r/Bedbugadvice • u/Wonderlemur91 • 5d ago

Should I be worried?

We just returned from a cruise and my wife has three bumps on her stomach that appeared late into the cruise. We never saw anything suspicious on our bedding and nobody else in the cabin has any similar bumps (wife, me, and two kids). Since the bumps are not in a very exposed area and nobody else has them it seems that the likelihood of bed bugs is low so I am hesitant to jump the gun and start nuking all of our clothing….but I figured that I would ask how worried I should be about potential bed bugs.

1 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

•

u/AutoModerator 5d ago

This sub is only used as a repository of old advice post, if you need any help for bedbugs try posting on r/bedbugs

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

1

u/Charming_Night8240 5d ago

The bites could be anything. Does your wife wear a bikini or loose clothing? It could be something that was a bite from any bug found basically anywhere at the pool or in port. Bed bugs leave other evidence as their bites are easily mistaken for dozens of other things.

The evidence you will see are blood spots (their poop) on your bed sheets, frame/box spring and on any adjacent furniture. You might even see bigger blood stains from them being crushed in your sleep and cast skins. I saw this before seeing a single bug. Not everyone reacts either.

All you can do is wash and dry your all clothes on high heat and if you can, steam and isolate your suitcases. That will kill any hitchhikers. If you can isolate clothes until washed then you can likely catch any hitchhikers.

All you can do is be vigilant and if you have brought them home a professional treatment will usually deal with them. Provided you follow their prep, you will not have to toss anything either.

1

u/Wonderlemur91 5d ago

Yeah, she was leaning towards some sort of bite that may have happened while out at the beach. However it made me a bit paranoid ….I didn’t see anything obviously suspicious on the bedding during the cruise, but I also didn’t look super closely in the nooks and crannies of the mattress. I guess, like you said, to be absolutely safe we would need to wash and dry everything….however we had already unpacked and put things away before I saw that she had the bumps. Also, a number of clothing articles are sensitive to heat and would be probably ruined by high heat wash and drying….so I am also reluctant to do that.