Hi All,
I wanted to post a positive story to help out, though it scares me to say the word victory in a public setting! We had an atypical situation, so it might not be super useful to a lot of people, but it might help someone.
I had been getting big welty bites once week or so since late April and kept commenting on how unusual they were. My wife checked the bed a few times and cleaned extensively but found nothing since we did not really know what we were looking for. Toward the end of June, the bites were getting more frequent and frustrating. I was convinced I was being bitten in bed and woke up one night to find a nymph and later an adult bed bug.
We immediately called some PCOs the next day to find out more information. The problem was, we were scheduled to move to another state in less than 3 weeks. The PCOs advised us that we did not have enough time to begin treating the infestation, and we needed to take precautions to de-infest our belongings and let our landlord treat when we left. We immediately informed our super and got his help to throw out our box springs, bed frame, and dresser in a safe manner. We had planned to get rid of all of that anyway before we moved.
To make a long and frustrating story short, we spent the next three weeks cleaning, doing laundry, bagging, packtiting and securing everything we were going to take with us when we moved. My wife got two instances of possible BB bites, but nothing like I had been getting before. In retrospect, it was clear that the infestation was in the box spring and frame and possibly in the light socket/wall. I just simply did not understand what the black mark on the floor underneath the frame was at the time!
Still fearing we were going to bring something with us despite our heating (of more than 20 boxes of books!), we decided to have our moving truck vikaned the night before we left the city. It was a crazy and unpleasant experience, but it gave us more peace of mind as we moved across the country. We also took precautions for our car and anything that did not go in the vikaned truck.
We moved into our new place with hope but still apprehensive. At this point it has been more than 2 months since we have been here with no signs of bed bugs. Our stuff was in the truck for 7 days before we unpacked, and then we spent 3 days sleeping on our mattress on the floor. That was plenty of time for hungry bugs to come after us. For the next 5 weeks we isolated our bed and monitored with interceptors. Nothing. For the last 3 weeks, we have unisolated our bed and installed a passive monitor. Nothing.
Of course I still am very anxious. We get bug bites and skin reactions but nothing like what I experienced before. Sometimes I watch my cats a little too closely when they scratch, but they show nothing but dry skin. I am sure I will continue to have moments where I think the bugs are deep in hiding but just being able to post this story is a big step. I am convinced 90% of the time that we have made it. Monitoring will always be a part of our life, though!
I know other people have had much worse situations, and I can't tell whether getting rid of the bed frame, packtiting, or vikaning helped us succeed in the end. However, I have a new attitude about what we can do if we ever find bugs again thanks to this site. There are bigger things to deal with in this world, both metaphorically and literally. It has taken some time, but I am finally getting that perspective. Good luck to all in your fight and keep positive as much as you can!