Bed Bugs and Broomsticks

Bedbugs are a tedious and annoying problem that few people seem to travel the world without avoiding – I actually met one Kiwi who did her whole 2 year OE in the UK and continental Europe without encountering them, but she stopped in Sydney one the way home…

We ourselves first encountered them in Boulder, CO in a nicely heated chalet – it was always a nice and warm in there, but the bedbugs seemed pretty content where they were and didn’t come with us when we left.

We encountered them again at a hostel in Auckland (oddly, it was the cheapest and clearly full of people just off the plane from Sydney all the time – it was also rather dirty), but a few nights out camping on the Hillary trail followed by a ride in a tumble dryer seemed to shake them off.

Now, as I see a small line of bites on one of our legs (probably an uninhibited mozzie), I’m reminded of the bedbugs that wouldn’t quit. You can guess where these ones lived.

We moved to Sydney (the 2nd time) in January 2015, and moved into a big house near Bondi Junction in February. Bedbugs were already a problem there – one that was being dealt with. We had sealed floorboards, regular steaming of mattresses and, once we were affected, zealous hoovering). It wasn’t enough though.

We found bedbug bites usually come up toward the end of the day after the night in which they bit you – which for me was during job interviews more than once (I didn’t get those jobs either!). We steamed our mattress so often the steam cleaner had to be replaced, and hoovered the floor (which was wood anyway) as if it was a shag pile carpet full of gold dust. We also washed and tumble dried most of our clothes and our backpacks and wrapped them in big bags and put them away until further notice. The hoovering had a minor impact and so did the steam cleaning of the mattress, but only for a few days. Nothing really worked and after a while, bed bug psychosis sets in. Any itch seems to be a bedbug bite, and old bites seem to be new ones. Especially when its humid anyway, this stuff can really keep you up at night. There was one thing that bedbugs seemed not to be able to deal with though…

Remember the great Sydney storm of autumn 2015? Beaches repositioned, roofs ripped off, cruise ships trapped outside the harbour? If you were in Sydney you’d remember. After that, the bed bugs seemed to be traumatized and weren’t seen again through the winter. Could have been something to do with the drop in temperature, I don’t know, I’m not a zoologist. I do know we slept easier until about late September when the little lines of itchy bites reappeared. With new people moving into the house from hostels around Sydney, and the weather improving, we were back to square one.

Our clothes and backpacks had stayed sealed up since February, and we had also taken the precaution (as we were leaving town soon) of freezing a few things that we planned to send home. Before we moved out, we threw quite a lot of stuff out anyway, and did a lot of steam cleaning. We also tried the approach mentioned on www.heartmybackpack.com and gave our backpacks and all our clothes a solid two days in the hot Sydney sunshine whilst sealed tightly in new rubbish sacks. We then did our packing on a clean table in the garden, sealed our bags into rubbish sacks again and had hot showers first thing in the morning before putting on clothes that had been tumble dried and sealed in rubbish sacks overnight too. Then we left.

If all that didn’t kill the little swines, we also took them on a scenic tour of the red centre of Australia. Bedbugs might enjoy Sydneys subtropical climes, but I doubt they really last long in Coober Pedy or Meekatharra. The little lines of bits haven’t been seen since, until now…

Update (11/03/16): Stayed a couple of nights in Kuala Lumpur and was kept up by itching on the first night. Managed to catch a few bed bugs and finally applied some insect repellent in order to get some sleep. When I told the hostel about it, they moved us to a different room and advised us to put our clothes and anything that might be infested out in the sun (they have a quite hot sun in KL – it seemed to work). Used insect repellent the next night and now in Kuching, let’s see if we brought them with us! 😦