I think I just have to get it all out because there is no one to talk to outside of my husband and I'm losing my mind. It all started over a year ago. I woke up to something crawling on me. Much to my horror, it was a bedbug. I work in healthcare, and have been paranoid about finding one and there it was. I ended up with 3 bits, severe reaction, purple in color and itchy! We had an inspection done, they found no signs of infestation and only confirmation was because we had the bug. We dried the clothes and sprayed Temprid throughout the house and all the furniture etc. Encased the bed. Found 6 dead bugs after this. Sprayed again. Never saw them again. No more bites (only had the 3 anyway). Fast forward 11 months. My husband finds a bed bug crawling on a throw pillow in the living room. We spray again. We find a dead bug by our sliding door. One month later, I have one bite me and crawling on my son and I on the couch. We tear our house a part, throw most of our things away. Dry everything, bag it all up in plastic again. Spray Temprid. Live out of plastic. Traps under beds, carpet tape around beds, beds encased away from walls yada yada all the things you have to do. My husband even ripped up the carpet and found where there had been multiple bugs but they were already all dead. 2 weeks later I found a semi live bed bug in my toilet. Then same night I find a semi-live bug just laying on the floor in the bathroom. The next day, a dead bug in my children's bath TUB. And a dead bug in my sliding door crack between the wall and glass (maybe a spider took it there?).
I'm confused because there's no bugs caught in our traps. We always find them during the day. They were gone for 11 months. We've never had the signs of infestation other than what we found when we ripped up the carpet, but that was around 7 bugs or less there. Bites have totaled 4 for me. 0 for my hisband or two children (I understand not everyone reacts but my daughter is highly allergic to mosquitoes and my son sleeps between my husband and I...I find it unlikely they'd skip us for him. They've been found in almost every room in our home but in random places. It sounds like an infestation when you say they're everywhere but there is no evidence. No fecal stains. No blood. No bites. No bugs in traps. It's always during the daytime never at night. I scour my house at night...we sleep on white sheets to see blood and stains and bugs Better. NOTHING.
We did have bats shortly before it started. But they're gone for over a year and a half now. We do have birds. Although, a raccoon moved in and ate them ALL (we had them in the attic and the front porch and bushes, all eaten). So we are unfortunately having animal problems. I can't figure out how to upload photos and I can't get any that are detailed enough for anyone to tell me if these are bat bugs, bird bugs, or bed bugs. My job and our house mean it could be any of them.
It just seems like they're never going to be gone and that we have a big problem without figuring out where the problem is because you'd think there would be signs of them SOMEWHERE. Instead we have random bugs alive or dead pop up all over the house. Could they be coming out of vents from the attic? Could they be randomly all over bc of clothing somehow? (We take off downstairs and put on clean from new bags upstairs). It's just mind boggling.
How do you ever know you're truly free of them? Will we always be in fear of finding one randomly somewhere??!!!!?? Will we be able to beat this ourselves? I don't have tons of money for heat or gas or freezing and a guy spraying isn't going to do anything different than we do. This is a nightmare.