Sleep tight...

We had a bed bugs scare at the beginning of the year. Greg woke up with some red marks on his torso and initially thought it was a rash. After some internet research he started thinking maybe they were some kind of bite. I was out of town while all of this was going down, and when I got back, Greg was still on the fence about what they were. We had just gotten back from Christmas break so something might have gotten into our luggage on the plane. I had also been taking several work trips, so maybe I brought them back from a hotel? We never owned a bed frame, so our box springs and mattress were just down on the carpet, so they could have just come from the apartment and had easy access to our bed.  I came home and didn't get any bites after sleeping in our bed, but Greg kept getting more bites, so we went in to full panic mode. Bed bugs are awful creatures and it was so stressful thinking we might have them in our home.  We stripped the bed and threw away our mattress pad and washed the sheets and all of the clothes in our closet. But then we were dumb and put our clean clothes in the kitchen, thinking it would be safe.

Our apartment complex paid someone to come spray who told us our clothes were not safe in the kitchen so we had to dry all of our clothes on high heat for thirty minutes to kill any bugs/eggs and seal them in bags. Not just the clothes in our closet and dresser but also all of our summer clothes that were stored away. We had to vacuum EVERYTHING and throw away any loose papers or boxes. Then we had to put away all of our food and dishes so they wouldn't get pesticide on them.  We had to buy bedbug proof mattress and box springs covers and these little bed bug interceptors (easily $80 right there).  It was exhausting and so stressful because I felt like if we didn't do everything right, the bed bugs might just hang on. The guy came to spray and said he'd be back in a month to spray again, and in the meantime to keep everything sealed up.  Greg and I left out like 5 outfits in big ziploc bags to wear day to do... for a month.  The same five things every week. Luckily it was winter (aka hell) and all I wanted to wear was pants and sweaters anyways.

I would definitely recommend these mattress covers to anyone renting or frequently traveling. Mattresses are expensive and can't just be thrown in the dryer like the rest of your clothes! Plus, they're just a really high quality mattress cover, even if you never have to deal with bed bugs:

http://www.amazon.com/Hospitology-Defense-Waterproof-Mattress-Encasement/dp/B005OLK55A/ref=sr_1_1?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1397181052&sr=1-1&keywords=bed+bug+mattress+cover


Oddly enough, Greg didn't get a single bite after we threw our old mattress pad away, which is one of the first things we did. To this day, I'm not 100% convinced we actually had bed bugs.