Not this past Wednesday. Not the Wednesday before that. Go back one more week to the 13th. That’s the day the exterminator last came here. He tried a few new things, including the most powerful poison he’s allowed to try. He said we needed to wait a few days, then we can try sleeping in the room again, but when we do, we should set the alarm for two hours out, then check with a flashlight. Apparently, it takes a couple hours for The Bugs to notice a human presence and come out. If we wait those two hours then check, we won’t get bit up as much and we’ll still get an indication of whether or not they’re still around.

Due to overall lack of sleep (and not wanting to get up two hours into a fairly short night of sleep anyway) and lack of enthusiasm, I didn’t get around to trying again until last night. I hit the (bugless?) sack around midnight and set the alarm for 2am. Two in the morning rolls around and on comes NPR. I don’t know what was on, but my immediate thought was that this sounds like the most interesting program in the world and that I should stay there and carefully consider the arguments. Hmmmmm… or I should check for bugs. I chose the latter. I got up and looked around. Nothing obvious. After a brief bathroom break and a once over of myself in the mirror to see if I could see any bites, it was back to the check for part two. I found nothing… until I looked at the pillow. There that bastard bug was. It was a juvenile, all fattened up with my blood. I quickly scooped him up (the result of Protech initially telling us it was all in our heads the first time we told them their program didn’t work), the looked around for more. At least this time I didn’t find any more. Last time, by the time I had decided to go back to sleep in the guest room, I had found five. This time, I could only find one.

I have no idea what’s up next. I guess we can tear apart the bed frame. It’s the only thing I can think of. Nothing’s hanging on the ground. There are sticky pads around all four legs. I don’t have the bugs on me, otherwise, we’d still be getting bit when sleeping in the guest room. They can’t jump. They can’t fly. It’s got to be the bed frame. Well, it’s got to be the bed frame, unless they’re coming down the ceiling fan and falling onto the bed from there. It sounds far-fetched, but right now, I won’t rule it out.

Technorati Tags: bat bugs, bugs, exterminators, infestation, protech, stop biting us

Technorati Tags: no rights left, the terrorists have won, security, terrorism

Unless you’re a Unix geek, this probably won’t make much sense to you. If you are, though, I’m sure you’ve had similar thoughts.

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Here’s photographic proof that trees do attack.

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I got up around 4am to go to the bathroom. Didn’t notice any bug bites, but then, it was 4am. When I got back, I I looked around. Damnit! Right there on the headboard — the place the “exterminator” has been focusing his poisonous vengeance. I looked around some more and found four others; three on the bed and one more on the headboard. *sigh*

These bugs don’t jump or fly, the only crawl. To isolate the source of the problem, we placed the bed away from the wall and made sure there was nothing hanging to the floor for them to crawl up. Finally, we put glue pads around the legs of the bed. If they tried crawling up there, they’d get stuck and we’d see.

The fact that I saw bugs on the bed and nothing in the pads means that they came from the head or footboards. Lis has only mentioned Joe doing the headboard, but I was assuming she meant the whole bed frame. It makes absolutely no sense for him to only do that part of the frame and not the rest. Maybe I had assumed too much, eh? Well, we’ll find out more later today when Lis calls Joe about it.

This reminds me of a book of G’s.

Pleh. Time to get some tree pictures.

Update: Aw, crap. I think I do have a bite on my jaw and a couple on my neck.

Technorati Tags: bat bugs, bugs, exterminators, infestation, protech, stop biting us

Our friendly neighborhood exterminator came by yesterday. He put more nasty stuff on our headboard (where he currently thinks the badbugs where hiding). He said that he thinks the bed would be ready for use tonight. The last time we tried the bed, Lis went to bed hours before I did and discovered the bugs before I got to bed. Because of this, she nominated me to be the sacrificial human tonight. She’ll sleep in the guest room and inspect me in the morning. If I pass inspection tomorrow (and maybe again Sunday morning), she’ll try it again.

I’m conflicted about these guys. On one hand, they’re exterminators, yet, up to this point at least, they can’t seem to actually exterminate our bugs. As far as I know, they’re not some mutant strain of super bug, just normal bat bugs. On the other hand, they really do seem to be going out of their way to make sure that all the adults are dead and they’re generally very nice guys. I want to hate them for taking so long, but they really do seem to be trying and aren’t just phoning it in.

…and speaking of biting… Another tree fell on our house. The remnants of Ernesto are coming through and it’s been raining all day. It got heavier in the evening. When I got home, it was dark, but I could tell that one of the trees in the side yard will looking a little too horizontal, intersecting with the roof. Lis and G, who were inside at the time, said that they just heard a medium bump about five minutes before I got home. Luckily, nobody was hurt and there appears to be no damage to the house, excepting one smashed but unused satellite dish. I’ll be able to see things better (and take some pictures) in the morning, but judging from the outside and inside inspections (including the attic), the damage is fairly minor. Of course, I called the insurance company, so we’ll probably see our rates fly up, even though the total bill for removal will probably fall under our deductible.