Bedbugs

Bedbugs are an American tradition that every man, woman and child should experience before they die. Bedbugs are not a scourge encouraged by ill hygiene. This is a myth. They are a painful reality brought upon by Europe, the absence of strong-enough pesticides and hell. Bedbugs can travel through outlets and cracks in walls. Unlike swine flu, bedbugs procreate with wilder abandon in hot weather. If you suspect you have an infestation, do not keep it to yourself. Alert your landlord to hire a fumigator, and if they do not comply, prepare to spend heedless amounts of money.

 

How do you know if you have a bedbug infestation? You will wake with telltale clusters of red swollen marks usually in groups or lines of two or three. You will itch like crazy, look like a leper and feel like a fool.

 

How do you avoid bedbugs? Do not take furniture from the street. Check clothing from thrift stores before buying. Bedbugs are visible. You can see them. They are brown, striated, flat and ovoid. Don’t live in Greenpoint. Don’t stay in hotels. Don’t move.

 

What do I do once I have bedbugs, in order to alleviate the pain and maybe someday be free again? Wash every piece of clothing you have in a million degree heat and then dry likewise, double bag in plastic and hide in the bathroom. Hire expensive, effective fumigator to fumigate your apartment several times. While treatment is underway, live at friends’ houses but have the decency not to transmit the bugs by wearing clean clothes, not carrying wood or other materials within which bedbugs may reside.

 

Bedbugs are the worst, most expensive, distressing and psychologically flabbergasting pests in the world. I hate them.