People tend to tell me that I am strong and that I always put up a good fight, so does that mean bed bugs are my kryptonite?

This my real-life personal experience with bed bugs and the sole purpose of this story is for entertainment. We are not selling or endorsing any products nor are we sponsored or affiliated to any company or products shown or mentioned in this post.

Sleep tight don’t let the bed bugs bite

I remember hearing this often in movies when I was a young child and each time it was the same lame setting. The scene shows a parent whispering this lovingly to their child’s ear before tucking them into bed for the night.

At the time my curious 5-year-old brain wondered if bed bugs existed. I ended up deciding that they were fake just like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy as none of those duds ever showed up when I expected them to. Thanks for breaking my 5-year-old heart mum and dad!

Since then bed bugs never crossed my mind, but that all changed when they hopped into my bed uninvited!

Revisiting my almost losing battle with bed bugs is one I rather forget. To anyone that has suffered in the hands of these ugly blood stealing critters, I feel for you. I hope my real-life story helps to know that it’s absolutely normal to feel helpless, exasperated, tormented and angry.

My ordeal with bed bugs resulted in endless sleepless nights, dramatic meltdowns and panic attacks. This is my story of how we: got bed bugs, discovered them and got rid of them permanently.

The hotel is booked!

In late spring of November 2018, my husband Tomasi and I planned a weekend trip to attend his brother’s baby shower. They lived 3 hours drive away from us so we decided to book a hotel and make a weekend away out of it. We wanted to get some relaxation and visit some of their beautiful beaches nearby.

I booked our hotel and excitedly briefed Tomasi, I said something like, ‘Babe I booked us in a 3-star hotel for the weekend. It’s so cool there is no reception for us to check us in as they emailed me a code. All we need to do is enter it in to get our key from the security box located in front of the hotel.’

Tomasi, as usual, had selective hearing and all he heard was I booked a 3-star hotel. He couldn’t believe that I would settle for anything less than 4 stars.

The last 3-star hotel we booked in Singapore ended up being a disaster. It was located in a dirty lane with plenty of prostitutes and men selling fake viagra scattered on the ground. Each time we went past the men they would raise their eyebrow to Tomasi and yell out, ‘Hey man, this is your lucky day, you can last double, triple or more’ whilst pointing to their magic pills. Yes, they have incredible sales skills and deserve a massive bonus!

Also, when we were making our way back our hotel one night ‘a lady of the night’ pinched and pulled on Tomasi’s nipple and winked at him seductively. At the time I was really annoyed but now it makes me giggle thinking about it.

It starts with an itch that won’t leave

We arrived at our hotel flustered after having an argument on how the security key box functioned. Tomasi entered our code several times but nothing happened so I got impatient and accused him of pressing the wrong numbers. This made him angry so he retorted by accusing me of failing to read the instructions in my email prior to us arriving. It somehow escalated further from there and during this we somehow manage to get our hotel room key.

Our room was small, simple and it looked clean but had an overwhelming stench of cigarettes and mildew. We looked at each and burst out laughing and with that our argument was forgotten. Not knowing what was to come we carelessly chucked our overnight bags on the raggedy sofa and stayed the night.

We were back in Sydney and I was attending an important business lunch when I felt an inch that refused to leave. I did my best to focus on the meeting but the inch between my thumb and forefinger was getting more intense. I resorted to scratching myself like a lunatic underneath our table.

When I got home my hand was swollen and inflamed from all the scratching. I applied some treatment cream to the raised red bumps red to help soothe the terrible itching and went to bed blaming mosquitos.

What is biting me?

I woke up the next morning with 3 new bites spaced out diagonally in a perfect row on the back of my hand.

The urge to scratch was way more ferocious than a mosquito bite but I knew no better at the time. It was pure torture as the itch never left and I couldn’t ignore it or focus on anything else. The bites compelled me to scratch myself 24/7 so I could relieve the itch and in doing so I had rashes and open sores on my hands.

Due to the ongoing intense itch from the bites, we started to question the culprit. Tomasi thought I was having an allergic reaction because he didn’t get bitten. He got me some antihistamine tablets and hydrocortisone cream hoping it would help me.

‘MORE BITES!!!!! This time they were all over my arms and legs and once again in neat rows of 2 or 3. The original bites that were now 3 to 4 days old but had not faded away or stopped itching, and now I had a bunch of new ones to deal with.

It felt like I was going to war with an invisible enemy and it made me feel completely helpless.

A week passed and every day I woke up new bites. The itching was intolerable and my need to ferociously scratch myself didn’t stop. I suffered from bad migraines from lack of sleep and my mental state was rapidly declining.

I tried everything to stop the itch, ice packs, essential oil, gels, cream and cold showers but they were all just a temporary fix.

OMG, we have bed bugs!

Tomasi took me to the doctors and as suspected it was a waste of our time. We waited for over an hour only to be told by the genius doctor that ‘it could be anything’.

My room was my sanctuary. Whenever I was stressed, unwell or furious with Tomasi I would lock myself in there. Somehow, I became terrified of my room and was scared to sleep in my own bed.

I was often awake and hyperventilating in the middle of the night thinking about my whole ordeal. Once I did fall asleep I would wake up each morning in fear furiously examining my body for any new bites.

One sleepless night I had a sudden urge to inspect my bed so I reached over and turned on my lamp. I spotted a barely visible insect on my mattress rushing to hide from me. I quickly picked it up and squished it, and to my horror blood splattered out of it

‘TOMASI!’ I screamed waking him from a deep sleep ‘I think we have bed bugs!’ He barely opened his eyes but he mumbled ‘Sure babe, of course, I’ll hug you’ and immediately resumed snoring.

My battle with bed bugs begin

That same night I googled bed bugs on my laptop, the images that came up didn’t help me with the positive ID of the insect that I just squished. I did find a fantastic article on bed bugs and what they outlined was consistent with what I had. Three bites in a straight row and bites can leave intense reaction with raised bumps and severe itchiness.

I slammed my laptop shut and it hit me hard like a tonne of bricks. THAT *extreme expletive* LOW RENT HOTEL GAVE US BED BUGS!”

The following morning I was back online reading more about bed bugs and people’s experiences. The lengths that some people went to get rid of bed bugs permanently was unimaginable. Some resorted to using extreme heat on their belongings and then bagged everything up for weeks. Others had to bring in a specialised bed bug fumigator, and some just threw out their contaminated belongings.

I was too lazy to bag all our belongings and spraying our house with toxic fumes was not a safe option for us or our kitties (Kai wasn’t born yet). Tossing our mattress was not an option as we spent a fortune in a quality ensemble set.

That DAMN cheap hotel gave us bed bugs!!!!

Tomasi was red with anger when I briefed him on what I have discovered. He was swearing and carrying on, but I already had an action plan so I grabbed our car keys and ushered him out the door.

MY BATTLE WITH BED BUGS WAS SO ON! we purchased a whopping 4 litres of rubbing alcohol and empty spray bottles.

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Before dosing our bedroom in alcohol, I treated myself to a short rest in the living room. Caviar, my clingy cat was having a siesta sprawled on top me with his bottom in my face. He was not pleased that we temporary banned him and Teddie from going into our bedroom since we discovered we had bed bugs.

Out of nowhere, Tomasi removed a very annoyed looking Caviar off me and grabbed my hand. “I found them!” he said proudly pointing to an empty spot on our black leather bed head. He used a torchlight and aimed it at a small fold in the leather and I finally saw them! They were the size of an apple seed with a brown-reddish tinge. OMG, The filthy bed bugs were camping patiently in our bed head waiting for my blood!

I felt physically ill but relieved as bed bugs nesting spots are extremely difficult to find.

It’s time to fight back

Giving the bed bugs a bath with rubbing alcohol felt incredible; I sprayed and sprayed. The blood stealing suckers didn’t even put up a fight as the alcohol dried them out instantly.

It was then time to do the rest of our bed so we removed our mattress from the base and leaned it against the wall. We sprayed every inch of fabric and stitching with alcohol. We did the same for the base of the bed and the bed head. Luckily, the alcohol evaporated quickly so it didn’t leave a lingering smell but we did open our windows to allow the fumes to escape.

For the first time since the bites, I finally felt a sense of calm thinking the worst was over.

The next morning, as usual, I did a full-body inspection. I felt nauseous and I had trouble breathing when I spotted 3 new bites on my ankle. My head was spinning and before I knew it I was sobbing uncontrollably on my bedroom floor.

Meanwhile, Tomasi was in the ensuite leisurely doing a number 2. He had to cut that short to console me and when he saw how much I was suffering he promised that he would kill every single bed bug. This made me feel slightly better but I then wondered if he washed his hands before he touched me.

More weapons are needed!

Tomasi made good on his promise and found an online Australian company that specialised in bed bugs products. They stocked a ‘Bed bug killer powder’ that was non-toxic and safe for pets.

So we went a little crazy and added 3 into our shopping cart plus a bug proof mattress protector, bed bug duster and tape to our cart. It cost us a small fortune but we didn’t care as long as it got rid of those *expletive* permanently.

When the products came we again flipped up our mattress and sprayed it with rubbing alcohol but this time we sealed it with the mattress protector. The protector is designed to zip all around the mattress and if there were any bugs inside they would eventually starve to death.

We wrapped the bed bug sticky-tape all around the base of our ensemble, mattress and on the bed head. The surface of the tape is slippery so the bed bugs won’t be able to climb over it to get to us.

Lastly, we dusted our entire room with the bed bug killer powder. The powder is designed to dry up the bed bugs if they get in contact with the powder.

This time around I had no confidence that doing all this would even pay off as I knew how resilient bed bugs were.

Light at the end of the tunnel

The next morning I did my daily routine body check. The night before I had marked my old bites with black eyeliner so I could easily identify new bites. I was so relieved when I had none but I didn’t celebrate as it was only day 1.

Day 2 no bites, day 3 still no bites but Tomasi noticed there were tiny dark specks on our white floor tiles near our bed. They were dried up bed bugs that had succumbed to the deadly powder.

I am happy to confirm that we have no more bed bugs. All the time and money we spent using Bed bug barrier was 100% worth it.

It’s all over but never forgotten

It’s almost 2 years and the whole ordeal has mentally scarred me. I can’t look at photos of bed bugs without squirming and feeling the need to have a shower.

Looking back, we were lucky that one of us had a reaction to the bites. Due to this, we were able to take care of the situation quickly before a massive infestation broke out. The bed bugs were only nesting in our room in our bedding area.

I have never been pushed to the brink of questioning my own mental wellbeing until this experience. It was scary losing control of my right to feel happy and relaxed. Even though I was surrounded by my family I still felt alone and miserable.

Even now I am ultra-paranoid about staying in hotels and carefully read reviews before I book. I read that 5-star hotels are less likely to have bed bugs as their staff are trained to inspect the beds daily specifically for them.

I avoid or think twice before using shared sofas, sun lounges and basically anything that looks cozy and comfortable.

A man accidentally burned himself and his house down in an attempt to get rid of the bugs. This may sound hilarious to some but I feel sorry for him. Desperation and frustration can make you do things you would never do in normal circumstances.

THE END!

Did you battle with bed bugs? or do you currently have them? I would love to read your experiences so please leave it the comment section below or click the green circle on the left of this page.

Cheers (I’ll drink to that!) – Cat Tre