Woman says her boyfriend got bitten on his cousin’s couch in Texas. Then he built his bed on top of 5 water jugs: ‘comfortable’

A Canadian man visiting family in Texas reportedly found himself in a nightmare scenario involving a severe bedbug infestation. The situation apparently forced him to sleep on a makeshift platform balanced on five water jugs after he discovered his cousin’s house was crawling with bedbugs, to prevent the infestation from spreading, according to The Nerd Stash. 

He chose a DIY sleeping arrangement rather than risk placing his mattress directly on the floor or a standard bed frame. The setup consisted of a mattress resting on a sheet of plywood, supported by five water jugs. He reportedly slept this way for two months.

His girlfriend, who posts as QuarantineChronicles, shared the story on Reddit and noted that he was terrified of putting his mattress on the ground. She mentioned that he claimed the bed was “comfortable” despite its precarious build. The man even applied tape around the bottle tips, apparently as traps for any bedbugs crawling up the jugs.

He apparently even planned how far the jug bed sat from the wall

The placement of the bed was also reportedly calculated. As bedbugs can crawl on walls, he kept the entire platform slightly away from the wall, according to his girlfriend. He apparently avoided the middle of the room, as that “wouldn’t be pleasant to the eyes.”

QuarantineChronicles admitted she initially found the whole ordeal ridiculously hilarious. “As if this wasn’t terrifying enough already,” QuarantineChronicles wrote of the uncanny photo. However, others’ reactions online seem to have changed her perspective, as commenters convinced her her boyfriend wasn’t overreacting to the infestation.

His tape traps appear to be a common detection method, and his caution about walls may have had some basis. Bedbugs can travel over 100 feet in a night but tend to live within eight feet of where people sleep, according to the CDC, which could explain why he kept the platform isolated. 

One commenter called living with bedbugs the worst three months of their life outside of losing a child, warning of real psychological and financial damage. Another claimed to still carry trauma from bites in a cheap apartment. Others joked about the setup, “everyone in the comments is having flashbacks to their horrible bedbug experience, while i cannot stop laughing at this picture lmao.”

The post joins other viral relationship threads, including one about a man who apparently never learned his girlfriend’s real name and another about a woman who reportedly lost her craft room to her husband’s mother. However, the jug bed apparently drew an unusual mix of laughter and horror stories from commenters.

The jug bed was reportedly not his first plan. She said he initially slept on the couch, where bedbugs apparently “horribly attacked” his entire arm. She described the platform as a last resort after that experience. QuarantineChronicles said her boyfriend does not appear to have brought any bedbugs back from Texas.