I will try to make this as short as possible. This is my first post about our bugs but boy, have I learned TONS from this forum and would like to start out by saying THANK YOU to all of the experts that give their time to our bed bug woes.
On January 22nd we had taken my elderly mother to a late dinner. She came home and turned her bed back to prepare for bed. She found a fed adult crawling across the fitted sheet. She thought it was a roach. I have bug phobia and LEAPED up the stairs to find her holding it in the well on the underside of a coaster. I was so relieved it wasn't a roach upon inspection. I take it to the bathroom and smash it on the countertop, wipe up the three inch blood squirt and the bug with tissue, proceed downstairs and place it in a Ziploc bag. Being bugphobic, I feel I should try to find out what it is because it had blood and most bugs don't have blood unless they feed on it. I quickly find out it IS a bed bug! I STILL have that booger bagged in case I needed a PCO after reading here. It is 3 am by this point and I can't go wake Mother. I decide I should not alarm her and let her sleep as she is an Alzheimer's patient and waking her would not do any good at all. I keep reading more (here on bedbugger.com) At a 5 am when hubby gets up I inform him it was not a roach but just as bad. He tells me as soon as he gets home we will take her bed apart. Layer by layer, armed with heavy gauge contractor bags we take her bed apart, including all of the foo foo, throw pillows and such and inspect with a flashlight and magnifying glass, bagging AND sealing with duct tape as we go. Found nothing in bedding or on mattress. Found one crawling on top of the box springs. Found two in one of the plastic protectors on box springs. Found a small colony of about a dozen (all life stages) on the side that she sleeps on near the rail of the box springs. We found one unfed adult male on the sleeve of a hoodie in the closet. No further bugs found while processing her clothing. I have a Dyson vacuum and we sucked them up and vacuumed her entire room slowly and WELL, sealing the vacuum tank with masking tape and placing outside. Taking all drawers out, inspecting inside, outside, upside down found no eggs or bugs in any of the furniture. Hardware was removed from headboard and in any crooks and crevices. At this point we were unsure what to do and I know roach bombing is a NO NO as it just drives them in the walls. We decided much research is needed (back to these forums and the experts advice) and I put Mom on the couch BUT make active yeast monitors and put them in her room while researching more and ordering Cimexa and encasements. Six days later, we VERY carefully bag everything in her room per guidelines on this forum. We put Cimexa everywhere, isolated her bed and ALL furniture legs with climbups. All bagged items were put on the front porch and NO clothing was taken from her room without being bagged and going directly in the dryer for 40 minutes on high heat. It took a week to get everything emptied, bagged, treated. All furniture, mattresses and box springs were steamed. All hardware was removed and Cimexa in crevices, etc. Painter's tape with double sided carpet tape on the sheetrock at the floor and on walls and ceiling around her bed to make sure her bed was totally isolated. I removed the yeast monitors a few days after she went back in her room to sleep and put plastic on the floor to make sure she did not move about the room. With Alzheimer's she forgets. Strict rules about taking her pj's off IN her room and placing them in locking tub in her room and shower before she comes downstairs each morning. No shoes or ANYTHING allowed in the room. Have to keep it simple for her. She has been compliant. We are 63 days bb free at this point with no fecal, no live or dead bugs and no castings. Keep in mind this room was remodeled to bring her permanently in the house with us after our mom in law house burned and step dad dying and we have never gotten the base boards or window molding back up yet. It was easy to get the Cimexa spread with the puffer without these in the way.
ALL beds and couches in our home were inspected closely and THOROUGHLY. It made dor a nice spring cleaning.
Inspection with magnifying glass and flashlight BEFORE steaming found nothing.
Daily checks come up with nothing.
The double sided tape and climbups have caught nothing.
No fecal on white sheets nor seen on encasements.
Absolutely zero evidence they were ever there other than the empty room with only empty furniture.
We only found what was near the head of her bed on the box springs.
No evidence anywhere else in the house.
I think I have narrowed the source to the country transit system or her therapists office. She became unable to drive last year and deals with independence issues. Her therapist had suggested the "elder bus" to give her a sense of something she could do without me driving her everywhere. BOTH have been notified. The therapist office has been checked. Son in laws mother worked for the county bus service and says they have not had an issue but they do treat all of the buses once a month for things like this. Who knows. It could have been a hitchhiker from someone on the bus.
Finally, my ultimate question...
How safe is it to put her room back together and hang her clothes in the closet and in the drawers? With fecal found only in a two feet area near where her head is in the bed, is it possible this was a new infestation that just started and we got lucky finding it quickly and being meticulous about treatment nipping it in the bud?
I thank ALL of the EXPERTS in advance for your replies!