Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Bitten By The Truth

The thing with having a blog is that you're quite limited as to what you can talk about sometimes because there can be some apprehension about the wrong people reading it or you don't want to offend someone or you don't want to over-share your life...etc. My life has been especially chaotic the past few days because of a certain situation which came up and I've been wondering whether or not to share with the world because it's a delicate topic and most people freak out when they hear about it. To speak or not to speak? But I think I will blog about it because I figure that anyone who reads this will know me well enough to not think less of me and to hopefully pity me and send me presents to make me feel better.

You ready?

Monday morning it became official that our apartment has bedbugs. There. I said it out loud and now you all know my dirty little secret. There's been rumours for months that they are on the island but no one has been able to confirm anything. This is me confirming.

It all began well back into November when I woke up with two little bites on my arm. I figured a spider got me in my sleep and didn't think too much of it. And so it continued like that - a bite here, a bite there...but nothing too horrible. I cursed spiders for over a month and even cursed Chris because he wasn't getting bitten at all. People suggested bedbugs but I denied the idea since I was the only one being bitten and it was only one or two bites. When I went home to BC my skin cleared up and life went back to normal. Then I returned to PEI and by the first morning I had about five bites. Two day later, the day after I washed all the sheets, I noticed a weird little smudge of blood-looking stuff on the sheet and found that strange since I had no cuts on me at all. The next morning I woke up and my right arm and side of my face was just covered with bites. I immediately went online and researched bedbugs. To my dismay, the sites all confirmed what I was trying so hard to deny. The little smudge was a blood-smear, meaning that I killed one of the little a-holes in the middle of the night. But the bites were undeniably from these horrible little blood suckers. It also said that some people do not react to the bites, which probably means that Chris is one of those people so he may be being bit but there are no signs from it.

Now I know you're all disgusted with the thought of this and believe me, no one is more grossed out than myself - except maybe my good friend JB here - but he doesn't judge me either.



The thing that sucks about bedbugs is that they can live in homes of people with severe cleaning obsessions or homes in which the person never cleans at all. Bedbugs do not discriminate in any way and it's absolutely horrible for anyone to go through. So what is a girl to do when she finds out these little guys are living in her bed? CLEAN! You would not believe the amount laundry and vacuuming I have done in the past two days. It would blow the mind of each and every one of you. After some research we learned that it is the responsibility of the landlord to rid a building of bedbugs (because they are defined as being parasites and the presence of parasites means that we are living in an unsafe environment and providing a safe environment is the responsibility of the landlord) so we called them up and explained the situation so today they are sending over an exterminator to fumigate that place. Such a lovely scenario. Exterminators, fumigation...not the most comforting words for a person to hear. The thing that freaks me out though is that these bugs travel through water lines and outlets and places like that, so if it's the downstairs people that have them and they don't deal with it then the bugs will just return after we clean the place up.

As stressed out as this whole situation makes me, I am glad that it happened now and not while I'm in the middle of the school semester. I've been spending every minute of my days either cleaning or doing laundry and I can't imagine dealing with this if there were exams and projects to worry about as well. Just finding the time to make something for a potluck dinner tonight has proven to be difficult. I just can't wait for this to all come to an end so that I can move back into my bedroom and back into my normal and unbitten-extremities life.

I'll keep you all updated on this so that you're not afraid to come visit me in total and utter fear of infestation of your own. Live not in fear my friends! I am a clean person, I promise!

1 comment:

  1. Why on earth would you be afraid to post about this? Not like it is something you did to bring it on. The question though, did you bring them back to BC with you? I dont know much about them, but can they travel on your body? in your hair? like lice? I was in Nelson last week, wandering through the walmart there, and this young woman, whom you could smell before you got to her, picked a nit out from under her hat and showed her friend that it was alive, and promptly offered it to Stephanie and I as we walked by!.needless to say we turned down the offer. I hope you get the problem cleared up and it doesnt cause you to lose too much sleep!

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