IS THAT WHY I'M ITCHING ALL OVER?

HOUSTON IS UNDER ATTACK ..... FROM BEDBUGS
By Craig Malisow

Houston Press Hair Balls
April 23, 2010

In case you haven't been paying attention, Houston is under attack from bedbugs. Of course, Hair Balls has never had to deal with these savage beasts because all the roaches in our apartment get to them before they can get to us, but we still wanted to share some interesting, if disgusting, tidbits, courtesy of Matthew Mishler, who works in the pest-control industry. He wants everyone to be more aware of this increasing problem, and to keep your eyes peeled for these suckers.

BEDBUGS ARE VAMPIRIC FAT ASSES THAT CAN LIVE FOR A YEAR ON YOUR STORED BLOOD

"When they're empty, they're flat, they're almost transparent. When they're full, they basically round up like a Tic-Tac -- not that big, but you get what I'm saying -- and they're blood-red. You squish 'em, there's blood. So they can drink three times the amount of their body weight. I've literally seen them in a Ziploc bag in our office for months.

EXTERMINATORS HAVE APPARENTLY CONSULTED NAZIS AND THAT DUDE FRO THE ‘SAW’ MOVIES FOR EXCITING AND SADISTIC NEW WAYS TO KILL THE BASTARDS

"A roach, whenever you put down dust, a roach will go across it and he ingests it because he grooms itself. Well, a bedbug, the only thing he eats is your blood. He doesn't eat anything else. So they actually have this dust with glass particles in it, that as they go over it, it cuts their exoskeleton....[Another thing is] insects have a lot of wax...we use a method called heating. We can heat them up, the wax melts, and they bleed from the inside out. We also have this rapid-freeze."

BEDBUGS ARE NINJAS

"[At night ] they know you're resting....What they do is, they come out from by the bed, under the bed, a light socket, and they actually come up to you and they rub a little anasthetic on you and then they stick you. So you don't feel it...that's why people don't know they are bitten. And then they start sucking.

THEY BONE LIKE RABBITS

"They lay three to five eggs per day. If you're infested...you could be bitten as much as 500 times a night and not know it."

BEDBUGS DON’T CLEAN UP AFTER THEMSELVES

"Pull back the beds, look at the sheets...take the headboard off. Look at the headboard. Pull the drawers out in the cabinets and look there. What you'll see is fecal matter and then the husks."

OK, "husks" did it for us. We will never sleep again. God speed, Houston.