Anyone Have Experience with Bedbugs in Home

We had bedbugs about 2 yrs ago now...my husband travels a lot and we think he picked them up in New York...they are in every hotel there (even the high end ones apparently). Our pediatrician diagnosed it, I took the kids in b/c I thought they had a rash. Anyway, I did a ton of research as well and ended up trying Diatomaceous Earth since I wanted something cheap and non-toxic. It worked great!! I didn't have to throw out any matresses or furniture. I puffed it around the baseboards in every bedroom, on the sides and in between the matresses and around the feet of all the furniture in the bedrooms (after moving everything away from the wall). I vacuumed it up and put out fresh powder each week, but I don't think you need to since it never loses potency. Since bedbugs don't often live in the matresses or bedding (they prefer wood to fabric) and they don't jump or fly, they had to crawl through it to get to anyone in the bed. The DE dehydrates them and kills them in a day or two. Within a week the bites decreased, there were only occasional flareups after that when eggs hatched. Within about 3 weeks they were gone completely. I never foound any signs of bedbugs accept the bites. I also washed the bedding every few days in very hot water and for the non washable bedding I threw it in the dryer on high heat for at least an hour just in case.
I found DE at a local animal feed store...it is often used to deworm horses I guess, so its not too hard to find. You can order it online easily too. Good Luck.

My cat used to bring home fleas and I often got bites on my stomach and back. The fleas liked tight places and would hide in waistbands or pants and skirts. The bites were often in a line. But sometimes they'd venture out and bite me someplace else. The worst, of course, were bites on my legs when our carpet became infested and the little critters were hopping up as we walked across the floor. Ooo, ick. Anyway, now we have an indoor only cat so no more flea problems.

I believe if they are bed bug bites there will be 2-4 bites in row at a time. We had a few apartments in our building that had bed bugs so I did a lot of research to find out what these bugs can do. If you have them you will need to get a professional in there to get rid of them. You can sometimes see them in the seems of your mattress. If you have lighter color sheets you might see a small blood streak from squishing them. They are most active at 2am so if you are up then you could check with a flashlight for them. I know they like to hid between the floor and wall. We had a guy come in and check our apartment and that is what I was told. I even tore apart my couch just so we could see if they were living in the wood frame. Bed bugs love living in wood and I was told to check under dresser drawers where the bottom meets the front, back and sides.
Anyway I hope it is not bed bugs for you

Hello, my daughter had bed bugs last year, she brought a mattress from the store and they were in it. she paid to have the home sprayed and we had to wash everything like the readers are saying, we than got a new mattress and she quickly put the mattress in a plastic cover just in case. I agree witht he other reader have some one come out to check because you don't want to wait to long.

We had some bugs when we moved into a new house. The boys had bites on their stomachs, backs, legs, faces, everywhere. My husband and I didn't have anything. At first I thought it was bed bugs. I checked the beds, the mattresses, the bed frames, everything but I couldn't find any indication that there were any bedbugs present. Then I thought maybe there are fleas in the carpet on the stairs and in the hallway (the previous owners had a dog). We ripped out the carpet that was on the stairs and in the hallway. Then I vacuumed every crack and cranny in the wood floor, around the doors and the baseboards in the entire house. I also washed all the bedding again. After that we didn't have a problem anymore. In retrospect I think we did have fleas and not bedbugs, because from what I hear bedbugs are much harder to get rid off.

Check the patterns of the bites. If they are in a row, they might be bedbug bites. If they are scattered all over without any pattern, it's more likely something else. There is a lot of information on the web on how to go about to find bedbugs, etc. But since your cat had fleas, I would think that you most likely still have fleas somewhere in the house.

I work for a housing agency and we deal with bed bugs way too often.
Call your city/town housing inspector's office to aks for information to remediate bedbugs and get recommendations for exterminators. The most effective treatment for bed bugs is a heat treatment where your house is closed up and heated to a certain temperature which kills the bed bugs and any eggs that may be there.
you need to check your furniture - cushions, tops, bottom, springs, etc. and have you brought anything new into your home on which bed bugs could travel? It's possible that you or someone in the family went somewhere that there were bedbugs and they hitched a ride home on your clothing or bags...Good luck!