Bed Bug Mattress Cover Options

A few months ago, we discovered that we'd been invaded by bed bugs. For months leading up to that moment though, my girlfriend could not figure out why she was waking up with silver dollar-sized rashes all over her arms.

We didn't have any experience with bed bugs leading up to this situation, which would hopefully explain why it took us so long to diagnose the issue. Hell, she had even visited doctors and dermatologists on several occasions, so they should have known immediately what was going on.

Alas, one night I discovered a creepy looking red bug crawling on my arm. I Googled around for pictures of bed bugs, and lo and behold... it matched the thing I had just scraped off my arm...

Bed bug mattress cover

Bed bug mattress covers

Once I discovered that the bug that had been crawling around on my body was indeed a bed bug, I immediately started to search for a home source, or a nest to be more specific. Right there on the corner of my futon was a nest with several adult bed bugs and quite a few eggs waiting to hatch.

I almost puked right on the spot. My girlfriend and I are extremely clean people, but we don't have a lot of money between us, so we live in an apartment building that is priced just right to be considered a poverty dwelling. The people I pass in the parking lot each day also confirm the categorization, but I digress.

After spotting the nest, I immediately woke up my lovely gal, and pointed out the dead bug, the nest, and the pictures I'd researched on Google. I thought she was going to puke right there on the spot, which was understandable... I watched her face as the realization came to her that this was the source of all those rashes that the quacks she'd been visiting couldn't seem to diagnose. At least we were able to rule out some new form of skin cancer, which is pretty much what SHE had narrowed it down to...

Of course, I immediately tossed the futon with the nest in the nearest dumpster, letting the unsavory folks outside smoking know about the infestation as I passed. I was sure these bugs had migrated from another apartment, so I wanted to spread the word, get a panic going in the complex.

The next day, my girlfriend went out and bought some bed bug mattress cover slips for the home. these things are great, and now we don't have to worry about throwing any more mattresses away, even if the bed bugs return.

Bed bug mattress covers will run you anywhere between $20-50 on the low end, but I'm sure there are high-end models available for the rich and famous. We notified the apartment rental office about the epidemic, and they didn't seem too shocked at the news. Apparently, we weren't the first to report an issue in our building, not to mention our own floor.

After three visits by an exterminator, our bed bug issue seems to have been eradicated, which is nice... there's no worse feeling than knowing you are the food source for a parasitic bug....