I'm really at a loss here. Here is my story.
On Sept. 4 (about three weeks ago), my (now ex-, for unrelated reasons) boyfriend came to visit me from New Jersey. The first morning when he woke up in my bed, he noticed itchy red spots/welts all over his arms and torso. Several of them were clustered in rows of three. He started freaking out about bugs, but I was dubious, because I'd never had any problem with them or been bitten myself. Still, I'd recently moved and thought there could be an infestation in my new bedroom. So we looked around-- on the mattress, in the wooden slats of the box spring, etc., and found no sign of anything. But there were some yellow spots/stains on the sheets on the side D. had been sleeping on, and I couldn't recall whether they'd been there before (I did show pictures of those to a PCO later, who said they probably weren't BB related-- but I'm getting ahead of myself). My boyfriend had no bites for the rest of his visit.
THEN, when he's leaving a few days later, he mentions that his parents (with whom he's been living recently) have recently gotten rid of a bedbug infestation. That set off some alarm bells, because I know how hard they are to get rid of. Sure enough, when he gets home, he starts being bitten in his bedroom and sees several bugs on his things and in his bed, even during the day... I immediately start worrying that he's brought some to me. I search everything, wash/dry a bunch of clothes and bedding, get climbups, isolate my bed, encase my box spring... everything. No sign of BBs, but because I'm super paranoid I get a K9 inspection done.
The dog doesn't alarm at anything in my apartment, and I breathe a sigh of relief, take the climbups off my bed, and get back to my normal life. Not two days later, I am walking home after being in class all day and suddenly my chest and neck start itching and stinging terribly. I start scratching, and when I get home I see five welts, three of them in a row along my collarbone... Subsequently I see a few smaller spots on my hands and neck. I called the dog handler back and she agrees to come re-inspect the next day.
She goes through my bedroom again, and sure enough, the dog alarms at two things-- an ottoman that was near my ex's things on the ground and a suitcase. She does a (not very thorough) visual inspection of both and doesn't find anything. I bag them up and throw them out in a dumpster outside, totally distraught. Then I get to calling PCOs. I spoke at length to one who said that since I haven't found any debris (skins, fecal, eggs, bugs), it's not time to treat yet and I should watch/wait for a week using the passive interceptors, because in MA apparently it's against the law to treat an apartment w/o solid evidence of bugs. I went back to the PCO in person to get an ID done of a bug I found in my blanket (it was a grain beetle thorax!!) and they gave me some more traps (sticky and some CO2 traps called volcanos). PCO very kindly told me to calm down and take a couple of weeks to see if I could detect an infestation, but that I didn't need to worry just yet (he said sometimes in the industry they treat positive K9 IDs with NO visual confirmation as a false positive).
Anyway, I set the new traps up and have been waiting for two nights now to see what I can see... Nothing in the climbups or other traps so far. Again, the only suspicious thing were those yellow spots on my sheets. PCO said they weren't related, but I could attach an image here if necessary... I also found a dark spot on my windowsill near my bed but the spot was quite soft (kind of like waxy/chalky) and purplish. Dunno what to make of that one either. I'm sort of worried that even though my bed's isolated, there could be a BB in it (maybe hiding b/w the metal frame/legs and the box spring, which I can't check because I'm not strong enough to lift), because I let my blankets trail on the ground and took off climb ups during the few days of relief after the neg K9 check. Now I worry I'll never detect them because maybe they're already hiding somewhere in spite of the box spring encasement and they are getting ready to bite me again...
As you can see, this has been quite a wild ride. I'm still really worried, having bad dreams about bugs, phantom itches, etc. Now, in short... how worried SHOULD I be? I really, really got spooked by the dog alarming on my ottoman. That seemed like a sure sign. However, I haven't found any bugs, confirmed bug debris, etc. Is it possible that I might have had ONE stray BB in my room from my ex's bag that I threw out with the furniture? Or could this be an infestation already? Any help from those who've been there would be much appreciated! 