Hello all,
I am in the midst of treating a bed bug issue, and I'm nervous that I made a mistake. I feel absolutely horrible, so I'm hoping someone can offer some peace of mind as I am very upset!
I'll spare as many details as possible, but this is the general gist of what happened: I live in an old Victorian house that was converted into 5 apartment units - two ground level, two second-floor (where I live), and an attic apartment. To make matters worse, our property was recently sold in early July and I have not yet met our new landlord, which has complicated the situation.The older man who lives downstairs found bedbugs in June and alerted our old landlord, but she dismissed his claims completely as she had been trying to sell the property and was trying to close the deal with our current landlord. We had all had problems with her over various things anyway, so it was no surprise she ignored him. He finally caught her while she was mowing our lawn, and he threatened legal action. She told the old man it was his problem and not hers, and the property officially sold shortly after (the beginning of July).
Then the older man told our new landlord, who has sent an exterminator out to the older man's apartment. I guess he tried two companies who were rude and unprofessional, so the old man tried to treat the problem himself while our new landlord told him was getting estimates and lining something up. Apparently this has taken almost two months (during which neither our old landlord, new landlord, or old man NEVER spoke to any of the other tenants about the issue), and when I spoke with our new landlord, he seemed to be under the impression that the man downstairs had taken care of it and it hadn't spread to the other apartments. I have been noticing bites on my arms for the past month and saw the old man throwing a lot of stuff out, but I had never found any physical bugs. I finally found a bug and a molted skin, so I called new landlord and told him we had bedbugs. He said he was aware of the problem, has an estimate for the whole building, and was planning on calling us anyway because the exterminator was supposed to come out (although he didn't give me an exact day, which leads me to believe he never followed through with the estimate until I called and confirmed that the bed bugs were an actual issue). I am furious about how long the situation was ignored, but we do have an exterminator coming this Monday (Sept. 21st).
My boyfriend and I have been pretty diligent about preparing for the treatment; we threw out our old mattress since it was very old anyway (we didn't have a frame/box spring), we have been trying to clean and throw away as much clutter as we can, and I've got laundry prepared to be done at the laundromat. In the meantime, we packed up some of our "clutter" things - knickknacks, small electronics, jewelry boxes, framed pictures, etc. - and use DDVP strips in them. We're using plastic storage bins sealed with duct tape and contractor bags, which I find WAY harder to use than the bins.
This is where it gets difficult; my boyfriend and I decided to rent a storage unit to keep our stuff in while it's being treated with the DDVP strips, especially since our building or families have NO extra storage space and I wanted to keep our stuff away to fully treat it for a month or two. While I understand that this might not seem like a good idea, we don't suspect there are many bugs in our stuff yet and all of our belongings will be sealed with tape to ensure no escapees. We also are worried our neighbors are not taking the exterminator visit prep seriously, and our stuff will continue to get reinfested and need treatment. Well, we got a unit today and just ran two bins and a bag of luggage over to start storing.
Then, right before we were about to close the unit, I noticed a small tear in the contractor bag! There are many thoughts running through my head, but most of all is fear that the strips will cause the bugs to crawl out of the bag and get loose! I know DDVP works fast, but BBs are tricky and I am feeling so guilty about not double-bagging the bag or bringing tape to reseal the bag. The storage place was closing so I did not have time to go get anything to seal the bag, but I plan on doing it tomorrow. I'm terrified that other units will be infested now, and even though it's unlikely, I am still very nervous. I am also worried that the DDVP strip is being wasted now because it's not being used properly with the hole in the bag.
Does anyone have any advice? What can I do? I feel so awful. 