over my arms and legs. I of course went back to the doctor’s office and he thought the headache was most likely viral and the rash was a sign that it was leaving the body. He prescribed a strong antihistamine for the itching and the rash disappeared within 4 days.
I have been healthy as a horse since that incident until this morning…..I woke up this morning with the exact same rash. It’s only on one arm this time. It looks exactly the same as before though. It looks similar to hives. Little raised red itchy bumps. There is no eye in the center of them or anything.
I was researching rashes when I came across a picture of bed bug bites. They look so similar to what I have. Then I started researching bed bugs. I am completely flipped out. I tore my bed apart and found nothing. I never see any blood or brown spots on my white sheets either. The one thing besides the rash that makes me think it may be bed bugs is when I read about the smell that is sometimes accompanied by these bugs.
I have driven myself crazy for about six months now trying to find where this weird smell is coming from in my bedroom. I’ve cleaned from top to bottom but the smell doesn’t go away. I guess the best way to describe it is to rotten tangerines?!?! I don’t know. Very weird. Nobody else smells it but me so maybe I’m just crazy. Does this sound like bed bugs?
Most of the stories on this site say the bites are constant but my rashes seem to be few and far between. I have had the same bed for over 7 years now. Are there any other ways to tell if you have them when you don’t see any sign of them on your furniture?
I’m so freaked out now =/ Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Lauren
I have had a skin biopsy done and the verdict was bed bugs, we moved into this house that had been not rented for 8 months, the bites are driving me nuts. I Have try creams and borox bathes, which seem to ease the bites. I am having a bad reaction to the bites because of scratching, also there are small little black things that I take out of the bites.
Do you think this is bed bugs? I have done scabies treatment and now I find these black things on my arms and feel I get bit during the day as well, I think I am going crazy, please help.
Thank you, I’m at the point that I want to cut my hair off and cut these sores from my arms and legs they have gotten to the pus filled spots and have gone and made holes in my skin that will leave really bad scars, and now I am getting them on my face, don’t want to see people or leave the house because of it!
Hello everyone – I’m desperately hoping someone can help me with my problem. Our apartment, and a few others, have bed bugs. While my boyfriend has the worst of the bites, I did get one in an …unusual place.
I’m wondering how long the irritation lasts, as it’s been about a week and just seems to be getting worse. I haven’t been able to get in to see my doctor, but I’m extremely worried.
Any advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
I am not sure if these bites are bed bugs or what are they but they really itch. They are bites that swell up and are red all around. I have sprayed my mattress, the rugs, walls, anything i can think of. I have washed everything that is washable.
I only get these bites at night and only in areas that are uncovered during the night – Feet, hands, neck, arms and face. Once they heal they leave a dark mark. I have moved from bedroom to bedroom, even tried sleeping in the sofa but it seems they follow me where ever I go.
Does this sound like bed bugs???
I have been living at my apartment for 6 months and experience bed bugs my son moved out after having bites all over his body. We brought spray and threw away two beds but nothing helped. I made the owners aware but since an attorney has been appointed to take over the building. I suffered nights without sleep and marks on my body as a result.
I haven’t paid my rent for 5 months and now the compensate attorney is starting eviction proceedings. I asked him who is going to me for all my pain and suffering and the beds I had to replace.
Do I have a case to sue or not?
Over 2 weeks ago i had about 5 bites on my back right at the area my sleep pants sit with the elastic part. Mine went away after just a few days. right afterward my son has been getting them totaling to over 60 all over body mostly on his bum, and back and some on legs in back. He only wears underwear to bed and did sleep on floor some as well. We just moved to this house 3 months ago. Went to doctor gave a fucidin cream (which cost me 50 dollars) and it did nothing the bites or marks are still on him and not really going away.
Since i have received about 5 more bites 4 by my pantyline on my pelvis and one behind my upper leg. There are all itchy and since the bumps i feel like things crawling all over me too, probably just the thought but it sucks. Have washed all sheets in his room looked over mattress and even beat it with our hands to see if anything came out. there was not fecal matter i found or bugs at the time but was during day. I read the 3 am check and will do that tonight. I do have 4 cats but have checked them for fleas don’t have them and they are itching anyway. I have had chicken pox before so i thought possibly shingles for me but my son hasn’t had it. We sleep in different rooms. My father also has been staying here and now just hes mentioning red marks/bites that are itchy as well.
We also don’t have a soft water softener and the water here where we recently moved to is so super hard. It is the first time we have not had soft water, so I’m wondering if this is a problem too. Or with laundry soap because of hard water not maybe getting it out of clothes and our skin is sensitive to it.
‘ve been searching on the net for so long now trying to diagnose this because the doctor here is an idiot. Told me some kind of bug that covers them all. Well i need to know so i can fix it. we’ve been cleaning and searching and the only one bug i found so far was a tiny baby black spider in the xmas box in the spare room which came out when i went to put the xmas stuff away. Other than that no other bugs have been found. I do have another apt with the idiot doc tomorrow and will bring in all my findings that it could possibly be:
These are what i found: bed bugs, mites, chiggers, pityriasis Rosea, hives, shingles, ear mites, Urticaria hives.
I am getting so frustrated and tired of always feeling like things are crawling on me.
Any ideas, what do you think they are? They look like a mosquitoes bit or a zit and are very itchy, i will do the 3 am bed bug check tonight and look around room again and wood too see if i find any of the bed bugs.
All these beds were at my mom, very clean house and when we moved in the uhaul the mattresses and box springs were covered with plastic.
If anyone has any advice or ideas please let me know thank you