Bedbugs, week 3

After a pleasant 3 days in Florida, during which I discovered only one new itchy bump, I returned to my own bed with some trepidations. Over the course of the following day, itchy bumps appeared all over me--mostly in places I'd rather not mention. This, combined with my return to a climate where winter is just around the corner, combined with being unable to find any of my stuff since it's all packed up in plastic bags or piled in the back of my car, made me quite cranky.

So after work, I decided to escalate the battle a bit. I'd been waiting to aggressively treat my bed until we could treat the whole house, but I decided to give it a go anyway, because there are only so many itchy bumps I can stand before I lose my mind completely. So I stuck a sprayer nozzle in my electric teakettle and blasted every crevice in my bed (above the level of the duct tape) with boiling water.

Then I squirted hot glue in in all the places where bugs might conceivably be crawling under the tape. I wish I knew for sure whether the tape is actually enough to deter the bedbugs. It's certainly not catching any of them, but from forum discussions, I gather that that's to be expected. But if they're walking right over it with a grin on their faces, well, I'm wasting a lot of my time. It's the industrial-strength duct tape. If it's not good enough, I guess my only recourse is to cry.

My other housemate (the one that's never here) finally found time to bag up most of her possessions. She did it while I was gone, and I have to say that when I saw her handiwork, I was way impressed. She did more in 2 days than I've done over the course of several weeks.

On the other hand, she's never here! She doesn't have to pick and choose and try to decide what stuff she's going to need and what stuff she can safely pack away, because she doesn't need any of it! So now that she's done her part, we are almost prepared for our major offensive.