I had an invasion of these nasty lil' bugs in the last place I lived. An old mobile that needed torched. They just showed up from I know not where. They are consummate hitch hikers. I had two different kinds of them a well. The first one I saw looked like some sort of segmented beetle. It was quite large as well, almost and inch or better. I was in bed reading and saw it crawling on the edge of the mattress. Yelowish amber colored, segmented abdomen, almost put me in mind of a potato bug, just more slender. Reddissh stripes on the abdomen as well.
What clued me it was a bed bug was when I squashed it was full of bright red blood. I think it had fed on my dog who was sleeping under the bed.Not long after I started seeing the more typical type. Reddish beetle looking, fairly small. I thought that big critter was some one off sorta thing, but I wound up seeing others, they just weren't as large.
The regular bedbugs moved like water. Seemed the could just flow into any tiny little crease and disappear. I use these bombs and sprays, vaccumed the carpet edges baseboards, all over the mattress, washed all my bedding in very hot water with bleach, clothing, you name it. After all this and bombing and spraying, and sealing the bedroom up for two days, I remade the bed and layed down. In just a couple minutes I had these little red bugs marching across the sheets popping wheelies to get at me.They are next to impossible to get rid of.
What ended up happening was rather strange. I got really sick. Ended up in the hospital for 6 weeks. Before I went, I had thrown the mattress away. Put it in a mattress bag and hauled it to the dump. I also just threw out all my bedding. Then I wound up hospitalized. As I said, this place was very old. An old lathe wood and pressboard crap hole trailer. When I was discharged I dreaded going back there and renewing the war. However, when I got back, there was a new bug problem. Scads of these nasty looking thousand legged critters that looks like crawling feathers. They were everywhere. Especially the bedroom along the carpet edges, under the box spring, I was seriously disheartened. The place was leaky, it turned out that it was full of black mold, when the ceiling collapsed during a huge rain it revealed this issue. It also showed where the crawling feathers were coming from. Turns out they were house centipedes. I immediately told the landlady I was seeking life elsewhere. However, there was absolutely no sign of bedbugs.
There was of course nothing there for them to feed on for that six weeks, and as it turns out, those nasty looking centipedes have a taste for bedbugs. between getting rid of the mattress and bedding, my long absence and an army of bed bug gobbling centipedes, it was bed bug genocide whilst I was gone. Those centipedes cleaned them out. There was not a trace of any bedbug activity. Anywhere in the house. And I looked very closely, since I was packing to move out of that soggy cracker box. The centipedes were not a pleasant presence. Rather large and very creepy. But they put a whup azz on the bedbugs. When I researched them to find out what they were, at the top of the list of their favorite foods was bed bugs. I wouldn't have stayed there even though the bed bugs were gone, due to the mold issues and a landlady that didn't know what maintenance is, but in the short time I was there following coming home from the hospital, I had no more bed bug problems.
I'm not saying that someone should dump a five gallon bucket full of house centipedes in their bedroom if they have bed bugs, however, I believe it would be quite an effective method of combat. I now reside in a comfortable, cozy and spacious apartment, and no bedbugs hitch hiked in from the crap hole. The conditions in the old place just made for a resolution to the blood suckers while I was gone. Without poisons that don't work anyway, or any effort on my part at all. The house centipedes are certainly creepy, and I was not going to continue living in that place no matter what. But just because some critters are creepy doesn't mean they are non beneficial. I won't ever kill a house centipede again. I won't live in a place that has them in profusion, them or any other crawlies. But they are certain death for bedbugs, and are quite thorough in search and destroy of them. After doing my homework about the situation in that place, I have added them to my list of allies, right up there with lizards, snakes (non venomous) dragonflies and even certain kinds of spiders. I won't kill them out of hand just because they are creepy. They exacted a satisfying revenge on my behalf during my extended absence.
I am quite happy to be out of that old place. But I learned something from the ....experience.
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) who has a bed bug problem. They just paid a contractor about $500 to help them get rid of the problem. The contractor used a combination of a heat gun and chemical treatment. The treatment involved using Temprid, Cykick, and Grentol IGR. They offered a 90 day guarantee and came back and resprayed several times. The guarantee expired last month. The bed bugs are still there. She can see dead carcasses, but she cannot see any live ones, but is still suffering bites.
