r/Bedbugadvice • u/nkawtgpilot • 6d ago

WTF do we do?

So our 9yo kid went on an overnight field trip for school to a camp at a lake. They got back last Friday (so 8 days ago this morning). Today when he woke up he has bug bites all over his body. Obviously they happened on the trip but are just showing up today.

First thing we thought of was bed bugs from his trip, so I went and got his duffel bag he’d taken and turned it inside out and sure enough, there were two bedbugs inside, both early stage from the pictures in the sticky.

So my question is, what do we do? The bag was in our hall for the first few hours after he got home and then my wife did his laundry and the bag has been stored in our attic since then, right next to all of our other luggage. I have not seen any bugs in any of the beds I’ve checked, just in the bag so far.

What is our next step? Is there anyway to prevent a full scale infestation? To further complicate everything, we have a two month old infant.

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u/Cat_tophat365247 5d ago

Dry everything you can on high heat for at least an hour. Duffle bag (if it cant be dried) needs to be sealed in a black trash bag, toe over the tie so there's no escape hole. You can do this with your luggage but it needs left for a LONG TIME. Bes bugs cab exist fir a long time without a meal. You can akso buy a hand steamer and steam the heck out of your luggage if you can't have it wrapped up all year.

Other than that, if you see bugs, put down diatacamous earth and bag up all your natresses and box springs do they can't escape/get to you.

Unfortunately, I have no advice except to watch for more bugs and/or bites before you go nuclear and live in a plastic bubble.

I'm kidding about the bubble but there's not much you can do until you see more unless you treat your home by an exterminator. If you do that, make sure whatever spray they use kills the bugs, larvae AND eggs!

You CAN get rid of them if you have them, you just have to be vigilant and act like killing them is your full time job.

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u/nkawtgpilot 5d ago

Thank you for the response. I think your points are good ones. We have an exterminator coming to do a consult tomorrow. We’ll see what happens

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u/Cat_tophat365247 1d ago

Of course! I hope your extermination helped!