For the last couple weeks I have been waking up to find new insect bites every few days or so. My daughter, who sleeps in a separate bedroom has had a few bites too. My bites are generally small, and I tend to notice them later in the morning or the afternoon when they start to itch. I have had them on my lower legs and inner thigh, hips, and one on my arm. My daughter has had them on her tummy and two on her arm. I know you are supposed to check crevices of mattresses, sheets, box springs, etc. My husband and I have a brand new Tempurpedic, where there are hardly any seams on the mattress, but we have checked it and the sheets numerous times, washed them in hot water, etc. The weird thing is that my husband hasn't had any bites, and my mom, who has been sleeping in my daughter's room for the last week while visiting, doesn't have any bites either. I suppose they could be mosquito or spider bites, but as I said, they have been cropping up continuously for the last couple weeks. I am starting to get freaked and disgusted, and am thinking of having a pest guy come in and do an inspection. Just wondering if anyone has any personal experience with this...
Have thoroughly checked mattresses, sheets, comforters...don't have box springs in either room. No sign whatsoever of bedbugs but what is it that is biting us?? Crazy...
so this happened to us a couple of times but it wasn't bed bugs but instead bird mites. it was this time of year too. they were from bird nests on the house that the birds were gone from and now the mites needed more food. do you have any bird nests on your home, kind of close to the bedrooms? if so, you can get a magnifying glass and slowly search your window sills, the baseboards and your bed. it could also be bed bugs too. good luck!
In our home and at my yoga studio we run a diffuser with Young Living Essential Oils. They are a high grade quality and I love that these are all natural and effective.
Here is the recipe we use for keeping bed bugs, fleas, etc. away at home. In addition, I also love to diffuse a blend named Purification which is fantastic for keeping away spiders and bugs.
Bed Bugs:
Bed Bug Spray
* 10 drops of Palo Santo
* 6 drops of Eucalyptus Blue
* 5 drops of Cedarwood
Combine with 4 oz. Distilled Water in a dark glass Spritzer bottle.
Mattress Sachets
To go after nesting eggs, combine Cornstarch or Baking Soda in Cotton Tea bags with:
* Palo Santo
* Eucalyptus Blue
* Cedarwood
Place bags on underside of mattress.
Washing Bed Linens:
* Thieves Household Cleaner
* Purification Oil Blend
1. 2-4 capfuls of Thieves Household Cleaner for a medium to large load.
2. 4-6 drops of Purification oil blend.
Bug Bites:
* Lavender
* Purification Oil Blend
Apply 1 drop of either oil to the bug bites.
Diffuse:
* Palo Santo
* Eucalyptus Blue
* Cedarwood
In a cold air diffuser, fill the reservoir with 10-15 drops of either, Palo Santo, Eucalyptus Blue or Cedarwood.
Good Luck!!!
We have also had bird mites every spring/early summer since we moved into our house (several years, now). We thought it might be bedbugs, but upon researching realized that if it was bedbugs, we would have been getting bitten all year long. We had a swallows' nest in our eaves and once the babies were big enough to fly away, the bird mites lost their hosts and invaded the house. Now we are vigilant about keeping the bird nests out of the eaves -- we destroy them before the birds can lay eggs.
Many years ago (about 50, actually!) my first husband and I and our children lived in an apartment in New York. We worked overtime to get rid of cockroaches. Then, we got bed bugs! The strange thing was, I slept next to the wall with all the crevices (old molding, etc), and he slept on the open side, but I never got a single bite, and he was covered with them. They actually crawled over me to bite him! We asked, and were told that some people had more "natural insecticide" in their system. Also, they told us that the cockroaches ate bedbugs, and it would have been better not to get rid of all the cockroaches. When we moved back to Portland since he got a job teaching at our alma mater, everything had to be fumigated in the truck so as not to move the bedbugs with us.
I had a similar experience a couple years ago. My daughter and I were getting bitten and my husband wasn't. Turned out to be rat mites (I know, gross). We had rats living beneath our house so we had an exterminator come out to get rid of the rats and close up the holes. Shortly after we started getting bitten. The mites on the rats came up to the house because the rats died and there was no one else to bite. For some reason, they only liked to bite my daughter and I. I got lucky and actually got one from my skin in mid bite, killed it and put it on a sticky note and took it to the dermatologist so she could look at it with a microscope. I had to draw a circle around it because it was so small. That's how we knew they were rat mites. We had the exterminator come back and spray the house and stayed away for about half a day. That took care of it. In the meantime, we were applying pure lavender oil as it helped keep the bugs away. The spraying really stopped the bugs though. Hasn't been a problem since. Good luck!
Bed bugs can't live in a real Tempurpedic mattress, it's one of their many benefits.
EDIT: never mind, I guess I was sold a false bill of goods. Apparently, there have been reports done that prove dust mites can live in Tempurpedic mattresses because dust mites live on us.
The only way to prevent allergy-provoking dust mites in your mattress is to use dust-mite resistant encasings and covers but even they aren't 100% effective. This is why "dust-mite free" claims are a fallacy. No memory foam mattress is free of mites. It is true, however, that its extremely dense structure makes it more difficult for dust mites to nest and feed.
Foam, however, be it the visco elastic kind or not, be it from Tempurpedic or not, does not promote dust mite growth because, unlike natural fibres, is not a food source in itself. This is what mite-resistant means.
Tempur memory foam beds don't stop mites feeding on your dead skin cells, it just means that they are not a feeding source in themselves. They are, therefore, indeed made of a naturally resistant material to dust mites but so are all foam beds, even latex beds.
The Tempur-Pedic website makes the following statement:
Tempurpedic beds are naturally treated to be resistant to mites and other household allergens. Our products are also CFC (chlorofluorocarbon) and formaldehyde free
While a Tempur-Pedic bed is indeed allergy and dust-mite resistant, the fact is that any foam mattress is also dust-mite and allergy-resistant. Again, this does not mean they are mite-free or that they stop these bugs from feeding on dead skin cells.
Oh heavens NO!!! I hope I never see those things in real life.
No experience with bed bugs, but is there any chance the problem is fleas? When we lived in So Cal we had the problem frequently and they "loved" me, never touched my husband. Put on a pair of long white socks and shuffle across your carpet. If they're there, they will jump onto socks.
