<p>I had bedbugs once - the product of staying in an otherwise fantastic $5 per night Malaysian backpacker’s hostel. The hostel owner had clearly dealt with it before, and the ways of spotting them were (a) raised red bites in a row across skin, and (b) looking in the corners of the mattress, inbetween the little folds of fabric. </p>
<p>The treatment involved
- moving the bed away from the wall to prevent transmission
- washing all my clothes in a washing machine
- putting everything fabric-based that couldn’t be washed in black bin bags, on the roof (not in the garage!) all day to heat them up and kill them (the hot Malaysian sun helped!)
- spraying some potent-looking insecticide onto the mattress </p>
<p>The treatment worked perfectly. </p>
<p>In terms of other things it could be, I did once experience identical symptoms from an ant’s nest (under my bed ***) in an Australian hostel.</p>