Bed Bug Brain

Bed Bug Brain #whatbugsme

You want to know what bugs me?  Bed bugs and how they drive my customers crazy!  Anytime I have a bed bug customer, there’s a massive amount of stress involved.  They’re worried about getting bitten. They’re worried about people thinking they’re nasty or gross which is not true.  

You are the food

When you go to bed, get out of the shower, do your nightly routine, or put on your PJs, that’s your safe space.  That’s where you curl up with your teddy bear, or your Honey boo, or whatever. When people have bed bugs it really messes with them.  It messes with their sleep. They can’t have a full night’s sleep because they think something is crawling on or biting them. The crazy thing is, most people will move to the couch or move to a different bed.  Well, you’re the food, so the bed bugs are going to move where the food is. It’s not a good situation either way and if you go to the couch or go to another bed, you’re just going to infest that bed over time.  So, it’s best to just stay where you are. Yeah, I know what that means… That means you’re going to get bitten, but you should be calling somebody to have it checked out and fixed.

How it starts

 Years ago I had a situation where we got rid of the bed bugs pretty quickly, no big deal, but the wife was completely freaked out to have bed bugs.  (Call it whatever you want, 99.9% of the time, it’s the wife or the woman that’s the one that develops mental issues with bed bugs. Now, I’m not a mental psychologist or whatever you want to call it, I’m just telling you what I’ve seen and what to watch out for.)  The man was an engineer so they had a really well-built concrete and rebar house that was two levels. However, In response to her freaking out thinking they still had bed bugs, they removed all the carpet and a lot of furniture. They did a lot of crazy things that they read on the internet that didn’t do anything and probably hurt the situation.  She called us months later saying she found them in all kinds of places that didn’t make sense. Entomologically, there are some places where bed bugs just aren’t going to be. Again, you are the food. Do you want to find the bed bugs? Where’s the food? If you’re sleeping in the bed, in the easy chair watching the nightly news falling asleep, that’s where the bed bugs are going to be.  Even in the worst, most horrible bed bug jobs that I’ve been on, they have not been in the bathroom, but they might be in the kitchen. So unless you’re sleeping in the tub, they’re not going to be in there. She was telling us that she was finding them in the dishwasher, the laundry room, and in the garage. Basically just places that didn’t make any sense. We inspected and checked it out (this was before we had the canines who would’ve helped A LOT then) and we never found anything.  What happened is that she developed Delusory Parasitosis. (For more info on DP, you can visit my blog post here.)   Basically, it’s the heebie-jeebies.  You know when you kind of feel like you get the ickies and feel like something is crawling on you?  We get it too and that feeling can develop into an actual mental condition where you think bugs are crawling on you.  Those who have this condition may even tell you they think bugs are under their skin. That was my first experience with the Delusory Parasitosis, and at that point, I can’t help you because I can’t kill something that isn’t there.  It’s time to see a psychologist or somebody in that field. 

I had another guy who was down on his luck.  I tried to help him out and told him, “We can do this and this, but it’s probably not going to help. YOU’VE got to do x, y, and z.”  Well we did our thing and he didn’t do x, y, and z, and a year later he called me saying, “I’ve still got bed bugs.” I said, “Dude, I told you if you didn’t do this, this, and this, there’s a 90% chance that you’re going to keep these guys.”  Hopefully, he’s going to wake up and get it done correctly the way it should have been done to begin with.

This freaking out over bed bugs is so prevalent that of course there are so many bad products on the market at Walgreens, Walmart, or on the internet at doyourownpestcontrol.com.  People are just clamoring and grasping for anything to fix this horrible problem that is messing with their sleep and therefore messing with their brain and common sense.  The two people I talked about were smart people, but this just turned their brain to mush and they couldn’t think straight. They knew better but this whole thing messed them up so bad.  

Enter the Bed Bug Scammers

There’s a product I’ve seen that is around $50.  You get a crappy flashlight, one pair of rubber gloves, a couple of glue boards, and a pair of glasses that are tinted red because there was a rumor a while back that you can see bed bugs better with a red tint.  I guarantee you they sold them out like mad. People bought them like crazy because they don’t have a brain in their head when you have bed bug brain and they’re not thinking straight because, again, it’s messing with their sleep.  When I was in the Marine Corps, we did sleep deprivation. It messes with your common sense, your thinking ability, your motor skills, everything! Bed bugs are going to mess with your sleep!  

I’ve even seen some bed bug PJ’s.  Basically a Tyvek suit that covers you from head to toe, hands, and feet, all the way to your head. Everything!  And you can sleep in these bed bug pajamas without getting bitten. It’s just silly.

Some other things that people do when they get bed bug brain is they treat.  They get on Facebook. They go and talk to other people who don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.  They either spread the bugs, build up resistance, or they give them to somebody else by doing something incorrectly.  Why would you give this cancer to somebody else? Somebody gave it to you! Do you want to give it to somebody else?  

#KEEPCALM

So listen!  If you have bed bugs, CALM DOWN!  It will be okay! They’re not going to hurt you.  Now, I’m not saying it’s going to be fun, but there’s no medical issue here.  Call someone who knows what they’re talking about. I know a guy! Call me! Let’s talk about how to fix it and get that bed bug brain out and get you back to sanity.  You know what bugs me? Bed bug brain! But I love to kill ‘em and get you back in your little PJs with your teddy bear so you can sleep at night!