Please help me, Lemmy.
I was staying at a friend’s for a month waiting for an affordable room to be available, only to move in and after a week see a bedbug.
It’s a single room, for poor people, with a shared kitchen.
I am poor, work remotely, and my financial situation is bad. I thought this could improve things.
I moved in a week ago, but didn’t move all my stuff in because it’s in boxes in my friend’s garage right now.
I have moved in with 2 outfits, 2 jackets, a work computer, some computer accessories, and have purchased 1 matress and pillow and bed sheet set at target.
The manager of the property beforehand said there haven’t been bed bugs for years, but one of the door has like a block over the bottom with powder in the doorway past the block to kill bugs as like a sort of trap. The manager said prior to my moving in this is just fear from 3 years ago. The units are very affordable and I had to be on a waitlist to get a unit.
I am not sure what to do. The place is mostly quiet and I could work here. I don’t love the area because although it’s low income rent, it’s in a high cost area with many food places nearby charging very high tourist amounts, like any burrito or sandwich is $13 at least. Rent is very low, however.
I could leave now before moving other stuff in, put my stuff in bags except for my work computer when getting back to my friends, and look for a different slightly more expensive place. I can’t stay with my friend long-term because her apartment is next to a distribution center with trucks pulling in and out all night and I wake up easily due to PTSD and always being on alert, even when sleeping. She sleeps through anything. I also don’t like ear-plugs and can’t sleep with them in. When I was staying there I was chronically tired.
Suggestions from Lemmy? How bad are bed bugs? It was only 1 but I squished it. Pest control coincidentally came that day and identified it is a bed bug.
Also, I have not paid rent for this month and it’s due by tomorrow. I could actually leave immediately, today even, and just not pay the rent. My credit is bad already and the money would be useful if it’s a mistake to stay. It’s sleazy to leave wirhout paying for this month, but I am poor and may not have the luxury of paying for a place that could result in a chronic bed bug infestation. I would also lose my deposit.
I also don’t know where it came from. I can’t be totally sure it didn’t come from my friend’s place although I stayed there 5 weeks and saw nothing bad. I also had purchased a new outfit from a store with vintage recycled clothes, like an upscale GoodWill store, but that was 2 weeks ago and there were no bites. It may not be from the new place, but I don’t think I was bitten before the move in. Strangely, I don’t even know if the bedbug I squished bit me. The pest control person said the city has many infestations and could have come from public transportation.
My friend lives 6 hours away by bus and I don’t know as many people there. It’s also a cheaper area and I could move there. I could actually just get a ticket and leave today if everything else is irrational.
I am very tired and don’t know what to think. The time at my friends impacted my mental health and I’m not sure I am seeing it rationally.
In my experience with bedbugs, the way I found out I had them was my sleep schedule reversed. I just found myself up all night and only sleeping during the day.
Only later did I discover it was due to bed bugs. My subconscious responded to them before I became aware of them consciously.
The reason I say this is that you mentioned your being a light sleeper with PTSD.
Bed bugs will affect your sleep. You need to take this into consideration when planning your life.
My advice leans toward saying fuck that place and finding a new one, and the reason isn’t the bedbugs but rather your landlord’s dishonesty.
Your landlord is either lying to you (concerning) or to himself (double concerning). The fact your landlord has taken anti-bedbug measures and yet claims there are no bed bugs is a major red flag.
Bed bugs are hard enough to deal with when everyone is on board and communicating, and not in denial about their existence. One of the hardest aspects of bed bugs is they’re easy to be in denial about. If anyone is showing signs of denial, that is in turn a sign that this might be an unwinnable bed bug fight.
It takes a lot of coordinated, disciplined action among a group of people to eradicate a bedbug infestation. If someone in the group is lying, that’s a very bad indication for the group’s ability to succeed.
My advice would be to confront the landlord about exactly what the fuck is going on with the bedbugs, what the history is, etc. Then, based on how authentic and trustable your landlord presents in that conversation, decide based on that.
There’s a manager and the stuff goes to the manager and that goes to the landlord.
I agree with what you are saying about communication and if there’s not clear communication it will never get better.
But also, I’m not sure writing them will help because they will either be dishonest or honest and I won’t be able to tell based on the email. I also put this to a vote in a post near the end (up for stay, down for leave immediately) and as of now it’s no upvotes and all 9 were leave immediately.
I’m not really able to think that well due to various mental health issues impacting executive dysfunction. I still have things I want, and can still sort of function within society, and so I still exist as a human of sorts, but something like this is super hard for me. (trauma/trigger warning)
spoiler
It’s mostly brain damage due to trauma plus drug use prior to a suicide attempt a long time ago, thinking drugs would make the attempt easier. Spoiler alert: I failed the suicide attempt.
So… I’m probably just going to go with the majority of Lemmy down voting this and just leave.
It sucks, my friend’s place has major problems. I may think about it more and change my mind.
Perhaps I’ll be bitten tonight leaving me with less asymmetric information?
Not sure if they will act as fast or have as much authority, but when I had mold issues that my landlord/management company was dragging their feet on, I went to the department of health for my town. Wouldn’t you know I had a department of health member and the building owners, not the management company, at my apartment the next day to inspect and fix everything.
I really don’t know if I want to go to battle with my landlord through a government agency. I’ve had negative experiences with the government, including police, and am highly distrustful of government workers. I also don’t know if I want this to be my battle. I feel like I have enough problems I still haven’t dealt with, like health issues to take care of and other stuff. I wish I could leave and get my deposit back too, but I think that deposit is gone no matter what.
My brain’s been fried at times too man, from drugs, trauma, brain impacts, etc.
One time I had a mold problem in my apartment and didn’t know how to handle it and part of the problem was the mold itself was making it hard to function mentally and otherwise.
In that case, having a premium subscription to chatgpt helped. Meaning having access to GPT4 instead of what they had free at the time which was GPT3.
The LLM wrote me up a step by step plan for exactly how to determine if I had mold and then whom to email when and how and in what sequence to handle it.
It was really helpful.
If you can afford it, $20 to have a month’s access to talk to GPT4 or maybe Claude 3.7 might be a good idea.
If you can’t afford it, I can spot you a month of one of these. AI isn’t necessarily superhuman in terms of precise reasoning, but it’s already superhuman in terms of just being able to articulate knowledge about all sorts of crap.
Really useful when your brain’s recovering from being cooked or fucked up, too.