I'll tell the entire story, but the most important question I have is about the bugs reaction to the bed moving.
(tl;dr) With bed bugs sitting in an obvious but almost unreachable spot, can I drag the bed about 6 feet and expect to find the bugs still sitting there? Are they going to seek a new hiding place immediately? Should I come up with some method of vacuuming them up without moving the bed? The thought of "losing" the bugs is as disgusting as the fact that they're in here and have been biting me.
Also, what would the effect of turning off ventilation fans be? There's one on a shelf at the head of the bed, and one in the window. They're causing quite a bit of air movement that may be rendering the CO2 lures ineffective, but they've been keeping the room temperature down.
The full story (at great length):
It looks like I've got an adult female and several unfed instars on the inner surface of the wall-side mattress rail of my wooden futon frame, in approximately the middle. There are a couple of books on the top of that rail between the wall and the mattress, which I've left in place to keep the bugs happy with their spot. When I move the bed these books will fall. (Maybe I should move them just before I move the bed?)
I can't see the bugs very clearly (can only get one eye on them, camera won't focus) but the presence of a red rounded shiny bug and a few smaller translucent bugs that don't move in response to bright light says "bed bugs" to me.
I had suspected bed bugs for a couple of days due to a few welts in the classic "interrupted feast" (aka breakfast lunch dinner) pattern (and other patterns including singles), and then while trying to capture a moving bug with scotch tape I crushed what must have been a fed 1st or second instar. It pretty much exploded on contact, leaving a red puddle behind. It thought that a good hiding place was under a sheet of Kleenex that had fallen between the wall and the mattress, on the top edge of the frame.
Due to the small room my furniture is kind of "jammed in", so it was tricky and time consuming to empty the room from the "wrong" side. I wanted to leave the harborage relatively undisturbed for as long as possible.
I've been sleeping elsewhere - in the room that I've moved the stuff to - and haven't been bit so I'm fairly certain the "contamination" is contained for the moment. It has been frustrating and unnerving knowing the the exact location of these bugs while I move stuff (and work and sleep), but the design of the frame is such that I can barely see the spot where the bugs are. Getting a vacuum hose to that spot without moving the bed is impossible without some custom fabrication :)
It has been cold here in Ontario that last few nights, and I've left the window fan on full speed, hoping that the cool air would disincline the bugs from looking for me. And I've left all the lights on. I've set up 3 2-litre yeast CO2 generator "traps", and on the very first night caught a translucent bug. Its so covered in talc that I haven't been able to tell what it is. The last two nights, nothing has been caught. The adult has moved around a bit, probably laying eggs outside of the "nest". I guess the instars have probably moved around as well, they're quite hard to see from my vantage point.
There's also a small fan on the shelf at the head of the bed blowing along the bed. This seems to keep air moving under the bed as well. The air flow may be why the CO2 lures haven't caught much, and perhaps the relative difficulty of getting from the bed frame to the floor. The frame doesn't actually touch the wall, its about 1/4" out.
I'm ready to move the bed (from the foot), and need to know how fast I have to be. Should I have the vacuum running and leap over the bed the moment I've got it clear from the wall? Or should I pull the bed out and go in with a bright flashlight and see if there are other bugs that I couldn't see? I can't get near the head of the bed witout moving it.
The fear of screwing this up any further is more than I can bear.
I'll be placing talc interceptors on the bed legs, without any directionality detection (for now) because of the shape of the legs. I've DE for the baseboards and more yeast. I'll also be covering the bed with plastic so that the bugs can't get to me without going to the floor, and I'll move back in. (And when I can afford it, I'll get a new couch because this one is horrible to sleep on :p )
I've made a lot of assumptions in this:
- they're bed bugs - internet research didn't find any other likely tiny bugs that'd explode in a red puddle
- they don't run from bright light, but don't venture into it unless they have to
- they prefer to remain where they've been successful, for a while (don't know how to define "a while", hoping a week is close)
- not many eggs will be laid without feeding
- unheated CO2 lures would be more effective without my presence
- my CO2 lure design is effective - whatever the one bug is, it couldn't get out of the glass
- the bugs inclination to move around is affected by temperature
- the bugs can't rapidly detect me from 6 feet away, and won't sprint from one side of the room to the other even if they could detect me
Please correct my assumptions where appropriate :)
In the process of cleaning this up, I found a localized carpet beetle infestation under the bed as well - shed skins, loose urticating hairs, but few living larvae and beetles. The floor itself was quite covered in cat litter dust, the only litter the cat likes is quite dusty. Perhaps the cat litter dust is inhospitable to beetle larvae? Researching the urticating hairs is what led me to this forum and the eventual diagnosis of bed bugs. Thanks to all those that have been posting here all these years!
I also found a couple of spiders, which I'd have left if not for the carpet beetles. Maybe the spiders would have eaten the bed bugs :p
So that's the story so far. Sorry for being long-winded, I'm a bit sleep deprived :)
Any constructive criticism about my methods or assumptions will be gratefully received, as well as advice on how to handle the bed move.