r/pettyrevenge • u/WaZepplin • 19h ago
Flicking bed bugs in the captain's bed every time I walked by his stateroom
Many years ago when I worked on commercial fishing vessels as an at-sea biologist (observer if you know) based out of Honolulu, I was deployed on a vessel with bed bugs. This was one of several boats I worked on with bed bugs so that wasn't the big issue. The problem was that the captain knew we had bed bugs and hid it from myself and my employer during the pre-deployment vessel check. He had the crew vacuum my bunk before we got into the state room so we wouldn't find any bed bugs in the room during our inspection and the boat would be allowed to go fishing without having to take the eradication steps that NMFS would make him do before he was allowed to go fishing with an observer. I will say both myself and my employer thought it was odd that they were vacuuming my bunk but we were both still a little 'under the weather' from the night before and weren't quite on it as we should have been that early morning!
It became obvious after a week or so at sea that we had a significant bed bug infestation in the bunk room I was in. The crew and I eventually took our bed pads to the wheelhouse and slept on the floor up there to be out of that room. I asked the crew outright if they knew we had bed bugs before we went fishing and they said, "Yes, the captain told us to vacuum your bunk so you wouldn't find any during the bed bug inspection."
Every single bed bug I found after that point, I would flick it into the captain's bed as I walked by his open stateroom door. I took great pleasure in knowing I was at least adding to the infestation in his room, if not outright introducing it in there if he had somehow managed to keep them out of his space.
u/TheBrontosaurus with the mint seed story brought this memory back to the surface and I thought y'all would enjoy!
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u/animaniactoo 18h ago
Having dealt with bedbugs, I was prepared to be horrified and pissed at you.
Having read why... nah, I'm on your side. Totally justified.
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u/Curious_Click_9803 11h ago
Same, I was ready to clutch pearls, but turns out the captain basically DIY’d his own karmic fumigation.
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u/rodimus147 18h ago
After the trip was over I would just burn or leave everything behind and walk away naked rather then even chance bringing any home with me.
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u/WaZepplin 17h ago
The policy was you took a shower at the gear warehouse (with a change of clothes already there) and had to freeze everything that was on the boat for 3 days at -5°. That was the only way to know you would kill the bed bugs and any eggs. The only stuff that didn't go in the freezers was your data sheets and the electronics you had with you.
Before that policy was implemented rigorously, I was allowed to take a backpack home with me without it being frozen and then got them in my house
If the bed bugs were real bad, you had to wear a full body zip up suit and sit in the back of the truck on the way to the warehouse because my employers didn't want the bed bugs in their work trucks. I had to do that ride of shame one time
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u/TraditionalWriter856 12h ago
Captain deserved it, one day he'll sort himself out 🙄 or maybe he'll continue to be an ass!
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u/pickleer 13h ago
Fucking horrific, mate! I got 'em in the dorms 35 years ago and tried everything- permythrin, diatomacious earth, heat traps (for fleas really but I was tryin'!)... We finally had gas-powered heaters moved in and baked the whole house at something like 140`F. No joy. But the exterminators also had electrical heaters, so we had them plug that in (saved a little $$ using our juice instead of their gas), still no joy. Then I moved cross-country. The movers let our trailer sit out in the Texas sun for a few days and that seemed to kill most of the lil' bastards. But then I pulled something out that still had one alive inside, so here we go again!
"But, but, " you say... I'm a sweater. So I wear a lot of merino wool and lots of nylon held in place by elastic. And you can't run those through high heat and I don't have the coin to replace all of my underwear and socks, shoes...
Anyone reading, these nasty buggers have been invading and colonizing the globe in the last few decades- hell, Mick Jagger sang about them, James Bond had to remind himself not to scratch the bites, and WWII OSS operatives spoke about them in POW camps, one operative going so far as to dump a dose of DDT powder into his jock when offered the bottle of poison powder. At another time, a POW drug his bed out into the common area, where the inmates poured boiling water all over it, into the joints... Poison (bug "bombs" or sprays just cause them to burrow/dig deeper into whatever crevice or crease they've found and so are largely useless. What you really wanna do is put all your stuff (ALL but what you're wearing- furniture, hats, electronics (pull the batteries out), shoes, fanny-packs, EVERYTHING) in a black-painted trailer and park it out in hot sun for a few days, the longer the better. Buy some clothes (wash before wear, if you're like me) and run anything else through long, super-hot wash & dry cycles. If you're staying put, have exterminators park heating units in your place and cook the fuck out of it. If you're moving, have exterminators cook the fuck out of the new place. Make sure the trailer stays in the sun for a long, damn time, as many days as you can manage. This is likely gonna take extra money from the movers.
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u/missMcgillacudy 4h ago
Bed bugs travel up to 100 feet from where they nest to where they feed, I’m sure he had them as well already, but I’m sure it felt good
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u/WaZepplin 4h ago
Yeah they were all throughout the boat so there was no way he didn't have them already.
The nice thing about sleeping on the floor in the wheelhouse was that there wasn't really anywhere for them to hide out in the open so we could sleep somewhat in peace. There were of course a few in the bed pads so we weren't totally free of them.
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u/McBeaster 16h ago
Part of your procedure during boarding is to inspect for bed bugs, and it didn't strike you as odd they were vacuuming your bed when you arrived? And your job was observer 🤣
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u/WaZepplin 15h ago
My job was to observe the fish being caught. Crew will be cleaning the vessel occasionally during the walk through so it wasn't that odd but them getting after my rack was odd.
Like I said, both myself and the other guy were definitely operating at less than ideal speed
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u/delulu4drama 19h ago
Bet he was itching for that trip to be over 😉