No, seriously. Don't.
About a week ago, Scott came down with a rash on his arms and hands. It moved from day to day, but was consistently there. He's been under a great deal of stress at work, so we attributed it to that.
Then, last night, I crawled into my freshly laundered sheets with a new (and, as it turned out, very good) book. About two minutes into my read, I noticed a black bug crawling on my clean sheet. I thought it was a flea and, annoyed, crushed it, reminding myself that it was time to reapply the flea medicine on the animals. I continued reading and saw a second, then a third bug. And they were too soft to be fleas. Then I saw a larger, round, red bug crawling on the other side of me. And that was the end of my restful summer night.
We have bed bugs in our bed.
In the wee hours of the night, I made appointments for Stanley Steemer to come clean the carpets, Terminix to do a cryogenic treatment (if the heat doesn't get them, maybe the cold will?), and did extensive internet research which led us the the soon-to-be-purchased diatomaceous earth for sprinkling on the carpet. We spent the morning disassembling and removing the bed, laundering the just-laundered bedding, vacuuming, checking the kids' beds (they're fine, thank goodness!) and researching places to buy new beds. We'll be moving upstairs and sleeping on the aerobed until we figure something else out. And we'll be buying mattress encasements for the kids' beds. If you don't have them on yours, you should. All of this could have been prevented if we had had them.
So there you go. This summer is turning out to be very fun, and expensive.
Tonight, I hope to sleep tight and to NOT let the bed bugs bite.
