B.E.D.B.U.G.S.

At first I didn't really know how I've failed to tell anyone about this yet, and then I realized it's because it sounds so disgusting and weird that I was embarrassed.

I didn't even know that bed bugs were still around/ even real. Previous to living in this flat I've only heard of actual bed bugs once: when I was about 10 I did a week-long summer day camp in Baton Rouge at a restored plantation called Magnolia Mound where my grandmother was a docent. We did all sorts of old-timey things like churn butter and see how sugar was processed from the cane, but that's beside the point. I remember being on a tour of the plantation and in one of the bedrooms she said something about bed bugs. Later, at home, I looked them up in the gigantic dictionary in our living room and was horrified to find a very gruesome drawing of this creature - That thing could be found crawling around in people's beds?? Ew!

So for the first 10 years of my life I didn't know they were real things, and then for the next 12 I didn't know they were still around, threatening to bite while you sleep tight.

Apparently around the time I moved into this flat Loly had realized she was getting bitten by something in her sleep. I'm not sure what research led her to discover they were bed bugs, but I noticed she had stripped her bed of the duvet cover and sheets. The next thing I knew she was throwing out the entire mattress as well as her chest of drawers and shelving. Then Veronica, my roommate, started to get odd bites - she compared them to Loly's but they were different so we all thought that Veronica's must not be bugs of the bed.

But the bug people were coming the next day to spray Loly's room and walls, so they decided they should spray our room, as well. Well I'll just say I was not entirely excited because this required us to strip our beds and remove everthything - EVERYTHING - from our closet, shelves, drawers... everything. Basically we would have to move out. I was like Ok, so I don't have any bites and I'm fairly certain this isn't necessary, but I kept my mouth closed.

Then over the next week or so Veronica got more and more bites and she was itchy and yada yada... It was such a mystery because her bites didn't look like Loly's, she couldn't actually SEE anything in her bed, and - this is the weirdest/most fortunate part - I was showing no symptoms of bed bugs! My bed is literally less than a foot from hers. She was waking up every morning with more and more itchy spots (maybe it was measles?) and I was waking up... with... nothing.

Ha so it was really hard for me to share in her frustration with this situation. I tried to be sympathetic, but everyone kept being like "I think they just like some people more than others" and honestly I was starting to get my feelings hurt by these little buggers (get it? buggers? bugs?).

Anyways, Veronica's battle with the bugs (which I'm still not convinced we had) got so intense that she decided to throw out her mattress as well. So she and Loly have been sleeping on the couches in the main room for the past, like, week, and I've had a half empty room all to myself.

This Monday the bug dudes came by for the 2nd part of the treatment and we had to go through the whole thing again - move our crap out of the rooms, re-wash the duvet and covers, wait for the treatment to dry for hours before going back in the room... and now Loly and Veronica are downstairs huffing and puffing and heave-ho-ing putting beds and shelving together. (I helped Veronica, don't worry - but then Loly entered the scene with Benjamin to help and I excused myself to Jenn and Jess's sanctuary upstairs to "write my paper" aka write my blog).

So there you have it, the saga of the bed bugs that may or may not have actually existed. Although I'm pretty sure that Loly did have them in her room, but I think that Veronica just had a weird allergic reaction and might be a tad paranoid.

This is Monday in my room with my bed still flipped over from where the bug guys were spraying everywhere. Notice the empty closet.

PS, we don't have a hammer so you should have seen Ben and Loly putting together Ikea shelves and drawers using the handles of carving knives to tap the nails in. They were like deranging Christmas elves.