Please help me, Lemmy.
I was staying at a friend’s for a month waiting for an affordable room to be available, only to move in and after a week see a bedbug.
It’s a single room, for poor people, with a shared kitchen.
I am poor, work remotely, and my financial situation is bad. I thought this could improve things.
I moved in a week ago, but didn’t move all my stuff in because it’s in boxes in my friend’s garage right now.
I have moved in with 2 outfits, 2 jackets, a work computer, some computer accessories, and have purchased 1 matress and pillow and bed sheet set at target.
The manager of the property beforehand said there haven’t been bed bugs for years, but one of the door has like a block over the bottom with powder in the doorway past the block to kill bugs as like a sort of trap. The manager said prior to my moving in this is just fear from 3 years ago. The units are very affordable and I had to be on a waitlist to get a unit.
I am not sure what to do. The place is mostly quiet and I could work here. I don’t love the area because although it’s low income rent, it’s in a high cost area with many food places nearby charging very high tourist amounts, like any burrito or sandwich is $13 at least. Rent is very low, however.
I could leave now before moving other stuff in, put my stuff in bags except for my work computer when getting back to my friends, and look for a different slightly more expensive place. I can’t stay with my friend long-term because her apartment is next to a distribution center with trucks pulling in and out all night and I wake up easily due to PTSD and always being on alert, even when sleeping. She sleeps through anything. I also don’t like ear-plugs and can’t sleep with them in. When I was staying there I was chronically tired.
Suggestions from Lemmy? How bad are bed bugs? It was only 1 but I squished it. Pest control coincidentally came that day and identified it is a bed bug.
Also, I have not paid rent for this month and it’s due by tomorrow. I could actually leave immediately, today even, and just not pay the rent. My credit is bad already and the money would be useful if it’s a mistake to stay. It’s sleazy to leave wirhout paying for this month, but I am poor and may not have the luxury of paying for a place that could result in a chronic bed bug infestation. I would also lose my deposit.
I also don’t know where it came from. I can’t be totally sure it didn’t come from my friend’s place although I stayed there 5 weeks and saw nothing bad. I also had purchased a new outfit from a store with vintage recycled clothes, like an upscale GoodWill store, but that was 2 weeks ago and there were no bites. It may not be from the new place, but I don’t think I was bitten before the move in. Strangely, I don’t even know if the bedbug I squished bit me. The pest control person said the city has many infestations and could have come from public transportation.
My friend lives 6 hours away by bus and I don’t know as many people there. It’s also a cheaper area and I could move there. I could actually just get a ticket and leave today if everything else is irrational.
I am very tired and don’t know what to think. The time at my friends impacted my mental health and I’m not sure I am seeing it rationally.
They’re right. A week is 6 days, 23 hours, and 45 minutes longer than it takes to get yourself and any luggage or boxes, bags, purses, shoes with a strap that’s fabric on fabric. If it’s a proper bedbug infestation, sitting on anything. Putting your shoes next to the wall or in a closet on the floor. Putting a bag on the floor. They’re small, easily visible when you know where to look, but if you’re not specifically looking for them, and you go into an infested home/hotel/restaurant/shop, now you almost certainly have them on you and/or your stuff. They’ll hang out until you put whatever they’re on down, or sometimes just fall off. And now wherever they jump ship gets infested too.
Edit: Sorry, Trauma response. Metro area I grew up in had/has a bedbug epidemic. Multiple times living in infested apartments, or going to a friend’s I haven’t seen in awhile then getting a call a few days later saying they found a bunch of bedbugs and having to purge everything. shudders
But I have so little stuff here. I can actually purge everything except the work computer, and I can keep that frozen for half a day without it breaking.
The stuff here isn’t that valuable.
So. Not to freak you out. But they totally hang out inside electronics.
I would contact your work’s IT, if it’s your employer’s, and ask them if they have a protocol for bedbugs. If the landlord is willing to fumigate, the computer can be damaged by the chemicals used. So you still need to get in touch with IT.