You Really Never Know What You Might Find Under Your Hotel Mattress

Are there bed bugs in your hotel mattress or just a little gem of a movie left behind by the previous dweller? A colleague recently checked into a hotel room and, on strict instructions from his wife, began an inspection of the the mattress and surrounding bedding. When he peaked between the mattresses, he found a porn movie of the man on man variety. In this day and age, in the New York City region, we like to think hotel management is vigilant. We like to think the staff cleans rooms with an extra eye towards detecting little tiny buggers moving into their beds and fake, glued-to-the-wall headboards. If hotel staff are missing movies hidden between the mattresses, what else are they missing?

We all have heard about the dirtiest things in a hotel room (the remote, the bedspread, glasses, the phone) but you really can't think too much about what the last person did in the bed you are about to sleep in, or you might go crazy. I know someone who sleeps in her mummy sleeping bag whenever she goes to a hotel. That is no way to live - we have immune systems for a reason. But, unlike the polyester bedspread that at least 100 people have had sex on, bed bugs come home with you.

Bed bugs don't have to be the reason for your next staycation, they are just a new part of domestic travel. Here are the best tips I have heard about how to protect yourself during travel. One, pack light and try not to pack clothing that needs to be dry cleaned or can't go in the dryer. Oh and if you can, pack into a bag that can go in the dryer. Two, leave your stuff by the door and do an inspection of the bedding and wood surrounding the bed. Three, use the metal legged luggage rack (don't lean it against the wall) and preferably store all your stuff in the bathroom. Four, when you get home everything goes directly into the dryer. Five, clean your laundry area (see previous post). So go ahead, book your next trip and as you snuggle in try not to think too much about the bed.

Are Bed Bugs Having Sex With Their Siblings?

Are bed bugs having sex with their siblings? This was my burning question during a PTA sponsored "how to avoid bed bugs lecture" last week. The question I just couldn't bear to ask in front of all the other people in attendance. Actually, "all the other" is a bit of a stretch. I expected a standing room only crowd ranging from the curious to the obsessively worried but alas, it was a small group of wild eyed, bed bug stressed people scratching at their skin from the moment the lecture materials were handed out.

The lecturer pointed out: one bed bug an infestation does not make. A baby bed bug who, lets say, crawls out of your Victoria's Secret shopping bag, needs to eat and molt five times and THEN find a mate and lay eggs before you have eight little bed bugs in your home. So my question is: what does this little family of 8 do? We know the mom goes ahead and lays six more eggs the next day and the next and the next. I find no solace in the idea that I might be able to kill one, wayward bedbug before it snacks on me 5 times. Remember in high school biology class when the teacher told you about all the things that had to go wrong in your body for Cancer to occur, and you felt safe for about 15 seconds before you realized you could name 5 people who had cancer? This is how I feel about the chances of my (hypothetical) Victoria Secret bed bug finding a mate. Now that is bad enough...but are the babies (after they feed on you five times) reproducing with their siblings? Is this what it takes to get the black mattresses we see in pictures online? Well, I don't know the answer because I couldn't ask about bed bug incest at a PTA meeting.

Raw Chicken or Your Laundry Area - Which is Scarier?

There is wide agreement that putting any suspect item in the dryer is a good insurance policy against bed bugs as it will kill both bugs and eggs. For weeks, I have been peeling off my "subway" clothes, my "I sat on a park bench clothes", my "I walked past a discarded box spring clothes" and putting them straight into the laundry. By my own self imposed rules I should be putting them right into the dryer, but they are dirty so they need to be washed. I can't put them right into the washer because, news flash to certain unnamed segments of the population, not all items can be washed at the same temperature and mixed with every color. So things sit in the laundry basket a few days. Is it possible that bed bugs eggs are hatching in my laundry basket right now? Is the wayward bug that crawled into the cuff of my pants at the dry cleaner crawling back out and making its way to my bed? These are the questions that prompted the elevation of my laundry area to red alert status.

Red alert status was previously reserved for raw chicken. Everything that touches the raw chicken is considered germy, cutting boards, sponges, the knobs on the sink ect. I wish I had a laundry room but alas this is New York City. I am just thankful that I have laundry at home! So here are some of my rules: clean clothes never go in a basket that had dirty clothing. Laundry does not sit for more than one day. I steam clean my washing machine, around the machine and my dirty clothes basket every few days. After carefully inspecting the dryer's lint trap, I now throw the lint away in a trash that gets emptied daily...because how do I know if my dryer is hot enough? Every so often I begin to wonder whether bed bugs are a right wing conspiracy to keep women at home cleaning, steaming, and doing laundry.

Reading Glasses - Just Another Tool In the Toolbox

I was in CVS yesterday waiting for a prescription. I was trying not to wander around the store impulse buying Halloween decorations but there was no way I was going to sit down in those dirty cloth chairs they provide. It is funny because if you think about it, who sits in those chairs? Sick people, people so sick they have to wait for their prescriptions, and they sit there for 45 minutes germ-ing them up....it wasn't the germs that kept me from sitting. Anyway, after I read all the trashy magazine headlines AND all the titles of the weird religious books they sell, I set my sights on the reading glasses.

I wonder whether reading glasses will help me identify all the little black, blue, brown and purple specks of stuff I compulsively pick up now. Those little balls of wool that come off our blankets really DO look like tiny ity bitty legs. Pine needles look like little bug shells sometimes. Poppy seed bagels are officially banned in my house. I spend my days picking little things off the floor, couch and bed; carefully carrying them to a light source, inspecting up close, inspecting at an arms length and just for good measure using a finger nail to break the offending speck in half. My eyes are strained from all the squinting. I really don't want to creep around with a magnifying glass and a microscope (while holding educational value) is out of the question. So I am going back to get the glasses, I think they will also make me look smart.

Those Sticky Little Eggs

I sat next to a woman on the subway yesterday. I thought long and hard about whether I should sit. I inspected the orange seat and saw nothing suspect. I left a half seat between me and my fellow rider, I would never sit close enough to let the eggs potentially stuck to her clothing rub off on mine. Then, in one wide, arm spreading sweep, she put on her coat, nearly hitting me the face and brushing the arm of her coat all the way down mine. My eyes widened, I got all tense. I am beginning to feel like Jack Nicholson in "As Good As It Gets". If only my problems could be solved by washing my hands fifteen times. The incident did get me thinking about these phantom eggs that are potentially stuck to everything. How sticky are these eggs? How easily do they rub from one surface to another? More important are my fears of outerwear overblown? Why is a bed bug laying eggs in a coat? Are people sleeping in their outwear? Do they come home from a long day and lay on their unmade beds that are full of eggs? I decided the threat of the coat-arm-to-my-arm egg transfer was low, I threw caution to the wind and did not go home and put my coat in the dryer for an hour. No regrets.

Millipedes In My Bed

The other night, in the wee hours, I felt something crawling on my hand. Without opening my eyes, I used my other hand to crush it. All I could think was no, no, no, no. I opened my eyes a crack to see hundreds of little legs twitching and a big squished body. With one big sigh of relief I closed my eyes again, thinking in a sleepy haze, only a millipede. A moment later, I woke with a start, WHEN did it become okay for millipedes to crawl over my sleeping body? I started to think about my two previous nemesis: Ticks. Ticks suck your blood, but these kindly little guys finish their meal and drop off your body never to return again. They know their limits. Most important they live outside. Lice. Again, blood suckers and these bastards take advantage - reproducing in your hair. Gross. But you just have to keep your hair dirty, spritz it with rosemary if you plan on sharing hats with people you barely know. Lice make themselves easier to banish from your home because they can't live long without a meal. Onto Bed Bugs. They suck your blood night after night, reproducing by the 100s in your bed, clothing, side boards, and outlets. Living for a year with no food. Paving the way for other bug acceptance.

Do Chickens Eat Bed Bugs?

I don't really know the answer...but chickens are a preventative measure that was contemplated over many beers with my similarly obsessed friends. Chances are, there will not be a diaper wearing chicken pecking around my bed in brownstone Brooklyn. But the idea really does beg the question: what is rational? And the follow up question: how much money should one spend to prevent the little suckers? I am about $650 in. I encased all the mattresses and box springs in my apartment and bought a steamer. I think a new metal frame bed is in my future. What else is there? Sprays - not a big fan. Heated bags to kill eggs - skeptical. Exterminator to come do weekly inspections - will they do that? Jugs of cheap wine to help me sleep...that might be just what the doctor ordered.