An Infestation

UPDATE: Fleas & bites gradually disappeared after medicating pets, over the course of a few weeks. Everything below still stands. Tested bedbug interceptors which didn't matter and a microscope which showed redish speckled balls at 40x zoom.

Takeaways:

1. You will have to take lead on fighting bugs yourself. A landlord/exterminator won't do much until you catch the bug yourself, so they know what their dealing with. At which point, you might just fix it all yourself, unless you need the exterminator for a heat/chemical treatment.
2. For crawling bugs get interceptors, for fleas get lights in bowls of soapy water, for lice-y stuff get creams/chemical shampoos. Wash clothes and sheets in hot water and a long dry cycle. This actually isn't perfect/enough, but it will kill most of them.
3. If you have pets who are affected (itching, pulling out hair), treat them! It will make the problem go away.
4. Lots of random things don't really work (maybe they help) but possibly not worth your time. Things I've tried: cleaning sheets, vacuuming, sweeping, mopping, sealing everything in containers, dryer only runs, long sleeves/pants (works), mosquito net, mattress protector, flea comb cats, flea treatment for cats, sleep in a hotel, lemon bath, lice shampoo, permethrin spray, permethrin cream, DEET spray, lemongrass drops (essential oil), Dawn soap bath, extra showers, white socks, battery tea-light in soapy water, shaved legs, white paper spread, vet call, inspector visit, doctor's appointment, store bought flea trap (sticky light), interceptors.
5. Need to try - Sauna, interceptors, dermatologist/bug bite specialist

It all started on New Years, when I got the day off of work (federal holiday)! I took the time to remodel my room, moving my desk and shelves and rotating and centering my bed to maximize space and Feng Shui. It was a great change, and to supplement it, I went out on FB marketplace and bought some plastic drawers to add to the organization. The next step was to clean out a couple things and consider getting a carpet.

But I didn't get to that step. One night, I had this feeling of something crawling on my legs while I tried to go to sleep. I ignored it, and the next day, my brother arrived to visit for the week. We hung out a lot for the duration of that week, and I didn't notice anything amiss. But the day he left, it started.

Trying to go to sleep, I got the crawling feeling again. I slept poorly, it was worse this night. I had itchy eczema spots as well, which didn't help the situation. In the morning, I talked to my roommate about it. The question was, did I have a bite? I wasn't sure, but while I was washing dishes I felt a burn, and looking down, there was a small red bump right on my knuckle. A single bite.

Saturday I slept in long pants and long sleeves, with the pants tucked into my socks and my sleeves tucked into gloves over my hands (this really works), and I slept fine. Sunday I risked it and slept without socks and with a t-shirt. The crawling feeling came rushing back. I woke up with multiple clear bites on my arms and legs, and started calling the landlord to get an inspection/exterminator. I did a lot of laundry and put a sleeping bag through the dryer only and slept in it inside a mosquito net that night, which was a big mistake. The bugs either got through the net, or were not killed by the dryer, and descended en mass.

Monday I got in contact with the landlord, who scheduled an exterminator for Friday (4 days! :0 ). I noticed the cats were itching a lot, continued to do laundry, slept 2 hours that night because of the constant bug attack. Ordered a bunch of metal bowls to use as interceptors on GoPuff (first time using it, they were very friendly but messed up the order 2/2 times). Did more laundry the next day, then went to sleep in a hotel to escape the mess. Got attacked in the hotel too, by bugs that stuck to my body, although it was much less than at home.

Wednesday, I called the vet and got a flea comb to check the cats. I could see them pulling out hairs, and itching, chasing things, and flipping up the food mat aggressively. I didn't see much by combing the cats, but there were many brown flecks on my roommate's bed where they slept, which was the positive indicator for needed treatment. I went back to the hotel to sleep, but applied lice shampoo and a lemon bath before going to sleep. I then sprayed the beds and the area with permethrin spray. None of these things really worked, and I was attacked more on Wednesday night than Tuesday. Since I couldn't sleep anyway, I got back up and spent a couple hours shaving most of the hair on my legs. This actually made a major difference. They still crawled on my legs some, but now they also moved to other parts of my body.

Thursday, I bought treatment for the cats and gave it to them, then escaped to the hotel to sleep. I watched the cats after treating them for hours, because I was worried I put the treatment too far back (it needs to be right on the back of the head so the cat doesn't lick it), but they ended up being good cats and acting normal-ish. The next morning they were both totally normal, probably because they were getting attacked less after the treatment.

Friday, the exterminator came. He checked for bed bugs the same way I had done, my roommate had done, and the landlord had done, and saw the same thing. Nothing. I asked him what to do about fleas, and he emphasized a 2-week lifecycle, attraction to white things, and cleaning/treating the cats. While this info was helpful, I was disappointed that we waited a week for the exterminator, and he didn't provide any help fighting the infestation. Later I looked this up and found that exterminators are basically good for bug bombs and heat treatments, and they can legally only do these things if there is concrete evidence of the bug species (i.e. a picture of a bed bug or the body, body of a flea). Since the only hard evidence I can present are the bites, the exterminator has nothing to contribute in person, but could answer questions over the phone.

Luckily, the cat treatment was effective, and Friday was much better. After the treatment + vacuuming, the bug population plummeted, and I stopped feeling like I was getting assaulted (tiny needles stabbing the bottom of your pants) every time I was in the kitchen or bathroom. Unfortunately, I could still feel them crawling on me. I went to the doctor, who prescribed a permethrin cream and gave a referral for a dermatologist. Then I took a dish-soap bath, set up some flea traps, and went to sleep while still feeling the crawling/bites.

Saturday, I put on the permethrin cream and continued to feel the crawling feeling all day. The biting/crawling does seem to be much less severe since the cats were treated on Thursday. It's not clear whether the flea traps actually caught anything, but the black dots I see around are too small for me to tell with the naked eye. And .... that brings us up to date! Fingers crossed the crawling feeling is finally just imaginary and that I wake up one day without any new bites! I do not appreciate the migration from my now-hairless legs to my belly/chest hair.

End notes: Not entirely clear if the problem was solved permanently. Much later I got bites on my torso, put out a trap, and caught 3 tiger mosquitos.