Brian, Port Douglas 4877

My partner and I moved into our new furnished abode and after a few weeks she was complaining about bites on her abdomen. I didn’t worry about this too much as she is my anti insect bite shield, I never get bitten and she attracts the mozzies, midges etc in the vicinity.
A couple of weeks later I received abdominal bites which were extremely itchy so this created a flurry of action and research trying to find out what what was causing the problem.
We spotted a couple of very small black spiders on the bed, found a small nest in the curtains and eliminated them with crawling insect spray.
The bites started again, another search of the room didn’t find any more spider nests so bed bugs were diagnosed after more research even though we never sighted a live one.
We ordered the whole treatment kit from BBB ( about $A200 ) and used it strictly according to the instructions.
Believe me if you have bed bugs ( they are resistant to insecticides, David Lilly PhD April 2016, Sydney Uni article), you put the required effort into the detail of the treatment, I am convinced that there is no other way to get rid of them.
I advise examining the mattress each morning with a good light and a magnifying glass if you have one for evidence of infestation after the treatment in case something was missed. There were the occasional bits of what looked like shed skin and poo for perhaps 2-3 days so must have still been a bug on the bed frame. after day 4 no more evidence and no more bites.
So my partner now returns to her role of chief attracter of mozzies etc, protecting me from bites.