Day 71: Bed bugs in pictures

Not to worry, no actual pictures of bed bugs, just pictures of our house right after it was all dismantled and ready for the exterminator. I asked the children to take the pictures, the last two I took.

Bed bugs like books -especially hard back books where they can crawl into the spine of the book. We carefully checked all of our books in our rooms, bagged them & then brought them down to our school room to store. School has been drastically reduced as a result of not being able to access everything.

This is our sun/mud room...basically, it was the front porch then a previous owner chose to enclose it - it is absolutely frigid in the winter time! Bed bugs can not survive extreme temperatures; however, to freeze them they must go to "comfortable" temp to "extreme" cold to die. If the temperature slowly drops to freezing than the little buggers just hibernate. Did I mention they can live without food (your blood) for a year? Anyway, we had to disinfect all belongings that we did not want sprayed with the exterminators chemical, bag the items & then stored away from infected rooms. We chose the sun/mud room for the majority of our belongings - temp was frigid the day we bagged items (hopefully cold enough & quick enough to kill the little pests).

Temporary sleeping quarters for the whole family - our family room. S & I shared an air mattress, K on the couch, Z & Steve took turns sleeping on the floor or on the extra air mattress. We have since this picture bought an additional air mattress so no one will have to sleep on the floor in the future.

All of our clothes, towels, sheets, linens, etc. had to be washed & dried on the hottest (and longest) setting. All items had to be bagged & then stored away from infected rooms. This is behind our couch - all of our clothes (well everything that was done thus far).

This is Z's room. Pictures off the walls, mirror off the dresser, all furniture stacked in middle of room, beds stripped, vacuumed & standing up...it was a lot of work.

Another view of Z's room

This is the girl's room

My room

My room - the pillow & slippers had to be washed, dried & bagged as well. We chose to move the electronics as we were unsure what the chemicals would do to the electronics.

Ever wonder if your children have too many stuff animals? I have proof. Every bag is filled with stuff animals. They are still waiting for their turn to be washed & dried. I have told my children if the stuff animal can not survive at the minimum a full hour on the hottest setting in the dryer than the stuff animal is being thrown away. I really just want to throw away any stuff animal that can not be washed, but...I was over ridden. oh well. Oh, this is in our storage room in our basement.

My laundry room. This actually  looks pretty good. This is what it looked like the day the exterminator came to spray the rooms. It was a lot worse the 3 or 4 days before! However, I am still doing a ton of laundry...although I think I am down to only having 3 bags left (they are not pictured).

When I see all the bags of stuff, I feel overwhelmed. I also feel slightly disgusted that we have so many belongings. And I feel pretty proud of my children for working so hard. We have been saying through this whole thing it is like moving, but in the worst possible sort of way.

Deep down I am amazed I chose to continue stretching & walking while all of this was going on. We are slowly unpacking bags -  I am not in any hurry. And because I chose to continue walking through all of this, I am still walking! Stopping and starting is soooo much harder than continuing. I like continuing...now if I could just apply that to school!!!!

Happy Walking!