PaMaDoCoBloNaBloPoMoMo 2008, Day 15: M Hates NYC, possibly with good reason

Mari, author of M Hates NYC, today's "M"-named blog, is a twenty-something newlywed slogging through life in New York City, a town that she hates mostly for reasons difficult to discern upon initially visiting her blog. Except one: Bed bugs!

Mari and her husband's apartment has, apparently, been infested with them. The couple spent day one of NaBloPoMo holed up at a friend's while an exterminator fumigated their place, but even after that-- and after moving out most of their belongings, and rearranging their furniture, throwing out anything that could harbor the bugs, and dousing their floors with Comet (apparently this helps)-- they are still getting nibbled upon.

She blames the city for their bug woes, but whatever the cause, my heart goes out for them. Bedbugs became one of my greatest domestic fears last year after I read this Apartment Therapy post about them and followed this link. I can deal with a few bites, but these buggers inflict psychological warfare, not just a bit of itching. They thrive in clean places and are crazy-making hard to get rid of. Bed bugs seem to be a much bigger problem in larger, more densely populated urban areas than places like my small, relatively well-spaced Atlanta neighborhood, but my god, I can tell you for sure that for the next few days any creepy crawley sensations I get in my apartment will immediately lead me to paranoid delusions of my own bed bug infestation.

Hopefully, Mari and her dude will have luck ridding themselves of the critters soon. If not, looks like we'll hear about it: Despite the bug drama, she's been blogging regularly, once if not twice a day, all through NaBloPoMo. Trooper alert!