Good afternoon all,
Firstly, I just wanted to say that this site has been a godsend of information for me. If it wasn't for these forums, I don't think I'd be nearly as well prepared mentally for what I discovered I'm going through. Also, apologies in advance for my long-winded tale.
In a way, my bedbug experience started almost one year ago. I moved into a brand new house, and for my first few nights, slept on an old mattress that my landlord had left (with my new mattress on top of that one). After waking up with bite-like symptoms, and discovering a tiny BB-sized bug crawling on me, I did my research and there began my spiral into anxiety and paranoia. The more I researched, the more I thought I had them. Some days I'd read articles or opinions regarding BB behavior that convinced me that I didn't have them after all. It was an endless spiral of uncertainty and stress, which made it almost impossible to sleep at night. Reading the FAQs on this forum helped me immensely.
After a PCO came and inspected, he found no signs of bedbugs, but quite a few signs of carpet beetles. Those were easy enough to take care of, my bites vanished, and after a few weeks of paranoia, my mental health returned to normal. Fast forward two months, I'm at work for a non-profit organization, walking through a neighborhood, and my coworker says she sees a bedbug on my shirt, and that she's seen loads of them before. (This was mid afternoon, in 95 degree weather, blinding sunlight. I was amazed that a bug held onto my shirt that long). Given the strange circumstances, I managed to write off that phenomenon after a few days of anxiety and not finding any signs at home. Also, no bites ever materialized on me.
Fast forward to today. I've moved, and have lived at this new place since December 1st. No unidentified bites, no signs of bed bugs (fecal traces, cast skins, etc). However, about two weeks ago, I started to develop strange marks. They were rather small bumps, usually with a slight tint of red, and they were almost always in little lines or clusters of 2-3. Occasionally, there'd be one standing on its own. The bites never itched at all, and resolved pretty quickly. I knew from my research that bites are absolutely no definitive sign of bedbugs, but I still started searching every few days. I sleep on a rather dark purple sheet, but my comforter and mattress underneath are both white, and the mattress is on a metal bedframe. No fecal stains or cast skins have yet been discovered. However, a week ago, I was walking down the street (had just showered and put on clothes from dresser) and a tiny flat tan bug with a dark spot on its abdomen crawled out of my shirt and onto my neck. I tried to find some means of trapping it, but it fell from between my fingers and I was unable to locate it. It looked EXACTLY like a nymph, but since I found it outside, I wrote it off as a baby spider or something similar.
My bites have now become increasingly sensitive. The bites themselves usually don't itch, but random places on my skin will itch randomly throughout the day. The other night, I went to bed perfectly fine, and woke up with a large rash under my left arm (I slept wearing a very loose shirt that night and am kicking myself for it). To top it off, I have a cluster of three itch-less mosquito-like bites on my chin/neck and a blood spot on my pillow. I went to a park with a friend the day before (didn't go trampling through the underbrush, I stayed on the grass-less trail) but didn't want to make any assumptions. I vacuumed, and checked every nook and cranny in my room I could think of, and found nothing. I set an alarm for 4:00 a.m. this morning, grabbed my flashlight, searched my bed, and found nothing. Tried the same thing at 5 and at 6.
So as I start to leave for work at 8, I turn as I'm about to shut my bedroom door and notice a brown speck on my white wall, on the side of my room where the head of my bed is pointing. The bug itself is about 6 feet up the wall, just a bit further up than head height. I got in closer, and see what is unmistakably a bed bug (or something in that family). Looked exactly like a zoomed out version of this picture, which I saw on a flickr account: http://postimg.org/image/k8wjjn843/
Instantly recognizing the little pestilential vermin, which was about 3.5mm, I ran to grab a ziplock bag to try and catch it for an expert analysis. The monster ZOOMED out from under the bag, crawled up the wall and onto the ceiling, and then dropped onto my dark carpeted floor. I had no chance of finding it and I was already late for work.
I contacted my roommate, and she said that she had been experiencing strange bites as well, but just ruled them out as mosquitos because the bites didn't quite match what she read online. At this point, I felt a sinking dread and called a PCO. They're coming out to inspect one week from today.
My goals now are to find a live specimen or traces and document them, hopefully for someone on here to identify properly. Afterwards, it's time to dry everything possible and start living out of giant ziplock bags. Also, I don't know how I'm going to be able to force myself to sleep in my bed for the next week without going absolutely insane, so I guess I'm looking for the mental support throughout this journey as well. I'll make sure to document my experiences here.
Thank y'all! Trying not to freak out too badly.