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"  It&amp;#039;s been 2 1/2 years, and I&amp;#039;m finally ready to talk about it. Most of the symptoms of what I&amp;#039;ve dubbed PTBD \u2014 post-traumatic bedbug disorder \u2014 have gone away. I no longer wake up in the middle of the night swearing I feel something crawling up my leg. Nor do I proceed to tear the covers off, inspect my mattress, and convince myself that a fleck of laundry lint is moving. (I SEE ONE! Oh. Fuzz from my pajamas. Right.) I&amp;#039;ve taken my purses out of the freezer (bedbugs die in extreme cold), I allow hostesses to seat me in plush booths at restaurants (the little meanies love upholstery), and I&amp;#039;ve erased &amp;quot;bedbugs&amp;quot; from my Google Alerts. I&amp;#039;ve even quit eyeing other people on the train, trying to determine who could be toting my insect enemies along on their commute. Well, not counting this morning. That guy in the gray trench totally had a bite on his neck. Totally. But because I&amp;#039;ve fought \u2014 and won \u2014 a battle with bedbugs, I still do things other women might not consider normal. I won&amp;#039;t book a room at a hotel without consulting bedbugregistry.com, where anyone can report an infestation. (That site is like PTBD porn: I. Just. Can&amp;#039;t. Stop. Looking.) And I will never, not once, tell anyone to &amp;quot;Sleep tight! Don&amp;#039;t let the bedbugs bite!&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s not funny if you&amp;#039;ve been there, and tens of thousands of women have. What used to be just a big-city problem has swept the country in recent months \u2014 now, homes, hotels, schools, even doctor&amp;#039;s offices all over are crawling with the pests. (For example, more than 14 percent of Cincinnati residents in a recent poll said they were infested!) I contracted my case of the creepy crawlies from a boyfriend. (The relationship didn&amp;#039;t last; try not to die of shock.) He woke up one morning in his apartment covered in bites, and in an act of love and stupidity, I let him pack up some belongings (bedbugs love clothes and suitcases) and seek asylum at my place, even though I knew what he could be carrying. Soon after, I woke up and saw, by a beam of light creeping in from a crack in my curtains, a maroon, apple-seed-size bug squashed against my boyfriend&amp;#039;s back. &amp;quot;Wake up,&amp;quot; I said, shaking him. &amp;quot;Wake up, I have them!&amp;quot; We jumped out of bed and I ripped off the sheets. There were little black stains on my mattress (bedbug poop \u2014 a sure sign of an infestation), and a quick lift of the mattress revealed a few stragglers working their way into my box spring, where, I later learned, they&amp;#039;re most likely to live. &amp;quot;Bed-BUGS!&amp;quot; I yelled loud enough that anyone within a two-block radius could hear. &amp;quot;In my BED!&amp;quot; The rest is a blur \u2014 calling the landlord, throwing away my furniture, crying on the sidewalk next to the Everest of garbage bags packed with stuff I truly loved. (In that pile, accidentally: the bridesmaid dress I was supposed to wear in my sister&amp;#039;s wedding the very next week.) To be fair, I went a little overboard \u2014 typically, you might have an exterminator spray, then toss your mattress and box spring and dry-clean or launder (in hot water) anything made of cloth in your house. But with the wedding a couple days away, I didn&amp;#039;t have time for that, and the thought of taking a bug or egg to my sister Tara&amp;#039;s brand-new, completely carpeted town house was out of the question. I also told my boss, because there&amp;#039;s a chance you can bring a bug to the office in, say, a bag or jacket \u2014 and those bastards can travel up to 50 feet into someone else&amp;#039;s purse or cubicle. But most people who get bedbugs tend not to talk about it; there&amp;#039;s a certain level of shame that comes with saying your stuff has become a petri dish for bloodsucking insects. That&amp;#039;s one reason the epidemic just keeps on going, experts say. Lucky for me, my boss took it well and was even discreet about rolling my cushioned desk chair to the back of the office and depositing it in the Dumpster. &amp;quot;No offense,&amp;quot; she said, looking guilty. &amp;quot;None taken,&amp;quot; I lied. I was glad I had told the truth. But I did sorta feel like the smelly kid in class. My grandma, on the other hand, was less forgiving. She had encountered bedbugs in the early 1980s at a summer rental house and was still struggling with PTBD. At Tara&amp;#039;s wedding, she blew me a kiss and mouthed, &amp;quot;Hi, honey!&amp;quot; but refused any direct contact. In reality, the chances of getting bedbugs from a hug are about the same as catching gonorrhea from a handshake, but I didn&amp;#039;t blame her for being paranoid. Honestly, the first thing I did when I got to my hotel was check the headboard and mattress for signs of bugs (black poop stains, blotches of red, or bedbug &amp;quot;shells&amp;quot; \u2014 they shed their skin). I even stored my suitcase in the bathroom to be safe, since bedbugs are about a zillion times more likely to hide out in cushy materials than in Italian marble. (I still do this, by the way. Hotels everywhere, including fancy ones, have got &amp;quot;the bug.&amp;quot; Just sayin&amp;#039;.) After the wedding, I lived with my dad as I searched for a new, bug-free apartment and looked up every vacant place at my favorite site, bedbugregistry.com. A red dot within four blocks meant &amp;quot;Next!&amp;quot; I wasn&amp;#039;t taking any chances. Four thousand dollars later, I had a semi-furnished new apartment and a closet filled with shrunken clothes I&amp;#039;d blasted in the dryer, since bedbugs die in temperatures over 120\u00B0F. Life was finally getting back to normal when my phone started ringing. My story had gotten out, and suddenly I was the go-to expert among my friends. So I offered counsel: &amp;quot;Are the bites in a circle or a row?&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;d ask. Neither? Probably mosquitoes; bedbugs are slackers and don&amp;#039;t travel far between bites. &amp;quot;Have you checked for red stains on your sheets?&amp;quot; Chances are, you&amp;#039;ll squash a bug or two as you roll around \u2014 and they&amp;#039;ll burst (try not to vomit). At first I didn&amp;#039;t want to be reminded of my experience, but the calls were weirdly therapeutic. At least someone could benefit from my nightmare. And that&amp;#039;s why I wrote this piece, to help you avoid the same fate. Follow my advice \u2014 and the tips from other women, below \u2014 and with any luck, you&amp;#039;ll stay safe. When you get to a hotel room, check the headboard and box spring for signs of bugs. If you see anything, call the front desk and ask for a new room on a different floor. One buggy bed doesn&amp;#039;t mean the place is overrun, but get some distance. Trade suitcases for a duffle bags that you can wash when you get home. If you love your pricey luggage, store it in the basement or attic \u2014 not under the bed or in a closet. If you wake up with bites, go out and buy bedbug-proof bags for your box spring and mattress. They&amp;#039;ll trap bugs or eggs \u2014 a plus if you&amp;#039;re tossing your mattress, because stragglers won&amp;#039;t fall onto your couch on their way out the front door. Then, call an exterminator. And finally, do not stop sleeping in your bed. Bedbugs are attracted to body heat, not dirt or food, so if you move to another room, they will too. And the last thing you want are sofa bugs, or rug bugs, or...wait, why are you scratching?  This incredibly scary map, from bedbugregistry.com, shows where people have spotted infestations nationwide. One way you can stop the spread? Log on to report any bedbugs you&amp;#039;ve encountered. AND: WASH EVERYTHING AFTER A TRIP (NOT JUST DIRTY STUFF). Christine Drabicki of Plymouth, MI, brought home bedbugs from a hotel and now takes no chances. &amp;quot;I take off my clothes in the garage and vacuum out my suitcase before I go inside,&amp;quot; she says. Follow her lead, says Jeffrey White, M.S., an entomologist for bedbugcentral.com. Undress just inside your doorway, then wash and dry all of your clothes. &amp;quot;Frequent fliers might want to invest in the PackTite [about $300],&amp;quot; White says. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a portable hollow heater that surrounds an empty suitcase and kills bugs and their eggs.&amp;quot; DOUBLE-CHECK SECONDHAND GOODS. Even if you stay put, bedbugs can sneak into your house with stuff you order or buy. While it&amp;#039;s unlikely that orders from major retailers will be infested, items from home-based businesses (think eBay) or secondhand buys could be, White says. If you&amp;#039;ve bought clothes or linens, open boxes outside and launder the contents immediately. Furniture is trickier. Anna James* of Seattle bought a used co-sleeper crib to save $75 and ended up with an infestation \u2014 and a newborn covered in bites. &amp;quot;The pest-control people were shocked at how major it was,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;It was a nightmare.&amp;quot; Now she avoids secondhand items she can&amp;#039;t put in the dryer. Even &amp;quot;refurbished&amp;quot; mattresses may not be safe, says White: &amp;quot;In our research, we tore some open and found live bedbugs.&amp;quot; BE CAREFUL WITH COATS. If you go to an infested place, your jacket is the easiest place for bedbugs to grab hold and hitchhike home with you. Never leave yours on someone&amp;#039;s couch or bed. If you have a party, stow coats in a large plastic storage bin. &amp;quot;Bedbugs can&amp;#039;t crawl in or out of smooth surfaces,&amp;quot; White says. &amp;quot;You can put your purse in one under your desk at work too.&amp;quot; IF YOU CAN&amp;#039;T DRY IT, FREEZE IT. There are some things you can&amp;#039;t toss in the dryer \u2014 like purses, library books, and electronics. But freezers kill bedbugs too, says White. Just wrap the suspect item in plastic and pop it in the freezer for a few hours. PROTECT YOUR BED. If you live in a red zone (see map image here) or in an apartment building, consider covering your mattress and box spring with encasements made by either Protect-a-Bed or Mattress Safe. They can be pricey, but worth the peace of mind. \u2014SARAH JIO *Name has been changed. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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