Embarrassing Question...bed Bugs!

I started working for a Pest Control Co about 7 months ago and believe it or not, bed bugs are a bigger & wider spread problem than you might imagine. It is very important to not move anything including sleeping arrangements as if it is bed bugs, it will cause them to move to other rooms. I would definetly call a professional to at least do an inspection. I am not trained in this, but I am learning. I know that they only come out at night and hide during the day. You can see them. Check under the mattress and in the seams. If there are any tears, check those too. They can also hide in any crack or crevice around the bed or bed posts. When our company treats for these, they even pull up the edges of the carpeting. If you want to really be sure you get rid of them, I would call in a professional.

You can check on google or yahoo for more info, check the Harvard web site, they have a bunch of into. Bed bugs are epidemic in the Denver area and while they used to be considered an annoyance, recent research indicates they may transmit a number of diseases. Don't mess around with this, bring in a professional. They will be able to tell you if they are bedbugs and how to treat for them.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/bedbugs/management.html

www.hsph.harvard.edu/

See if you can find some photos of what bed bug bites look like. All the ones I've seen don't really match your description. Bed bug bites are usually pretty gross.
Anyway, if you DO have bed bug, you will probably need to tent and fumigate your house. Bed bugs are nocturnal (only come out at night) and will hide anywhere, in the mattress, behind picture frames, underneath dressers and side tables....LOL, yeah, pretty much anywhere where it stays dark. You can however see bed bugs, so tear the room apart, and look in all those places. I have the bite issue sometimes too, especially right after spring thaw and a few weeks before we get a hard freeze, or if my kids haven't washed their sheets for a while (a few weeks). I've never figured out what, except Spiders, and spider bites will cluster.
Hope you figure out what it is.

we had something similar not that long ago and took dd into the doctor and it turns out it was a viral infection it mimics a bug bite but wasn't. It's a different strain than chicken pox but of the same family is what we were told. DH took her to the doc so I don't have the name of it. lol but maybe run him into the doc to verify it is bites for sure or if it's a virus.

L.,
First, don't be embarassed - bed bugs are travelers and do not indicate that you are "unclean."

Second, my friend/neighbor had bedbugs, and I learned alot through helping her. I pray this is not what you have because they are very hard to eradicate (though it is possible!)

I wonder if you have bedbugs, because usually the whole house and all occupants are affected. One tell tale sign is three bites right in a row.

At first I thought you might have fleas, but then you said the dog was clean. Is there a possibility that there could be fleas where your son goes to daycare? Another possibility is scabies, which can be acquired through soil, animals, and many other sources. My son had scabies this year, and they were pretty easy to erradicate - I had to cover him in a lotion (permetherine). I hate to use the chemicals, but sometimes you just have to. My son also had lice (again, not a cleanliness issue) and the chemicals didn't work - I had to shave his head. WE have had lots of bug issues this year, and it has been a total drag!

I believe this is the email of a guy who has a whole bed bug website, and he will personally reply to your inquiries. It has been a while since I used it so I cant guarantee that this address is still good. <____@____.com>. This is his website: http://thebedbugresource.com/bedbugcontacts.htm

Good luck!!

If i

Hi L.,

I am not sure if they are bed bugs or not. I actually got them my Freshman year in college in a dorm. There were 3 of us in one room and my bed was the only one that had them and two of our beds were bunk style and the other was touching it like and L shape and they never got them. The school had someone come out and check the beds. They did have to replace my mattress and I never had the problem again. I also washed all my linens in hot water and threw away my pillow and got a new one. Good Luck!!

HI L.:
Don't be embarrassed! Bed bugs are making a huge comeback all over the world! Even people staying in 5-star hotels are getting them! I knwo this because we recently had someone that lives with us (our au pair) bring them into our home after she went on vacation. My hubby dealt with getting rid of the bed bugs while i was out of the country on a business trip (fortunate for me!) so he is the most experinced with them. Typically though you get them from sleeping somewhere that has them. they are only transferred during night time and typically are obtained while sleeping. Ourts were confined to the Au Pairs bedroom adn we had to treat our whol ehouse. Best to call an exterminator as they knwo what the bites look like. Has your son been sleeping at a hotel or someone elses house recently?
S. Kauffman

If they are indeed bed bugs, you should be able to find them on the corners of the mattress, as well as having dark black stains in the crevises of the mattresses. You would also see blood stains on the sheets. Some people are more sensitive or allergic to the bites then others, so some have a more severe reaction. The like the dark and body heat. They may also live in drapes around the bed, framed pictures, the carpeting or base boards. They are pretty tiny so they travel easily and get carried from one place to another. Perhaps try checking on him in the middle of the night by turning on the light or a flashlight to see if you see any on his bed at that time. I would also check with the school/daycare he attends.
If it is bedbugs, I would recommend a professional exterminator as they can be very difficult to get rid of and can hide out dormant for months. Good luck and let me know if you have any other questions(I went thru this a year ago and still feel the pain).

We lived in Denver on Capital Hill when we first got married. We got bed bugs there, but didn't know what it was. We ended up taking them with us when we moved. I was attacked by them when I was pregnant and it was summer time, all the eggs hatched from the heat and LOVED my rich prego-blood. When I started getting the bites the OBGYN and my husband and I didn't know that's what it was. We all thought it was from allergies and kept treating it as such.
Then one night I pulled the comforter back on my bed and saw a bunch of little bugs that quickly tried to hide. I freaked out.
We did some research upon killing one and looking at it really close.
Sure enough, bed bugs.
Apparently densely populated areas, like Capital Hill, have big problems with them. I have known alot of people in that area to get them.
They will bite any exposed skin, so they should only be biting where his PJ's dont cover.
They will spread around your house and most definatly can move from bed to bed, even if they were not touching.
From your discription, I would say it is not bed bugs.

I agree with taking him to the doctor. I thought I had bedbug bites, but couldn't find any proof of them. The doctor discovered that it was actually scabies. No idea how I got infected, but it can be passed with just a handshake. No one else in my house was infected, even though I'd been suffering for weeks from the bites. An oral med and a topical cream took care of it immediately.

Don't be embarrased! You didn't get the bedbugs because you have a filthy house, but rather from someone that do. I know of someone that have been having bedbugs for months and she giggles about it when it is talked about. Her family and she is of course not welcome in our house, because I know her kindergartener told her that he saw the bedbugs coming off his backpack at school and she just giggled about it. She claims that they didn't have them in this apartment when they moved in but they had it in the old apartment. Where does she think they came from to the new apartment? Ignorant unconcerned morons like her are the cause for you getting bedbugs.

You will need to get a professional exterminator to go through your house. The bedbugs can be found on couches/loveseats, mattresses, carpets/rugs, clothing etc. You sit on the couch and then go to take off your clothes for the night and sit down on the bed. Voila!

i hope you only have afew that you can easily get rid of, because if you have them really bad there might be only one way of getting rid of them and that is by getting rid of furniture and mattresses (anything padded). I sure hope you don't need to do that, but when you call the professional exterminator find out what kind of measures you can take before he/she makes it out for the treatment.

Be prepared that you might need to wash all the clothing for the family as well as vacuuming the house thoroughly from top to bottom.

Good Luck!! I hope the Exterminator will be able to cut down your work.

First call the daycare. Seems that this is coming from them and you need to figure out what is going on!!! Call the director and demand you get some information on what these bites are and talk to other parents and see if there is a problem there.
Typically bedbugs can travel in clothing. They get infested in the mattress and will leave blood stains all around the mattress. At night they bite and feed off the human host, YUCK I KNOW! There will be bites all along the torso, legs and arms get the brunt of it.
If he had them at school and brought them in, then I think they are to be held accountable to some degree! If you can see a bug, get it and put it in a baggie.
First, call them, they could have an infestation of fleas there too, ankles bites that are itchy are very typical of flea bites.
It could be a health code issue too for the school!!!!
Call a local exterminator, tell him what is happening. At some point they bedbugs would be biting his brother too, if they share a room. From what I have heard, they get into the carpets, walls, drapes and it is full blown exterminating operation.
But before you assume that is what it is, get with the daycare and call a local exterminator to ask what to look for.
It has nothing to do with cleanliness, so don't worry, it is a matter if the daycare had them and he brought them back home.
From what you described it seems to only happen when he is at school so I am thinking fleas or chiggers (though I didn't think Colorado had chiggers).
Good luck! HUGS!

We had one child with bed bugs. I bought a plastic mattress cover (which zips up and completely covers the mattress). The problem has been 100% solved since that day.

hello,after reading on youre son and his bites which you thought was bed bug bites i am not expert but i think its something else i work in hotels major chain and awhile back we got them and there called hitchikers as they can come in via being brouht in with out you knowing it pets can carry them as well as other people if anyone carried a suitcase purse bag etc they dont inch and unless you knew what you were looking for you proubly wouldnt notice they like to hide in the crevis along the edge of youre mattresses behind a headboard they get in the mattress and then if its infested with them after the body lays on the bed and ready for a good nites sleep they come out and suck the blood out while youre sleeping there little bity like a very small flea just a blk spot they leave a red bump and normalley a small streak of blood on the sheets i dont remember anything on itching they hide in the night stand drawers they look like a tick the motel had to fumagate everything everything had to be taken out and laundried after pulled the mattresses out and sprayed by a professional service as the other stuff they sell wasnt strong enough they put there mattress for over 6weeks and they were in a refridgeated semi truck they were out alot of money its alot of money and work you can check the internet but there a pain to get rid of to this day if i see a small blk spot im on it to see i'm very paranoid on this subject most of the time you have to burn everything to get rid of these pains as i started to say is you have to seek medical treatment due to the irretating bites let me know what you find out thanks P. m

Check out webMD; they have good info on parasites too. (That's how we determined my son had lice ... eeww lol). It's a pretty reliable sourcce. If he keeps getting the rash, take him to the doctor. It could be any kind of skin parasite (scabies, fungus, etc) and sometimes you'll need a prescription to get rid of it.

Just wanted to say that YES only one may get bites. I actually am allergic to bed bug saliva and ended up in urgent care because my whole body was covered and swollen while my husband maybe got one bite. It just depends on how sensitiv you are to them. I was so bad we decided to bug bomb our apartment and vacuumed all the crevices of our mattress and couch and that fixed it for us.

Good luck!

Hi L. - it could be bedbugs but you might also talk to a pediatric dermatologist about scabies. I recommend seeing a derm doc only because often a general doc can easily misdiagnose these kinds of things. Because of the length of time between "attacks", it could be spiders. When you look for bedbug traces, also look in the closets and in and around the bed for the cottony egg sacs. I know that sounds gross but the little tiny babies can hatch just about anywhere and they can pack a punch when they bite. You might also consider putting on one of those vinyl mattress cases that completely enclose the mattress. It would be less expensive than buying a new one.

Take off all the bedding and check the matress for dark pin size fecal matter, it will be in a cluster or trail. Usually if you have bedbugs or fleas others in the home are affected because we transfer the critters around the house. Spiders can bite in clusters. I would wash all clothing, bedding etc. but don't rule out that this may be happening at school.