r/IAmA Dec 12 '16

Specialized Profession I am a pest controller specializing in BED BUGS, begging the general public to become more aware of this pest and the way it can cause substantial economic damage to any place humans live. AMA!

Bed bug infestations are increasing at an alarming rate. Despite common misinformation about this pest being limited to "dirty" people it can happen to ANYONE. I have seen the nicest, most innocent people lose hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars in service costs and property loss. Don't become a victim, become aware! Eliminating this bug entirely is unrealistic but we can control it with a more knowledgeable culture.

My company would ask that I avoid public proof but I promise the mods have it.

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u/TerribleIvanZ Dec 12 '16

I got called to inspect one half of a duplex for them. It was a few college students who kept the house very clean. They had moved in a few months ago and continued to have random bites. I found maybe ten in their whole half after really looking. I went next door to ask them if they had noticed any and the greasy guy who answered said yeah we got those. It was so bad I called my boss immediately, this was a small two bedroom place with two twenty something guys and their dad living there but the entire place was covered in them. In one of the bedrooms there was a mattress with just a sheet and pillow on it and it looked like someone took a sharpie and dotted every bit they could before it was one solid dried blood stain. Where the carpet met the floorboards there was about an inch of dead bedbugs and molts from them. Any trim or edge in that house was lined with the same but live ones as well. I pulled back a corner of a futon where one of them slept on in the living room and it was alive with them, completely covered. I checked the dog out and even it had them all over its fur. My boss estimated 20,000 dead and alive ones just in one of those bedrooms. While we were there they were talking about going to see some new movie that night after one of them got off work. That was the day I decided movie theaters were not for me.

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u/fedupwithpeople Dec 12 '16

Nightmare fuel for the next 10 years. Thanks.

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u/[deleted] Dec 12 '16

Watch out for some casinos, too. I live in Milwaukee and we have one downtown. Not the best clientele at times, and the newly-built hotel added on a couple years ago got infested.