Hey kids.
I'm a 29 year old lady who lives in a teeny-tiny studio apartment in a huge building. Well, it's actually an apartment complex, but my building alone has something like 130 apartments in it.
btw, we live in Erie, PA, which is relevant as it's known for bed bugs at this point.
About eight months ago, I noticed a single adult bedbug on my bed. After snagging a pic of it, I picked it up in a tissue, squished it, and flushed it down the toilet. I then proceeded to clean my entire apartment from top to bottom, which isn't unusual for me to do anyway. About once a week we do a pretty big cleaning job, which is easy when, well, you don't own much stuff. A month went by and I didn't notice anything. Never noticed any bites on myself or my boyfriend. Then, he noticed another adult. I confirmed that it was a bedbug, we wrapped it up in a tissue, squished it, flushed it, and then cleaned the apartment again. This time we pitched old pillows, encased new ones in bed bug protectors, inspected the mattress (no bedbug sign anywhere,), wiped hard surfaces down with rubbing alcohol (which I do anyway, because again, I'm a lil bit obsessive.) Vacuumed everything, including the couches. Didn't find any sign of bedbugs the whole time.
A month or so later, again, we find the odd adult. The most we've ever found were two adults in the span of maybe two or three weeks. Every time we pull everything soft (including couch cushion covers), wash it, dry it, store it if we don't plan on immediately using it. Everything hard gets wiped down with rubbing alcohol after an inspection. So far, we've never seen any juveniles or eggs, and we both have fantastic eyesight.
I've gotten maybe a single bite, which was very itchy and annoying, and I got it on my couch. Found the culprit, which was an adult. Tissue, squish, flush, clean apartment. No signs of bedbugs anywhere. Wipe everything down with rubbing alcohol, vacuum, pitch the contents of the vacuum directly into the dumpster outside. (Our apartment is 500 sq/ft, and we barely own anything--- so this isn't a big deal to do this much effort, it only takes a little while.)
I typically tend to react poorly to insect bites, so I feel like an infestation would definitely leave a mark physically on me. As far as we know, my boyfriend hasn't had any bites.
Apparently the apartment next to us was found to have bedbugs after they moved out last week. I don't know to what degree the infestation was, but do you guys think that I could just be getting stragglers from them?
We're moving soon, to another building in the complex, to an apartment that is a little bigger. It's being preemptively treated for bedbugs (and getting new carpet and tile flooring, as it's one of the last apartments that hasn't had the floor/carpet redone in the last ten years.)
I do not currently have the money to either pitch my few belongings, or hire anyone to come in and look at my apartment. We're doing full cleanings of our apartment every week, and I haven't found anything until today. Again, a single adult, this time hanging out on the wall by itself. Tissue. Squish. Flush. Just cleaned for two hours. Inspected the bed, the couches, just finished washing all blankets, clothes, and whatnot. No adults. No eggs. No brown anything. Our box spring has been sealed in plastic since we got it, and a while ago I had wrapped our mattress in a protective cover (to prevent infestation.)
I just feel frustrated because I know this can become a huge problem, but because of Erie's reputation for bed bugs, the price for treatments of even small apartments have skyrocketed. I don't want to potentially leave anything for the next tenants, either. I like my landlord. I like my building.
I just don't like the fact that there were three confirmed cases of bedbugs in my building, one on the other side of my wall.
Advice? Ideas? I am very squicked out by the idea of bedbugs, and every time I find one, I have to temporarily increase my dose of Lexapro to adjust for the next week or two to deal with the idea of an infestation of anything, even though one hasn't manifested.