subject: Good Night, Sleep Tight [print this page] Good Night, Sleep Tight Good Night, Sleep Tight
Don Wilder remembers the night he found his own blood on his sheets. Itchy red welts had been appearing on his arms and legs for six months.
His doctor, dermatologist, plastic surgeon, and psychiatrist all had different theoriesso he tried prescriptions and rubbed Bactine and lidocaine lotion on his skin. But the red marks only spread. "Literally hundreds" of them dotted his legs that night in October 2005, he says, when he lifted his sheet to find blood "all over."The next morning Wilder scoured his apartment. When he pulled his bed away from the wall, he found an empty cardboard box on the floor. It held a nest with a layer of eggs so thick it looked like wax in a beehive. Hundreds of bedbugs crawled around inside, active and robust from feeding on Wilder's body.
"They're like little blood sacks running around," he says.Wilder, a hairdresser, is one of many tenants in the Norwood apartment building at 14th and N Streets NW, near Logan Circle, who are reluctant bedbug experts after years of battling infestations. Wilder says his seventh-floor apartment and the plush sofa that once doubled as a roosting spot for bedbugs are now bug-free. But 10 units at the Norwood still hosted bedbugs as of last week.Don Wilder remembers the night he found his own blood on his sheets. Itchy red welts had been appearing on his arms and legs for six months.His doctor, dermatologist, plastic surgeon, and psychiatrist all had different theoriesso he tried prescriptions and rubbed Bactine and lidocaine lotion on his skin. But the red marks only spread. "Literally hundreds" of them dotted his legs that night in October 2005, he says, when he lifted his sheet to find blood "all over."The next morning Wilder scoured his apartment. When he pulled his bed away from the wall, he found an empty cardboard box on the floor. It held a nest with a layer of eggs so thick it looked like wax in a beehive. Hundreds of bedbugs crawled around inside, active and robust from feeding on Wilder's body."They're like little blood sacks running around," he says.Wilder, a hairdresser, is one of many tenants in the Norwood apartment building at 14th and N Streets NW, near Logan Circle, who are reluctant bedbug experts after years of battling infestations. Wilder says his seventh-floor apartment and the plush sofa that once doubled as a roosting spot for bedbugs are now bug-free. But 10 units at the Norwood still hosted bedbugs as of last week.
