GOOD NIGHT…SLEEP TIGHT…DON’T LET THE BEDBUGS BITE!

First of all… many apologies for the disappearing act, but I have a very good excuse, honest. Although it may seem as if I have all the time in the world to sit around blogging, my family life could be quite hectic. It’s not just the everyday work of running the household (I’m kind of a stickler for the cleaning thing), but I also do what I can to help my daughter with the care of my granddaughter during after-school hours and her days off from school (whether it be holidays or sick days). I will also admit that I have a bit of a heart condition…nothing all that serious as long as I’m careful not to let stress get to me and I take the time to rest when I’m feeling punk. It’s easy for me to know when I’m over-doing it, usually I’ll feel the twinges in my chest or I just have to look in the mirror and see the ashen color to my face. It’s a dead giveaway. That’s when I will just shut everything down and get the rest I need. It’s not that big of a deal…really, but I can’t ignore it either. So…that’s out, let’s move on.

Unfortunately, I’ve been dealing with a situation with my mom and mother-in-law that has been keeping me hopping. Anyone who is in charge of the care of a senior parent, knows the challenges that comes with the job. They have multiple trips to the doctor for check up and lab tests, most of them are on some kind of medication which needs to be monitored, and they need to be taken to the grocery store, bank, and other errands….but you have to do it in a way that you don’t make them feel as if they are a burden. In other words, it has to be done with a smile on your face.

Don’t get me wrong, I asked for this job and I appreciate the time I have with my mom and mother-in-law. I love each of them to pieces, and thank God everyday for allowing me to be an integral part of their lives. But sometimes…just sometimes, I have to accept the trials that go along with the job. This is one of those times, and it involves my mom and the uninvited “guests” that have dropped in to visit about two weeks ago….

Yup…bedbugs.

My mom and mother-in-law live in a government subsidized senior apartment building. Well, it was senior housing until the owners of the building had the bright idea to allow a young woman who was living in a shelter to move into the building. Now, I have no problem with trying to find shelter for the homeless, but in this case, the woman (who also has at least one child) also brought her brother into the apartment (she told the manager that he was only staying to watch her child while she worked, but he never left), and he had a few of his friends crashing there also. It seems that along with her other guests, she brought bedbugs from the shelter she was staying at.

Just about two weeks ago my mom informed me that her good friend, Annie, who was living across the hall from the newcomers found out that her apartment was infested with bedbugs. The poor dear had bites all over her body. At first she didn’t know what it was and her doctor kept trying to tell her not to worry about it, it was probably just a reaction to her medication or something and told her to buy some anti itch creme. Like many doctors do to senior citizens…he blew her off. It wasn’t until there were so many bugs that it was clearly visible, that she realized what it was.

My mom called me and told me all the news and I promptly told her, “Mom…stay out of Annie’s apartment until the place is bug free because you can easily get them on your clothes or shoes and track them into your own apartment.” I also told her not to take anything that Annie offers from her apartment…not even a book or a Tupperware container…NOTHING. I knew all this because my daughter who is a journalist in New Hampshire wrote a few stories in her paper about the bedbug infestation on the east coast and in the story she wrote how easy it was to spread these little critters.

About five days later, as I was talking to my mom on the phone, she happened to slip a little tidbit into the conversation, “By the way, I have a rash all over me, maybe you should bring me to the doctor. It’s probably just from the stress of worrying about Annie, or maybe a reaction to my medication. Maybe it’s just shingles, do you know what shingles look like? ” Immediately I knew what it was. I replied, “Mom, did you stay out of Annie’s apartment like I asked?” She stammered a bit and said, “Well…I only stopped over a few times to make sure that Annie was ok, and I did have Annie and her caretaker over to my apartment while the exterminator was there. What else could I do? Annie is my best friend!” “You could have listened to what I told you, mom…your apartment is probably full of bedbugs now.”, I said. She insisted that wasn’t true… she was in total denial. She then decided to sleep on the sofa instead of her bed and woke up to find bedbugs all over the white sheet that was covering her. She had three new bites on her face. There was no denying it now, the evidence was clear. That morning, my mom finally decided to tell the manager of the building who sighed, “Oh no…not another one, that’s seven on your floor with infestations!” She said that she would call the exterminator and he would be out the next day.

CLEAN-UP

I wish that a quick once over by an exterminator was enough to take care of this once and for all…but that isn’t hardly half of what the clean-up entails. All of her clothes had to be washed and put into plastic bags and sealed shut. Shoes had to be bagged, along with extra bedding. I bought plastic mattress and bedspring and pillow encasements which I put on and then covered the zippers with duct tape to make sure they were sealed. After the furniture and carpets were vacuumed, the bag that collected the dirt had to be put in another plastic bag, sealed, and disposed of immediately. The tile floor in the kitchen and bath had to be scrubbed, bathroom rugs needed to be washed and dried, and bagged. All her wood furniture had to be washed down and her draperies had to be sent out to be cleaned and bagged. Her winter coats also had to be sent to the cleaners.

“THEY’RE CRAWLING ALL OVER ME!”

After each trip to my mom’s place I pulled my car into the garage, I took my shoes off and left them in a plastic bag inside the door. I then sprinted across the hall to the laundry room where I took off my clothes and put them directly into the washing machine where I immediately washed them in hot water and detergent. I grabbed my robe and went directly to the shower so I could wash my hair, just in case a bug found its way there. I wasn’t taking any chances of having those things in my house. I haven’t had a decent night sleep since this all began,  I keep waking up feeling as if bugs are crawling all over me.   My poor husband has been awakened to the sound of me hopping out of bed and turning on the lights as I rip off the sheets to be sure there are no bugs visible.  Needless to say, my bug-phobia is causing both of us a lot of sleepless nights.

To give an example of why my patience is wearing thin with my mom, I gave my her strict instructions to stay out of my mother-in-law’s apartment because I didn’t want them to spread there. She lives way at the end of the hall from my mom which is far from the infested apartments. I made it very clear to my mom that even if her place is fumigated, there may still be some eggs that were missed that will hatch and to continue to stay out of my mother-in-law’s apartment. Yesterday my mom called and said she has three new bites on her arm. I asked her if she is still keeping the clothes we washed in the bags like I told her to, and she said, “No…I don’t think that’s necessary, so I took them out and put them in my dresser drawers. I didn’t see any more bugs so I thought it was ok.” As I gritted my teeth, I told her to go down to the managers office and tell her so she can have the exterminator come back again. This may have to be done multiple times to get rid of this mess. The manager told her that they will be doing all the apartments on her floor and it spreads to any other floors, the whole building will have to be done…five floors. I don’t know if the manager or building owner realize they are dealing with five floors of senior citizens who are just like my mom and mother-in-law, they won’t listen to instructions, they will stay in denial and refuse to report the bug bites to the manager.

After my mom called, I phoned my mother-in-law to tell her not to go down to visit my mom and not allow my mom to visit her until I know for sure this is over. I’m especially concerned because my mother-in-law is leaving in a week to visit family in Kansas and I don’t want her to spread anything to her sister’s home. She then confessed to me that my mom had been visiting her all along and she said that my mom asked her not to tell me because she knows I’d be angry. And oh…”By the way“, she said….”I have this rash on my leg, do you think it’s anything? I’ve been checking my bed every night and don’t see any bugs.” My mother-in-law has Macular degeneration…she couldn’t see a bug unless it was the size of a cat. Here I go again….sigh.

Here’s a great video about how rapidly bedbugs can spread.

Here’s a picture of what bedbug bites look like.

Now, if I could only find a patron saint of bedbug removal, or exterminators, I’ll be set. Any ideas on that one, Nazareth Priest????

---

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• Goin’ to sleep