Read Online Sleep Tight by Jeff Jacobson - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jeff Jacobson
Tags: Horror
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At the very least, dispose of all the mattresses, the couches, the easy chairs. Anything with padding and fabric.”
Mr. Ullman was aghast. “Are you joking? Do you have any idea of what this couch cost? More than your annual salary, I’m guessing. That chair? Hand built in Italy. The mattress alone cost over fourteen thousand dollars for God’s sake. Are you seriously saying there is no chemical that we can use to kill these things?”
Roger shook his head. “The amount you’d have to use would destroy the furniture. Heat can kill these things, but again, you’d risk ruining the furniture.” He thought for a moment. “Bedbugs can live up to a year without eating. But they have very weak jaws. They’re just tubes, really, one for injecting you with their saliva, which contains both an anesthetic and an anticoagulant, and the second one sucks out your blood. Fascinating stuff, really when you—”
“I’m sure it is. You were saying.”
“Well, they can’t chew through much of anything. Not like your cockroach, let me tell you. It’s not hard to trap them. If you could get by without all this furniture for some time . . . some considerable time . . . you could seal everything in plastic sheeting. Then we could go through the rooms, sealing every crack and crevice with clear silicone.”
“Would that solve the problem?”
“You would have to store them for over a year.”
“So I could theoretically not dispose of these, and claim it on insurance?”
“If you have bedbug insurance.”
Mr. Ullman studied his spotless shoes. “It was overlooked.”
“I don’t know if your insurance will pay for it or not, but if you seal this furniture and this mattress and box springs, the rest of the bed too, just to be sure, then, yes, I think it would take care of the problem.”
“As soon as possible, get it done.”
The furniture was encased with industrial-strength plastic wrap and sealed with clear plastic sheets, to be on the safe side. All of it, the couches, the chairs, the mattresses, were triple sealed in duct tape. The workmen rolled it away to the freight elevators while more exterminators arrived to seal the cracks between the floors and the walls, all electrical outlets, light fixtures, and anywhere else a dime could fit sideways. The carpets were steam cleaned again and again, and inch-wide double-sided tape encircled the inside of every vent.
The furniture was taken to the basement, where it was wheeled past the massive clothes washers and dryers, then carried down the stairs through the narrow walkways between massive pipes and various industrial machines, down into the third level of the sub-basement. The concrete here had been slapped against the crumbling walls that linked tunnels under the Washington and Lake train stations. They pried open a steel door at the far end, and packed the furniture inside a room the size of small church. The door was padlocked, sealed with duct tape, and promptly forgotten by the staff.
It took only a few seconds for the noise from the workers to diminish and disappear completely. Thirty minutes later, the first rat squirmed into the room from a crack in the far wall and sniffed the furniture. In three days, the rats began to build a nest. They tore through the plastic like a toddler going after a sliver of cake wrapped in Saran Wrap, digging into the soft underbelly of the cushions and mattresses.
The bedbugs grew aware of the new blood and crawled out to feed on the sleeping rats. As the rat nest grew, so did the bug population. The bedbugs encountered the bat bugs inside of the second week.
Bedbugs and bat bugs are so similar that each species can only be distinguished by microscopic examination. Inevitably, some of the male bedbugs attempted to mate with the bat bugs. The males crawled over the bat bugs, stabbing the females in the abdomen with their hypodermic genitalia, filling the body cavity with sperm. All but one of the traumatic
Mr. Ullman was aghast. “Are you joking? Do you have any idea of what this couch cost? More than your annual salary, I’m guessing. That chair? Hand built in Italy. The mattress alone cost over fourteen thousand dollars for God’s sake. Are you seriously saying there is no chemical that we can use to kill these things?”
Roger shook his head. “The amount you’d have to use would destroy the furniture. Heat can kill these things, but again, you’d risk ruining the furniture.” He thought for a moment. “Bedbugs can live up to a year without eating. But they have very weak jaws. They’re just tubes, really, one for injecting you with their saliva, which contains both an anesthetic and an anticoagulant, and the second one sucks out your blood. Fascinating stuff, really when you—”
“I’m sure it is. You were saying.”
“Well, they can’t chew through much of anything. Not like your cockroach, let me tell you. It’s not hard to trap them. If you could get by without all this furniture for some time . . . some considerable time . . . you could seal everything in plastic sheeting. Then we could go through the rooms, sealing every crack and crevice with clear silicone.”
“Would that solve the problem?”
“You would have to store them for over a year.”
“So I could theoretically not dispose of these, and claim it on insurance?”
“If you have bedbug insurance.”
Mr. Ullman studied his spotless shoes. “It was overlooked.”
“I don’t know if your insurance will pay for it or not, but if you seal this furniture and this mattress and box springs, the rest of the bed too, just to be sure, then, yes, I think it would take care of the problem.”
“As soon as possible, get it done.”
The furniture was encased with industrial-strength plastic wrap and sealed with clear plastic sheets, to be on the safe side. All of it, the couches, the chairs, the mattresses, were triple sealed in duct tape. The workmen rolled it away to the freight elevators while more exterminators arrived to seal the cracks between the floors and the walls, all electrical outlets, light fixtures, and anywhere else a dime could fit sideways. The carpets were steam cleaned again and again, and inch-wide double-sided tape encircled the inside of every vent.
The furniture was taken to the basement, where it was wheeled past the massive clothes washers and dryers, then carried down the stairs through the narrow walkways between massive pipes and various industrial machines, down into the third level of the sub-basement. The concrete here had been slapped against the crumbling walls that linked tunnels under the Washington and Lake train stations. They pried open a steel door at the far end, and packed the furniture inside a room the size of small church. The door was padlocked, sealed with duct tape, and promptly forgotten by the staff.
It took only a few seconds for the noise from the workers to diminish and disappear completely. Thirty minutes later, the first rat squirmed into the room from a crack in the far wall and sniffed the furniture. In three days, the rats began to build a nest. They tore through the plastic like a toddler going after a sliver of cake wrapped in Saran Wrap, digging into the soft underbelly of the cushions and mattresses.
The bedbugs grew aware of the new blood and crawled out to feed on the sleeping rats. As the rat nest grew, so did the bug population. The bedbugs encountered the bat bugs inside of the second week.
Bedbugs and bat bugs are so similar that each species can only be distinguished by microscopic examination. Inevitably, some of the male bedbugs attempted to mate with the bat bugs. The males crawled over the bat bugs, stabbing the females in the abdomen with their hypodermic genitalia, filling the body cavity with sperm. All but one of the traumatic
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