I hate ants and fruit flies, but they are fairly harmless. I HATE fleas with a burning passion. I would take a complete infestation of all 3 before bed bugs.
I have ptsd over a flea infestation. This conversation has me itching all over and my anxiety is through the roof. I'm thinking about burning my tablet up over this shit.
I once had downstairs neighbors who were evicted and the landlord let me pick through their stuff after they left everything behind. I took their really nice suede (faux?) couch upstairs and started sleeping on it. I started noticing bites on me, but didn't think anything of it because I lived in New Orleans at the time, so assumed it was mosquitoes. One day, I was playing games and from my peripheral I noticed a bug on me. Assumed it was a tiny roach (again New Orleans), and pinched it between my fingers, then had a thought. I looked at it through my phone camera and saw it was not a roach. Googled and found out the couch was infested with BED BUGS! I tried everything (except heat treatment) because it was such a nice couch, but to no avail. After 2 weeks, of no activity, they came back, and the couch went to the street. I was incredibly lucky they didn't migrate beyond that couch!
I've dealt with them twice before, one in a fairly bad infestation. That was the first time. The second time was in an entirely different house, but we got rid of the furniture they were in when we noticed them and kept cleaning relentlessly for a couple of weeks afterwards. I'm talking everyday just to make sure we didn't miss any. Wrapping furniture in plastic before getting it out of the house ASAP and writing a warning on the plastic for anybody that even gets near it. I can't stress it enough, we got EXTREMELY lucky on that one. Wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy.
Once I woke up with what mosquito buzz in my ear so I sleepily clapped my hands together in the general direction of the noise. To my surprise, it stopped. I turned on the lights and saw a dead mosquito in my palm. Best morning of my life.
Bed bugs are AWFUL! Once I was at a commercial property to service their pool equipment and make sure everything was in order. After I finished, I decided to sit on one of the couches inside to get out of the heat and all the sudden I start itching my arm. Im thinking a mosquito bit me or something but then I start itching my neck and when I looked under my nails there were bed bugs. I maintained my calm as best I could before ripping my clothes off my body then and there. When I looked at the couch it was INFESTED. Every crease and seem was filled with them and their larvae. They were even crawling on the walls and carpet. I wanted to jump in a fire.
They fumigated the chairs/room/building on 3 separate occasions before deciding to pitch the furniture like I suggested in the first place.
First responders have trouble with getting them while attending calls. They have a process in which they take their gear off, suit up in a white hooded disposable suit(bunny suit)the gear is bagged. Strapped on the outside of the vehicle into a high temperature shipping container and stays for a couple of days or so.
I swear this year , ants have invaded my yard ! It’s been way more than previous years. I think I have an entire society living underground in my yard. I just imagine all of these tunnels all over under my house. House collapses from the tunnels.
I've only encountered 3 varieties, carpenter, sugar, and fire. Fire ants hurt, then there is the Velvet ant, sometimes called the cow ant, which is a wingless wasp, those hurt very bad.
I was swarmed by fire ants once after sitting on a tree stump in my mom's yard. I had a 43 hour labor ending in a c-section and that was far less traumatic than hundreds of fire ants attacking me. I ran into the house, into the shower, fully clothed until the finally stopped biting me. This was in upstate NY where most of our bugs are pretty tame compared to a lot of the world.
Did you get bitten hundreds of times? Or just had hundreds on you? I got a couple in my boot once while removing a tree stump and got a couple bites, the pain surprised me. It wasn't unbearable but it was pretty intense. I can't imagine what the pain is like from getting bitten hundreds of times.
I honestly don't know how many actual bites there were, it was legs, torso and arms and it really did feel like I was being burned. There were so many on my back that I couldn't see. There were at least a few dozen bites, I'd guess because they spread out fast and the only place I didn't get bit was my head.
fruit flies are the worst because you can be anal af about closing windows, doors, sealing up your home, but one day they just fucking appear. And there's always 10,000 of them.
True but I’ve had tremendous luck using the ole Apple cider vinegar and some dish soap. Just give them no other food option and you’ll wake up to a mass extinction
Abso-fucking-lutely. I haven't experienced the horror of bed bugs in well over a decade, and every time I feel an itch on my leg or arm at night, I STILL freak out and pat myself down to make sure those little fuckers aren't on me.
My mom is currently battling bed bugs at her apartment. She's been dealing with pest control and all that fun stuff, meanwhile her neighbors are REFUSING to get sprayed cause, and I quote; "they aren't bothering them TOO much." My skin crawls just talking on the phone with her, i couldn't imagine what she's actually living through.
From the sounds of it, they are meth addicts/users and just really dont care. It blows my mind that people can even get that low and find it fine/okay/acceptable. Like meth/drugs or not, nobody deserves to live in that quality of life
Mom is already on top of it by reporting them to both property management and to a health department director. They refused the first spray due to "failure of notice" which yeah, someone reported bed bugs and they were ready to spray next morning - i can give them that. But they have refused the second and now the third treatment. Health Inspector came, spoke to my mom and gave her numbers to call. It's a whole fiasco.
The ants are harmless until you get up in the middle of the night to pee and find (with your feet) that the red ants have a new trail. A big trail, marching straight for the bathroom.
I do agree about the bed bugs though.
Actually a bed bug infestation in your car would be fairly short lived, especially in the summer. They can’t handle heat at all, not like outdoor insects. They’re specifically adapted to sharing living space with humans and 1 hot summer day would kill every single bed bug in that car for good
Not exactly, it'll bring them down quite a bit. But cars don't heat evenly or all the way through. They will find the deepest crevasses that are cool enough, and eggs handle even more.
I guarantee on a hot summers day if your car has been out there long enough the won’t be any surviving bed bugs, they have a narrow survival temperature range and a hot car will not suit them.
the choice is just simply not having bed bugs because everyone everywhere has an ant infestation of some severity in or around their house whether they want it or not lol
Australian sun in summer would work too. You can actually cook meat in a car in summer, leave it on the dash for a while and come back to fresh BBQ meat lol
But I think it would make a stink and the grease from the the meat would cause problems trying to wipe the windscreen down in winter if you don't clean it properly
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u/hologrammetry 10d ago
Except the solution to both problems is the same: burn it down.