*** do not read this blog post unless you want to be neurotic like me about bed bugs ***
As she sits and watches the January rain pouring down, the sun strangled from the sky until May, they are waiting. As she picks her cuticles and sips her coffee and waits for her soaking hair to dry because she again forgot her umbrella, they are waiting.
It is time for a confession.
My name is Charis, and I have an almost crippling fear of bed bugs.
My home has never been infested, nor have I ever been bitten (though I imagine it often). I only know one person (who has admitted it) who has been infected. Yet despite my complete lack of direct interaction or suffering because of them, these disgusting little bastards continue to sit proudly on the throne of my absolute most righteous terror.
I am absolutely terrified of bed bugs.
Early in the night when the sun goes down and the mountains fade from her view, the world gently tucked-in beneath a giant blanket of darkness, they are waiting.
It all started when a guy I used to sleep with -- we'll call him Fernando -- informed me that one of his friends had an infestation of bed bugs in a living room couch. It was so bad they ended up putting the couch on the street. Disgusting story, right?
I listened, was grossed out, and went on with my life, virtually unaffected.
Fast-forward a few months and Fernando discovers that he has bed bugs as well, all from sleeping on his friend's filthy couch. That's when I began to panic.
What if on one of the nights Fernando crashed at my place he had unwittingly delivered hitchhikers from parasite hell? I googled, and googling bed bugs was the single most awful decision I have ever made; I have never recovered.
As her tossing and turning at last grow still, finally slipping into a sleep deeper than her will, they begin to stir, their flat, weightless bodies scurrying towards her. To dine before the perfect moment means death, and these creatures love to live. They can wait for 9 months without feeding, like a baby waiting to be born. All their waiting lives are spent in hiding, their bodies pressed like guerrilla contortionists into the crease of a mattress, an electrical outlet, the lining of a jacket, completely still, hidden, waiting, hungry.
The right moment arrives only rarely – always in the deepest night, when her heart and breath slow to a point clearly declaring oblivion and helplessness. This is when they feast.
Blankets and clothing mean nothing to them – their agility and contortionist expertise allows them access to any portion of the body they desire. Some bodies taste better than others – some are delectable, causing gluttonous feasting and multiple meals in one night, others merely suffice for sustinence, boring them with the lack of a secret ingredient.
Here are the facts. Bed bugs love to travel and can be found all across the world. They are easy-going, Republican and Gemini. They can travel up to 100 feet to get to their prey in the night -- however they usually "infest" and live in an area within 8 feet of where someone frequently sleeps. They do not like to be far from their food. They can wait up to 9 months without feeding and be perfectly fine (meaning that you can move into an apartment that has been vacant for 6 months, and not realize that bed bugs are included in the rent). Their bites are felt and appear differently on every person, and it can take 9 hours to 14 DAYS for their bites to show up on the skin, meaning that you can be feasted upon in a hotel and not know until a week or two later. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to anyone, you have carried bed bugs in your luggage and clothing to multiple other hospitable locations - airplanes, hotels, couches, homes, etc. Or so goes my ongoing nightmare.
The places on her where they choose to feed swell up in their honor – a flag of sorts, “Here is where we took what we wanted,” the swollen flesh seems to convey. These signs of invasion cause her to curse and to scratch, searching in fury for the cause, but by now hours and even days have passed, and the culprits are long returned and sleeping in their hiding places, satisfied and patient, full and pregnant, already beginning their wait for the next perfect moment for themselves and their children.
Feeling panicky yet? Feeling itchy? Feeling anxious for no reason except a description of a parasite? Welcome to my world.
Try as you might to catch them in the act, they are virtually impossible to find. Fernando used to set his alarm for multiple times during the night with a flashlight beside him, and never once discovered a single bed bug in his home with his own eyes. Yet he would awaken the next morning to a new round of itchy evidence. They wait until the heart beat and breathing of their prey have slowed down to the slowest rate possible: usually 4:00 in the morning. I think of them as having human-like intuition and evil, corrupt little souls. I cannot imagine anything more creepy...
...except for this: unlike other infestations, bed bugs cannot be terminated conventionally: they are immune to poison. The only sure-fire way to get rid of them is by using extremely high heat. Terminators actually bring in crazy industrial heaters to spaces that are infested, and bake the little bastards dead. This technique is limited in availability, extremely expensive, and not extremely effective.
I have no idea why bed bugs won the right to so effectively terrorize me. But they did. Fear of them is where my anxiety lands: and I hate them. Thanks a lot, Fernando. Thanks a lot, google. ("Thanks a lot, Charis," you are now saying).
Her breath quickens as she tries to calm herself, but images and phantom sensations of crawling invaders prohibit her from sleeping. Every invitation she whispers to herself to sleep, to breath, is instantly turned on it's head by the fear of awakening her crawling nightmares. And so she oscillates between her logic and her fear, her sweet man laughing in blissful sleep beside her, leaving her to stand guard alone against the invaders, her only weapon a racing heart.
I worked in a homeless shelter, infested with bed bugs. We each had a big rubber container to put our personal items (purse, coat) in for the day, and we were encouraged to check one another's clothing at the end of the day, to make sure we weren't carrying anything home. I was bitten, as were my co-workers, but thankfully no infestations. They really are gross little survivalists.
Posted by: Hanna Dee | January 20, 2014 at 10:32 PM