New roommates

Warning to the faint of heart: this is NOT a post for you! Actually it's not that bad, but definitely not a post for those that are faint of heart when looking at bugs (I'm thinking of YOU Suzanne!)

SO, in light of the oncoming snowstorm (YES another one! This one is being dubbed Snowpocalypse II), the city is once again closed for business and I've been indoors catching up on some email, phone calls, and working remotely since none of the other interns had tried to check in and with the office closed, my boss is in need of a little more help than usual. It was actually a very restful morning and I enjoyed doing my laundry during the day rather than rushing at the end of the night when I usually find time for house chores.

Then my roommate McArthur revealed some mysterious bug bites on her hip. She is caught in DC despite having planned to leave for California this past weekend and her flights keep getting canceled. She's found good use of her time but it also postpones the room swap we plan for when she heads out. Now I'm a little relieved that the swap hasn't happened sooner because, this way, she can help determine what to do with her bed and bedding and I'm not freaking out on my own hoping I don't become infested with fleas.

Upon discovering the bug bites, she started to examine her bedding and mattress. She yelled out to me...."Kristine, how tough are you?" I thought she was leading into a favor for lifting something but, no, she was asking if I would be brave enough to kill some bugs because she was not thrilled about the job. While I am admittedly a woos when it comes to spiders and large creepy things, somehow the small buggers didn't bother me. I started digging around and we found a score of them all around the edges of the bed, along the floorboards, and under the radiator. I tried to figure out if they were fleas or bedbugs etc but couldn't find anything that matched them for a while. There were these long, skinny, fluffy ones that looked honestly like lint until they started moving and you could see it was just hair around the outside of a little striped body. Then I some round, spotted bugs that freaked me out some more. So I went to the trusty whatsthatbug.com and found that they were carpet beetles. Yes. Carpet beetles. I found some additional information from the University of Florida talking about their feeding habits and how to get rid of them. Apparently they like to feed on any organic fibers...wool, cotton, you name it. So basically anything fabric is susceptible. They also like dark areas when they are young but seek the light when they are adults and look VERY different in the different stages. I still wonder if there were more bugs in the mattress or something because nothing mentioned the carpet beetles biting humans but maybe they got defensive.

We hauled the mattress and box springs downstairs and on to the porch, dusted EVERYTHING around the room and then sprayed the edges with some very chemical-ly RAID. I got a little paranoid thinking that the bugs could have traveled into my room so I pulled my bed away from the wall and started inspecting. Sure enough there were a few against the wall, around the curtains that separate our rooms, and in the floor rug. I couldn't find any in the bed at all, and the bugs were only in one corner of the room. So, either they went into escape mode once we started spraying McArthur's room or they are recent additions to the family. To be safe, we stripped off the bedding and sprayed all around the room and will be hauling the bed onto the porch for freeze control soon too.

What an adventure! It's good in that it gives me motivation to thoroughly dust the room and I'll be adding some cedar blocks to my closet and drawers, but I'm definitely glad this happened before McArthur left so that she can help with the cleanup effort.

Here is the official mugshot of carpet beetles from U of Florida for your viewing enjoyment. I didn't take any pictures of the ones we actually found but they are an exact match for both of these pics: