I had a good laugh over the bedbug infestation in Paris and how Nigerians battle cockroaches, on X some days ago, before I came across this tweet bemoaning a home infestation that’s lasted all too long.
Source: Getty
The post would lead me on a quest to find individuals with similar experiences. I got real-life stories punctuated by heartbreak and spiritual warfare, all engineered by bedbug infestations.
Bolanle*
Bedbugs showed me pepper.
I suddenly started seeing them in my house two years ago, and I suspect that a friend brought them. I started itching all over, leaving tiny bumps on my skin. Initially, I thought it was mosquitoes. So I used regular insecticide. But every morning, I woke up itchy, so I got really worried. I decided to search on the internet and found out about bedbugs.
What did I not use? I even called a fumigation company one midnight when I couldn’t sleep. By that time, I was already sharing my apartment with the bugs. They were crawling freely everywhere. Fumigation didn’t work, so I resorted to spreading my clothes under the sun.
I got spiritual and started praying seriously about it because I’d be walking outside and just see bedbugs crawling out of my clothes. It was one of my prayer points on the Next Level Prayer (NLP) platform. Then one day, I noticed I hadn’t felt itchy in days, and I hadn’t seen the bedbugs in a while. That was how I won the battle against them.
Anthony*
It all started when I got a bed frame as a gift. I started seeing blood spots on the bed and thought it was mosquitoes until I saw a bedbug and used Google Images to search what it was. That was how I knew I had entered wahala.
I bought different things to use. None worked. Eventually, I moved to a new place, but the bugs moved with me. I’m now trying to gather money to change my mattress, bed frame and chairs. I hardly entertain visitors, and if someone informs me they’re coming, I use one of the bug sprays on my chairs to temporarily keep them away. Imagine a babe coming to spend the night, and she sees bedbug on your bed. Mess up!
It has also really affected my sleep. I’m mostly up in the middle of the night looking to find bedbugs on the bed. It’s gotten so bad that I can identify them by smell.
Derrick*
When I was staying with my aunt, her friend’s house got flooded, so they decided to move their living room furniture to an extra room at my aunt’s place for some time. The room had good ventilation, and anytime the house was hot, I’d go there to chill.
Two weeks after the furniture was moved there, I noticed whenever I slept in that room, some things were biting me. I initially thought it was a skin reaction, but we soon found out it was bedbugs. We decided to move the furniture out, but by then, the bugs had already spread. We tried various things to get rid of them that didn’t work. Pineapple peels, sniper, kerosene, roadside pesticides… none worked. We eventually fumigated the house, but even that didn’t take care of them. At one point, we’d always leave the house because of the constant fumigation.
When I moved back home, my mum didn’t allow my belongings into our house until I’d sun dried them for hours and disinfected them.
Ada*
My junior sister came back home from Nigerian Navy Secondary School, Ojo, during one of her holidays, and we took her box to one of the rooms in the house. For whatever reason, we didn’t open the box until a few months later, when my brother found bedbugs breeding at the bottom. At the time, he didn’t know what they were, so he didn’t tell anyone. We’d come to realise later that he saw them and “took care of them”.
A few days after he opened the box, we noticed these random insects in the house. We assumed they were cockroaches or something, so we used insecticide on them. But our problems were only beginning. They became so much and came with a distinct smell that’s worse than a dead rat. This went on for about five months until my dad’s friend heard about it and explained that they were absolutely horrible. He advised we sun dry our mattresses. Luckily, it wasn’t the rainy season, so every afternoon, we’d take the foams out of the house and bring them in later in the evening. It didn’t work, so we resorted to asking everybody we could for help.
They told us to iron everything we could, and we started doing that. Once there was light, instead of struggling to iron our clothes, we were ironing the rug or foams. Again, this solution didn’t work.
Finally, someone said the bedbugs were not in the foam but in the wood, and the only solution was to take it out and fumigate the entire house. We all went out one Sunday, and when we came back, our house was void of wooden items. My parents brought in plastic chairs, and our beds were placed on the bare floor. We got round to fumigating and repainting because the walls were filled with bedbug stains.
This worked for a while. But then, sometimes, we’d go out and see the bugs on our clothes or somewhere else. They followed us everywhere for another three years.
READ ALSO: What A Man’s Reaction To A Flying Cockroach Says About Him In Bed
Andrew*
I remember inviting my crush to my hostel, back when I was in 200 level. I’d just gotten my off-campus apartment and was happy to finally have my privacy, without worrying about prying roommates. At the time, I couldn’t afford the mattress I wanted, so I got this 20-inch mattress from a friend who had just graduated.
About two days after I set up my room, my crush visited, and we were both on the bed catching up. I noticed a dark spot on my white bedspread and just as I tried it get it off, I felt a warm burst of liquid on my finger. I looked and saw that it was a bedbug. It threw me off, but I didn’t want my crush to notice, so I threw a pillow on the spot. Unfortunately, another had crawled up her thigh, but she was quick enough to kill it. The smell was nauseating.
Luckily, they stayed at bay for the rest of her visit, but that was the last time she visited me. I didn’t entertain any other female guests until I saved enough to buy a new mattress.
Gbemi*
I stay with my granny, and we’ve dealt with bedbugs for as long as I can remember. My granny is convinced they’re spiritual, and it’s why she has resorted to prayers. According to her, the first time she noticed them was about six years ago when she returned from Abeokuta with the kids of some distant relatives. She said she suspected their untidy Ghana-must-go bags but didn’t think much of it at the time. Weeks after the kids arrived in the house, she started noticing a foul stench from the room they slept and complained about how untidy they were. When she saw the bags with their clothes again, she got upset and gave them money to buy new travelling bags. But the deed was already done as the bugs had found a way to infiltrate the house. She sent them packing after a few months.
Since I’ve been staying with her, we’ve tried so many pesticides and insecticides, but the bugs are terribly stubborn and have just refused to go. They’re everywhere. The chairs in the living room, all the mattresses in the house and even in the wardrobes. We’ve fumigated the house at least four times in the last two years, but they keep coming back. We’ve changed mattresses and furniture, but sometimes, we also find them in holes inside our walls.
I doubted my granny at first, but I’m beginning to think the infestation is spiritual. After all, the bugs are blood.
John*
I’ve not dealt with bedbug infestation, but I once had an embarrassing encounter with a bedbug. I boarded a public bus on my way to work that morning. It was a rickety danfo that should’ve been out of service. The seats were tattered, and this annoying smell enveloped the bus.
Anyway, I got to the office safely, and out of the blue, this female colleague screamed after seeing an insect on my shirt. One of my guys reached for it and found out it was a bedbug. He made a funny comment about the state of my house if bugs are following me to the office, and the joke didn’t sit well with me. Everyone laughed it off, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that they shared similar thoughts.
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