And I'm putting a link below to the EPA's site which tells you how to recognize the little suckers and to eradicate them. Plus more. There is a link to the joint statement from EPA and the CDC about the public health issues related to bedbugs.

Even if you don't have a problem now, save the link. You might be able to pass it along to a family with the problem, and save yourself down the road.

It sure makes me hesitate to stay in a motel on my long road trips. Something about blood sucking insects that sets my skin to crawling.

I can remember my grandmother taking her mattresses and pillows outside to sun all day long, and beat the heck out of them. It was a part of her spring cleaning. Every year, she'd empty out the house, and then get sand from the creek and scrub the walls and the floors, no electricity to worry about, and then boiling water all over everything, with homemade lye soap (I helped her make it), and then rinse it off with bucket after bucket of well water, and then everything got a good scrubbing outdoors, even the metal bed frames. My grandma was called "Tiny" but she was sure a powerful and determined woman.