Bed bugs are back.

Eight months with nothing, then I wake up on a Monday with a bite and I find a dropping in my sheets.

It takes up to a year for them all to die, but after 3 months with nothing you're typically good, and I was so careful with my move that I almost wonder if they came from somewhere else this time, and they actually didn't hang on into my new apartment somehow.

The Friday before they re-emerged, I was at an older rundown arthouse cinema to see a colleague's film, and on the way home by subway a (younger) (blonde) guy who smelled funny and was probably homeless sat down next to me for like 8 stops in the cramped subway seat.

I figure I might have gotten them from him - I was thinking that at the time! - or maybe from the arthouse theater - Google revealed 2 people who said they had gotten bitten by bed bugs there back in 2011! - or maybe even my upstairs neighbors, who are college-age and let friends crash long-term with them and even once one of their scuzzy mothers and her boyfriend.

Thankfully, my new apt. is just me and my upstairs neighbors, it's not a 6-unit like last time, and the woodwork is new, so treatments are slightly easier, and there's less a chance of reinfestation.

It did take me over 7 hours the first day to treat my room, though, which is time I don't have, and I still haven't found a bug to show my landlord (though I'm looking! - if I find one, he has to do treatments).

A small part of me wonders if this happened, though, because the god of parasites is angry at me for my success at unionizing.

If I tell myself this, I'm able to deal with the timesuck and the itchy welts better, because it gives them meaning.