Yeah I heard about this. The woman came up for one of her increasingly rare visits and said she left with a bit that bothered her. So she looked online and naturally came up with the worst explanation possible. Honey, she said, I think you have bed lice.

I'm like "oh go on". No she said, I looked online and that's what this bite looks like.

Now I seen a lot of things, I seen some dirty hippies, in a way I am one. But I ain't never seen no bed bugs. I think it's down to our extensive use of lavender in washing (we like the way our blankets smell with lavender) and perhaps the lavish personal applications of patchouli (I use something else and you'd have to torture me to find out what it is) but I just couldn't see it happening. Until I looked online that is.

Yup, turns out bed bugs have returned. And of course my mind starts going and all the sudden I notice I am kind of itchy lately. And I look at my dog and wonder "ain't he scratching a lot lately too?" And I get all freaked out. I got out the magnifying glass and started looking for the buggers. I'm about to burn down my camper and get another one but I ain't seeing no bites. Days go by and no bites and then I forget about the whole thing which cured my itching. Life returned to normal for me but really I'm the one who returned to normal. But at least now I'm researched up on the threat.

Seems bedbugs, unlike lots of other household fauna, like to chomp directly on us. It's really not a factor of how clean or dirty you keep your house. They get in the house by importation. In other words, the come in on us or our animals. One in, well the transportation becomes the restaurant, and they begin to try and chomp us. Now their name "bed bug" is coincidental to the fact that we have this habit of sleeping in the same place every night. Basically, all the bed bugs have to do is chill in the bed and every so often we nicely bring ourselves to them to chomp.

They can live without food for a LONG time so you have to erradicate them. Washing all your bedding is good and most dryers will get hot enough to kill them dead. A mattress cover (the plastic kind that fully enclose your mattress) will seal them in so they all die. That's a hell of a good temporary measure because mattresses can be expensive. Launder and dry your pillows in the dryer too. If they come out screwed up, they are cheap.

Turns out extremes of heat and cold will kill them. 45 minutes at around 190 or a couple weeks at 0 or below, that nukes 'em. 

If they get into your carpets you have more of a problem but mostly they don't want to be on your carpet, they want to bite you. On the carpet, they can't and they will eventually starve and die. So basically with a mattress cover and access to modern laundry, you can beat them. Or so I'm told.

I do have these little bitty ants. I keep trying various kinds of poison but the little guys keep showing up here and there. If you open a can of tuna they come running.