The question now is what to do about it and - not too patiently - watch how the property management company deals with it. Will they be aggressive in extermination or laid back and fight the scourge topically. The next two or three weeks will tell the story. One thing I already know for sure is that I cannot live with bed bugs.
All of my New York belongings which are basically clothes and books are wrapped in plastic bags and fill the middle of the apartment in order to facilitate the exterminators and their need to spray the corners of the apartment, walls, ceiling, etc. The wooden bed frame has been sprayed and the entire floor has been sprayed over the course of two extermination visits. Between the first and the 2nd visit (2 days after) I was bitten and after the second visit (2 days after) I was bitten again.
The exterminators are scheduled to return this coming week - Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. Somehow I don't think that will be enough. I was told that in the building on the floor below me there was one filthy apartment that was overrun with bed bugs similar to the image at the bottom of this post. It was said that if you moved any item of furniture or lifted anything at all in that apartment then dozens of bed bugs would scurry in all directions.
Feeding Habits of Bed Bugs (from Wikipedia): "Bedbugs are bloodsucking insects. They are normally out at night just before dawn, with a peak feeding period of about an hour before sunrise. Bedbugs may attempt to feed at other times if given the opportunity and have been observed feeding during all periods of the day. They reach their host by walking, or sometimes climb the walls to the ceiling and drop down on feeling a heat wave. Bedbugs are attracted to their hosts by warmth and the presence of carbon dioxide. The bug pierces the skin of its host with two hollow feeding tubes. With one tube it injects its saliva, which contains anticoagulants and anesthetics, while with the other it withdraws the blood of its host. After feeding for about five minutes, the bug returns to its hiding place. The bites cannot usually be felt until some hours or even days later, as a dermatological reaction to the injected agents, and the first indication of a bite usually comes from the desire to scratch the bite site. Because of their natural aversion for sunlight, bedbugs come out at night.[8]
Although bedbugs can live for a year or eighteen months without feeding, and purportedly up to three years in the case of the species Oeciacus vicarius (the cliff swallow bug),[9] they normally try to feed every five to ten days. Bedbugs that go dormant for lack of food often live longer than a year, while well-fed specimens typically live six to nine months.
At the 57th Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of America in 2009, it was reported that newer generations of pesticide-resistant bedbugs in Virginia could survive only two months without feeding.[10]
Low infestations may be difficult to detect and in the early stages, victims may not realize they have bedbugs. Patterns of bites in a row or a cluster are typical, as the insects may be disturbed while feeding. Bites may be found in a variety of places on the body."
I will look into some Tantric Buddhist texts to see if there are any special practices, charms, talismans or mantras for eradicating these bugs. Bed bugs were well known to Tibetans who called them 'demon lice'. Mipham Rinpoche had numerous techniques for getting rid of a wide range of pests from mice, to rabbits, body lice, rabid dogs and more.
