Never-ending string of bad luck

UGH. So…bed bugs. After my discovery I moved to the mattress in the living room and remained blissfully bite-free. The very next day an inspector came up and quoted us $900 to do the house. And that was AFTER a discount. Crazy. Absolutely crazy. But I couldn’t live with it, so we made the appointment for Friday. I specifically asked him what they were going to do, and he made it sound like the only thing they were going to use was steam. Awesome, right? 

Wes stayed home yesterday to wait for the guy because I needed to run out and cut (and buy) some wood to make a platform for Mal to sleep on a twin, because not only was his mattress infested, but when we took the crib apart, part of it had been eaten by termites. Fun times, right?? So Wes stays and waits on the guy. He finally shows up 30 minutes after the 2 hour time frame they gave us and tells Wes he has to leave for an hour and a half while the guy sprays. Huh? Ok, whatever, I want them dead, I’m declaring war, let’s do this. So apparently they were supposed to spray the baseboards/outlets/ect. where they could be hiding in the walls, plus steam the mattresses/couches/ect. Wes gets home and the guy is already gone…and nothing appears to have been steamed. NOTHING. $900 for this shit! We try to think the best and move on. Put the bed bug barrier covers we bought for the mattresses on (they wanted $300 to cover the mattresses, we went to Walmart and got covers for a little over $100, putting us at $1000 SO FAR to battle this problem). Go to bed. 

Bad luck #1 – the power goes out. It was 104 yesterday. Even with the insane storm raging outside, it’s miserable hot in the house. Neither Wes or I really slept at all. Power stayed off until 6 this morning when Wes left for work. 

Bad luck #2 – I got bitten ALL FREAKIN NIGHT. If possible, it was WORSE than before we had them come. Before I never saw any bugs – just dealt with the rash the following day for a week or more. Last night I seriously squished at least 5…although to be totally honest being out of power could’ve helped that because I was sweaty and sticky and without a fan moving the air I was incredibly aware of things crawling on me. I have 8 bites JUST on the top of my index finger. OMG. 

So I call and speak to the service manager. Now, let me back up a second. Before they came, we had to clean everything and push all the furniture against the walls. When we cleaned out under Mal’s crib, that’s where the bag Wes used to go to the hotel had been stored, so I’m 99.9% positive that’s what happened, which explains why it started in Mal’s crib and I was getting eaten the most. Also, I never saw signs of the bugs in our mattress, but in our box spring, which again makes sense because it was right next to the hotel bag. So anyway. I tell the service manager what’s going on and he tells me to look at the box springs and see if the dust cover is still on. So I lift up the box spring and sure enough…still stapled in place. Which means either he didn’t steam it at all, or he didn’t do it correctly. Which probably means he didn’t steam ANYTHING just like we thought. So the service manager himself and another guy will be coming out later tonight to resteam everything. I’m so pissed, though. The only thing more miserable than trying to sleep in that heat was getting eaten in the process. I want them to take 50% off for mental anguish because OMG I can’t handle this crap.

In the meantime, Wes is working for the next…2 days? 2 weeks? However long the job lasts. At least he’s only in Richmond at Phillip Morris. It’ll be nice to have some real money for a little while. I’m so thankful for unemployment but man, it barely covers the rent. 🙁 And our grocery bill has skyrocketed, even though I’ve had to sacrifice not buying organic for the most part anymore. I never really realized how much it takes to feed 5 people. 🙁 I miss my food stamps. We get $367/week unemployment. That’s $1468/month. Rent is $950. That leaves us with $518. We probably spent at least $400+/month in groceries, and that’s eating CRAP a lot of times because it’s cheaper. That leaves $118 for electricity, gas, internet, phone…in other words, it doesn’t work. Granted, he made several thousand dollars at each of his nuke jobs which we use to supplement the unemployment, but that’s pretty much out now, especially with $1000 going to toward this bed bug issue. 

Ok, I need to go build Mal’s bed before it hits 100 again today.