The Diagnosis

That's right. There were tiny spots of blood on my sheets. And not just a few. The bed was covered with them. It was horrifying. My first instinct was to run outside in my undies, get me in car, which I know was ridiculous to have in the city, and drive back to Georgia. But I managed to collect myself in the shower, and decided this had to be more common than it felt. I mean I'd been hearing about these things on the news for years.

I talked to my landlord about it, and of course, he responded in a weird way. I think his exact words were, "Remember when everybody was talking about bombs on trains?" I didn't, and I also failed to see any similarities to my problems upstairs and a bomb on a train. I didn't want to move; the rent was too good, but I didn't how to get rid of bed bugs without burning the place down and fleeing.

the scene of the crime

 I called my dad, and he actually had some good advice. He told me to find someone who'd dealt with it, and ask them. He told me to start online. So that's what I did. It turns out many folks went to the world wide web with their bed bug woes.

As I removed my sheets and put them into thick plastic trash bags, I perused the various bed bug forums, and I kept running into one thing: heat. It seems heat is the bed bug's ultimate enemy. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with this information, but I knew it was start, and that was all I needed to lift my spirits.