The saga of Tuesday August 20, 2024 in Paris, France
Since our time in Edinburgh, and especially after our houseboat stay in Kingston-Upon-Thames, my head had had a slight itch. It wasn’t consistent and it always felt better after I showered, which made me assume that it was caused by my incessant sweating. You see, except for Emily and Eran, Europe does not believe in air conditioning in the summer, something we are not used to. Beginning in Edinburgh, we took to sleeping with wet shammies on us every night.
[Side note: The shammies were a last-minute Amazon purchase I made before we left the States. I figured we had no room for towels in our packs, but might need a way to towel off if our housing options didn’t include towels or we wanted to spend a day in the water at a beach or pool. It was the best decision.]
Shai woke up nauseous again. We clearly weren’t going anywhere, and I could not call Chaim to come home early two days in a row. Moreover, all the boys had similar bites appearing on their bodies and my head was still itchy. Apparently, bedbugs don’t always itch, and symptoms can start appearing up to two weeks after being bitten. That meant we could have been bitten anywhere from Edinburgh to Paris and could have had uninvited travelers with us. The threat of a bedbug invasion was rekindled. Suddenly, my entire body started itching. I began wondering if the itching on my head meant there was a bedbug living in my hair.
Fun fact: Americans tend to overreact to having lice and will send children home from school due to lice. In contrast, the rest of the world acknowledges lice exist and just deal with it. No one is sent home. Interestingly, the Center for Disease Control finally put out a statement stating that children with lice should not be sent home from school. In other words, while lice are annoying, they don't carry diseases and really aren't that big of a deal.
Bedbugs and lice are similar. Bedbugs do not carry diseases. BUT, they are uncomfortable, itchy, and a nuisance. I was most distraught by the fact that I had no idea where we got them, if they were still in our luggage, if we had brought them to other people's homes, and if there was one hanging out in my head. We had only a few days in Paris and dealing with bedbugs was not how I wanted to spend my time.
I scoured the internet for information about how to get rid of bedbugs, texted all of our previous hosts, including our Finchley Airbnb host, to let them know we likely had bedbugs in case we left any stowaways at their place, and then called the boys in for a team meeting because we had a job to do. All of the boys were assigned luggage and backpacks to clean while I washed all of the clothing at as high a temperature as I could without destroying our clothing.
Team Kirby was full of cleaning champions. The boys got right to work all while telling me it really wasn’t such a big deal because they were just bites. A good reminder. However, I explained that we really didn’t want to have to deal with this longer than necessary nor did we want to bring bedbugs with us to future hosts. An hour later, mission accomplished. We ate lunch and spent some much-needed time at the park.
That night, while scratching my head, a dead bug fell out. I sent the picture to my sister. We couldn’t tell if it was a bedbug, but I sure thought it was. Then, I showered and washed my hair several times over for no other reason than to make myself feel better. Though we will never know where the bedbugs came from, it turns out that houseboats are notorious for having bedbugs. Something we will consider before signing up for that kind of adventure again. Hopefully, this was the end of our bedbug saga. At least, for the rest of our Europe tour.
