An even longer MondayFollow

I think God is telling you to move.

Friday night my Grandfather in law was flown from a hospital where he was having tests down to Toronto as he needs a quadrupal bypass ASAP. 10 minutes after we're told that we find out we have bed bugs. We spend Friday and Saturday ripping our house apart preparing for the exterminators to come at 7 am Sunday. WTH do you do with a 3 year old daughter at 7 am on a Sunday when you have to stay out of the house for 6 hours and she's only slept 4 hours? We slept a total of 6-7 hours all weekend then Sunday night I find out my mother has found some in her spare room (where my brother has been staying occasionally) so I spent last night going through her house. All told $1000.00 spent in 2 days and we're not even close to done. That was our rent money.

We're now living out of plastic bags waiting to hear about the grandfather and trying to figure out how to pay our bills on no sleep.

Just found out my aunt has them, she got them from her ex via their daughter who babysits my nieces who are currently at my home, and my brother spent a few weeks at our house.

My sister, my aunt, my uncle, my mother, and us all have them now...I'm f*cking bubblewrapping my house.

It's easier to dispose of a body than a flush toilet?

How do you find out you have bed bugs? Maybe that's a stupid question, but can you see them easily?

If you pull apart your bedding(strip down the bed and such) at night, you'll see em as they scurry for cover, as I understand it. You can also look for bite marks on your body.

I can't remember if it was them or another parasite I was reading about, but they tend to like to feed around the ankle area.

They also have a distinctive 3 bite mark, which is known jokingly as "breakfast, lunch, and dinner."

Does it come on its own toilet paper role?

What happened to the old seal? Did it get hit with a club?

Uh, yeah. That would be DDT. It was more the birds didn't like it. You know eggs that don't make baby-birds and all, was tough on the populations.

Spray your kids bed down with some. It'll kill off the bedbugs, get rid of that annoying rash, with the added benefit of not having to worry about unintended pregnancies.

I don't think that's true. DDT was banned back in the what, seventies? Bedbugs didn't resurge in population until the mid nineties(according to a quick wiki search). I think it's more of a problem with the current trend to favor bait style pesticides which are effective on many pest species with less residue and harmful side effects for humans.

Edited, Aug 24th 2010 8:21am by Poldaran

Actually, I might be wrong entirely. The seventies ban I was thinking of(which mostly affected developed coutries) was for agricultural use. It is apparently still approved for use as a vector control agent due to the reduced impact when used in such a manner.

DDT is completely outlawed in the US. As you mentioned it still has a huge market in the 3rd world in defense of malaria. It's demise in the US is often said to be one of the main reasons for the bedbugs resurgence - which were all but eradicated at one point. But, it's probably general pesticide use over-all, or maybe the bedbugs just evolved a new strain that we weren't keeping at bay.

Pesticides are poison - that's why they work - they kill stuff. Use them with caution.

Son called to say that the cat is no longer in the fireplace but there is no an inordinate amount of ash/sand strewn over the family room carpet. Ray is going to be pissed.