How to Get Rid of Bedbugs: Stages of Grief
Seal any small hiding areas. Use silicon caulk to seal cracks and crevices.
Step 1: Identify the problem
The EPA says we must first identify the pest. Adult bedbugs are big enough you can see them with the naked eye. Collect a sample to show an extermination agent. Collect a sample of the thing burrowing into your mattress, burrowing into your sleep, making appearances in your dreams, like the face of your friend, the way you might say their name while asleep. Put the infested pillow over your face so you can cry and scream and no one can hear you.
If you want to ignore the problem and pretend your friend is still alive, stay here.
Stop reading.
Forget their name, forget how they died, go back to sleep.
The itching is not real, it’s in your mind, it doesn’t exist.
Step 2: Develop a plan
The EPA tells you to make a schedule for completing [these] steps… Note the dates and exact locations where pests are found. This will help you track progress and better know where to target your work.
Make a list of places and things that need to be addressed. Write down dates of possible infestation, dates of funeral and memorial services, dates of text messages where you could see something might have been wrong. Call your friend’s family, give them your sympathies. Tell them how much you loved your friend, how sorry you are that they’re gone. Hug their mom at the funeral, tell her you’re sorry. Write an essay about their life. Stop halfway through. Delete the file.
Blame yourself for not spending more time with them, blame yourself for not helping them more, for not driving over to their house to see if they’re okay, not checking on them enough, not loving them enough.
Step 3: Keep the infestation from expanding
Seal any small hiding areas. Use silicon caulk to seal cracks and crevices. Remove all items that are or may be infected. Delete your friends’ voicemails. Swear at your friend when you wake up, face chalked in dry sweat, mumbling their name. Stop watching the TV shows you used to watch together, remove them from your Netflix queue. Mumble to yourself that they’re an idiot for not reaching out for help, for not telling you they started using again.
Misplace their funeral brochure.
Say you don’t care that you misplaced their funeral brochure.
Desperately search old boxes years for their funeral brochure.
Step 4: Prepare for treatment
Reduce clutter by eliminating cardboard boxes, throwing away old clothes, trashing anything that might be infested. Tie trash bags tightly, take them directly to the dump. Make your bed an island. Go to sleep in a place that feels like home, feels separate from the rest of the world.
Cry because you deleted their voicemails, cry because you can’t find their funeral brochure, cry because your kayaking trip—the one scheduled the month your friend died—will never take place. Cry on your drive to work. When you arrive, put memories of them in a scratched-up plastic bin. Bury the bin under a mess of junk so you don’t have to look at it anymore. Maybe you’ll take it back out when the infestation is gone.
Step 5: Kill the bedbugs
Only use EPA-approved methods. Use extreme heat or call an exterminator or use EPA-approved pesticides. Carefully look for evidence of bedbugs. Do your best to move on from the infestation, to move on from your friend’s death, to let life grow up around that buried grey crater. Thank your friend or God or something bigger than either of you for having known them.
Find their funeral brochure after writing and submitting an essay about losing their funeral brochure.
Recognize the essay is now a lie, know this is okay, accept that you don’t understand how your emotions work, that you don’t understand what makes you cry.
Step 6: Evaluate and prevent
Continue to inspect for bedbugs for 7 days. Take precautions to avoid further infestations. Try to help people, to show up for them even when they don’t ask for your help. Don’t let your friend’s death discourage you.
Keep the brochure on your desk, where you can see it every day. Watch shows that remind you of them. Go on kayaking trips with your mom, tell her you love her. Call their mom twice a year: on your friend’s birthday and on the anniversary of their funeral.
Tell her how much you loved your friend.
Tell her stories about your friend she doesn’t know.
Tell her you still think about your friend, that they’re alive in your thoughts.
Ask her how she’s doing with them being gone.
Listen to her response and stay on the phone when she starts to cry.
One day, you’ll stop scratching yourself in your sleep and that will bring its own type of grief.
Find Matti's work in The Rumpus, Libre, Grub Street, Ekphrastic Review, and elsewhere. Matti served as poetry editor for Grub Street and is a reader for Phoebe and So to Speak. He is an MFA candidate in CNF at George Mason University. Find him at [email protected] or on Twitter @MattiBL6.
