My poor old aunt who lived in elderly apartments wound up with bed bugs. They were brought in from the lady next door hauling all kinds of crap from trash bins and 2nd hand stores into her apartment.
I wound up doing quite a bit of research on them because it was a real battle getting rid of them. Bed bugs don’t just come in from outside. They are carried in by someone from somewhere. Luckily her grandson in law is a bug guy. Took many trips by him spraying everything. Then almost everything in the apartment was emptied out and sprayed. All clothes, linens, etc were run through the dryers for 40 minute on high heat. They used bed bug mattress covers on the bed and diatomaceous earth along all baseboards. It took months to get rid of them all. Luckily the crazy lady next door that brought them into the row of apartments was evicted.
They’re super hard to get rid of. Good luck to your friends. Bedbug almost drove my poor old aunt nuts.
Was she a crazy CAT lady by any chance?
The sheer volume of bedbugs seen in some places seems to defy the idea that they are dining only on people’s blood. How do you get all that bedbug mass? The crazy lady would bleed to death. I think there has to be a connection with other, warm blooded vermin.