Stress

It’s finally happening. The endless paranoia should end. No more scrutinizing every handled object that’s been sitting around. No more panic attacks whenever a piece of fluff or dirt has appeared in a new location. No more coping with the most itchy and painful bites I’ve ever experienced. The exterminator is coming.

Some new tenants moved in to the unit below ours just a few months ago. They did a lot of vacuuming and the washers and dryers were going non-stop for a couple weeks, or so it seemed. That’s also about how long it was until I woke up with a bite. Immediately I told Jessy it’s bed bugs. We don’t exactly live in a building with the most motivated or privileged people, and with the new neighbours below it didn’t seem like a coincidence to me. It took a little while before finding actual proof of the culprit, but it turned out that I was right. Insert a .gif of Ace Ventura freaking out about bats right here.

Now it’s not that bad. We found maybe ten in total. But the stress of the situation definitely gets you thinking, and not just about the obvious like speaking to the landlord(s) and getting an exterminator in and dealing with all the prep required. Do we want to live here? Should we reconsider buying our own place? Where do we want to be and what do we want to do? Our families are beginning to pressure us into buying a home and becoming more “settled” as a couple. And that’s not a surprise. We’re both almost thirty, no kids. We don’t have any fancy things or a place to call our own. Neither of us are in a field of work we love. And we’ve been together for a number of years. But these topics always have a funny way of bringing out a different level of stress and feeling of inadequacy, which always goes so well for a person who battles with anxiety and fear on a daily basis.

Since I’ve become more aware of myself, it’s been easier to work on aspects I’m not comfortable with and actually see improvement. I won’t go into it much now, I’ll save it for a more thorough entry in the future. For now it’s just going to be a small vent entry about the perils of adulting.

Have you got any bed bug stories? I’ve been quiet about this to others for the most part up until this point, but the people I have talked to don’t have experience with this, or won’t admit to it. I feel embarrassed about it, even though we know and were told by the exterminator that it’s not a discriminating issue. It affects everyone equally, dirty or tidy. We managed to stop the biting for a few weeks, but we don’t think it’s over yet. Fingers crossed other apartments aren’t worse than ours.

It’ll be nice to get through tomorrow and live without worry. Or at least that’s what we’re hoping. Do we ever truly stop worrying about things?

UPDATE: Our place was sprayed, but didn’t hear anything back. When Jessy called one of the landlords for news, it turns out they inspected the unit above while they worked on ours and discovered a filthy hoarder situation. It was also infested with bed bugs, and the exterminator estimated the progress at a year and a half in the making. How do you live like that? How do you put so many others at risk? They said it looks like he’s never cleaned once or gotten rid of any garbage while living here, and he was here when we moved in three years ago. Apparently he has substance abuse issues, and from what I hear through our units, he’s not exactly the most stable human being. I haven’t even seen his dealer around for a while, now that I think about it. We’re trying our best to seal ourselves in but this will be an ongoing story, I’m sure.

UPDATE #2: It’s been nearly two weeks from when our unit was done, and four days since the unit upstairs was clear enough to get sprayed as well. Last night, Jessy’s eye was drawn to a critter climbing straight up from an access panel in our bedroom that was probably cut out to fix plumbing issues, which all the other units also seem to have (the toilet and sink are on the opposing side of the wall). This was where I thought they were coming from originally, though the exterminator felt they were coming down from the exhaust fan in the washroom, which was probably true as that’s the room I first found them in, and later when I found another bug (after clearing out what was in the box spring and thinking we were good because we had no new bites), Jessy opened it up and found one hanging out in there. Earlier that day when I got home from work, I was getting ready to shower and I spotted a dying bug on the floor in the bedroom, near the access panel. I acquired one of the 100 flashlights we own and started inspecting the floors, lifting the baseboards (a few in this place are coming up), checking out objects nearby. There was a dead juvenile in the corner, also by the panel. This is what I was told would happen, but nearly two weeks later, just a few days after the colony upstairs was sprayed? Definitely felt like they were just running for their lives now. Today coming home from work, I caught the landlord talking to another tenant about bagging his clothes up on my floor and asked me to chat in a minute. Jessy had text him saying we found some bugs the previous night. I found out that three new units have reported bugs, the units surrounding the source. This building has maybe 15 units, so now it’s a big deal. As much as I hoped this would go smoothly, it’s been hard to tell myself that it would be just fine.

No bites yet… not yet.

UPDATE #3: Just before the six week mark, Jessy woke up with bites. The exterminator came again, inspected and sprayed. Didn’t find anything. Jessy still got bit for a few days, but stopped for a little while. It’s been about eight weeks now, and we’ve both had bites on and off, and he found a small juvenile hiding under the leg of the bed. No new bites since then, but we discovered that the unit hasn’t had monthly inspections like the landlord said it would because he doesn’t have a key to it, even though he knew he was leaving for the boats a few days after they sprayed his unit. We’ve been considering buying a house again.