Homeowner Forum / Pest Control / July 2008

Here's the story.  We live in a nice area in our own home. 19 yr old
son complained one night he felt like something crawling on him, next
day found typical bedbug gatherings underneath the mattress edging
(didn't know what the heck at first, never seen anything like it
before, thought bedbugs were just in nursery rhymes, but after some
useful searches on web, got positive ID on them).  Took mattress
outside and left it for two weeks, bedbugs were still there, didn't
want to mess with it so we trashed it,  Son had been sleeping around
at bachelor friends house that lived like pigs, so we assumed he got
the BB there.  He moved out a while later and we emptied the room and
cleaned it -  no chemicals/pesticides used, we just assumed we got rid
of them with the mattress.  Then put out two little girls in the room
on two twin beds and they complained of bites two months later, never
saw a sign of BB.  Our master bedroom is adjacent and wife found one
crawling in broad daylight near our doorway.  I started getting itchy
bites and finally got a flashlight and found two mature bugs and 4
small brown ones one night.  Bed is an old wooden waterbed frame with
Cal King mattress.  We ordered a kit from doyourownpestcontrol.com,
got the Drione Dust and CB D FORCE AEROSOL.   Thought about ditching
the bed frame because of all the cracks and crevices, but we're
swamped with owning own business and lots of activities and large
family, so...late at night we dismantled the frame, found maybe 5 or
so BB, sprayed them and then dusted all the boards, joints and cracks,
vacuumed  the mattress and dusted.  I slept on the floor near the
dismantled bed in a sleeping bag for two nights and got bit both
nights by small tiny brown BB's, and maybe one that was mature.  We
put it back together.(oh yeah, laundered all the bedding) and cleaned
the room.  Well, that night we got bit and found two very very small
brown ones.  I put them in a ziploc, shot some dust in it and sealed
it.  The little BB just tooled around in the dust like it was flour.
I was so discouraged.  The next day we check a spare bed we have in a
small partitioned area of the Master that's behind a partial wall and
found a bunch on that bed, and then found a bunch more on the bed that
we'd treated...Gads.  I really don't want to pay the money to have a
pro do it, we're sending two kids to college.  It seems we flushed a
bunch out by brushing all the boards for eggs with stiff paint
brushes, vacuuming and dusting with Drione.  The label talks like it
kills on contact.  The CB D FORCE AEROSOL is very effective on
contact.  We'll do whatever we have to and we've read lots about
dealing with these things so we're being careful with bedding, little
kids sleeping in bed with us, etc.  Help