How do you get rid of the things? Do you go chemical or not?

Last week I wrote about an invasion of bedbugs in my home and how I brought in a pest control company to nuke the little bloodsucking bastards. I'm letting the bug guys spray whatever they want as long as it's legal and deemed safe to humans and animals. And they can come back several times for more sprays if that's what it takes.

But according to some people-and this is highly controversial among bedbug survivors, exterminators and bug experts-you can beat bedbugs on your own without stuff from the lab. That's why I've received a lot of homespun advice since my "little problem" appeared. Use herbal sprays. Clean up clutter. Throw out your furniture. Play Streisand loudly on the stereo. ("Worked to get the kids out of the house," says a colleague.)

That same colleague suggested I start a business on the side by auctioning off surplus bugs to people seeking revenge. I've already written the draft for my Craigslist ad: "Boyfriend cheated on you? Is your neighbour a pass in the ass? Toss a couple of these babies through their bedroom window at night and wait several weeks for the hilarity. Bugs $10 each or three for $20. No returns please."

A couple of people told me they're not worried about bedbugs because their cats will eat any bugs that come their way. It's true that cats love eating insects. But cats also sleep 22 hours a day, and when they're awake, they're too busy eating, grooming, staring out the window and looking for a new place to sleep to care about creatures the size of pinheads that refuse to go anywhere in the open. Trust me, I know.

Several people have told me the only way to get rid of bedbugs is toss out my mattress. Numerous bedbug control sources and health agencies suggest this isn't necessary and comes down to your personal comfort level. That is, are you personally comfortable sleeping nightly on a bed alive with creatures that want to eat you. But while tossing out an infested mattress might feel good, it also spreads the problem around, because lots of people prowl dumpsters specifically for used items like mattresses. And because life is like that, you'll end up marrying one of those dumpster-prowling people, moving into their house, sleeping on the same mattress you tossed out and getting reacquainted with your old little pals.

Some people advocate drastic measures. One reader emailed me about how back in the 1950s in Saskatchewan her father swabbed their family's mattresses with kerosene. It's the only thing that works, she wrote. My mother says her father in the 1940s in the Okanagan similarly wiped their bed frames with coal oil. My mother also notes with retrospective horror her family used open flame lamps for lighting. No doubt a lot of homes went poof in Saskatchewan and the Okanagan a half century ago.

Some readers say they fought hand to hand with their bugs and won. A reader in Killarney related how his family threw out three mattresses, wrapped others in vinyl and bought a pricey rug shampooer to vapourize everything in their carpets. Six months after their initial infestation, they are cautiously declaring victory. Another reader used a non-chemical powder she found at Canadian Tire to sprinkle on the mattress, carpets and around the edges of the infested room. A brave soul, she then got down on her hands and knees with a magnifying glass and tweezers and picked up every bedbug egg she could find. She described them as looking like "rice grains that move." She, too, believes she is now bedbug-free.

Whether successful or not, these stories show how fighting bedbugs is all consuming. It's like fighting a war. Or trying to contain a plague. And if you want to find people who take these metaphors seriously, check out the forums and the faqs on the thorough and popular blog www.bedbugger.com. A one-stop resource for bedbug sufferers everywhere, it contains advice about how to avoid getting bedbugs, tips on how to get rid of them if they do show up (the site overwhelmingly endorses using professional pest companies) and how to live while you still have them.

The site includes lots of advice and first-person accounts from people who live a quarantine life of too frequent laundry and clean clothes placed into large Ziploc bags for protection against future infestation. It's extreme, but it's also the protocol I've largely adopted. My life has become a sea of green and zippered plastic bags and marking the days until the next visit by the exterminator. But it's probably better than kerosene or Streisand. And it's better than continued life with bugs.

-blink@vancourier.com

published on 05/02/2007