Hi, sorry for the long post. This is mostly some background about my concerns with bed bugs and a question I had about passive monitor detection. I bolded the question part if you want to skip to that. 

Late July 2025 I had a potential exposure to bed bugs after visiting a friend. I did not confirm any signs of bugs except for some suspicious looking bites on the back of my thighs. I wasn’t made aware of the possible exposure until I had gotten home, but I made sure when I unpacked to wash and dry anything I could to steam treat anything that couldn’t be washed and dried like luggage, shoes, etc.. A few weeks later I realized that I had sat on my bed before finding out in the clothes that I had left the friends house in, and I didn’t wash my bedding right away after that. I am concerned about the potential exposure and sitting on my bed in those clothes could have given me bed bugs.

I am not home often as I live a few hours away at school, but when I have been coming home since (about 15-16 times total), I have been checking my bed for any signs of bugs. I have posted anything suspicious I found. I thought I was getting bites in late December, but my dermatologist said it was an eczema flare up and it was also not on exposed skin when I sleep. 

I started to believe I am in the clear since it’s been almost 7 full months since the potential exposure, but after finding white things that reminded me of eggs (determined not to be eggs by David), my anxiety and OCD about them has come back. For some reason I am still worried, especially since I am not sleeping in that bed every night where I may disrupt the typical bed bug infestation timeline. To ease my mind, I bought a passive monitor and was going to install it next time I am home.

**My question is, I typically read that 7 days of the bed occupied is what is necessary to deem no bed bugs using the passive monitor. I will only be home for 3 nights, and I am wondering if that is enough time to confirm or deny bedbugs. I will be back home in a few weeks for maybe 3-4 more nights, but I wasn’t sure if it being discontinuous would mean I need to keep the monitor there for longer?** Or would the “scale” of infestation I would have by now (6-7 months later) mean it wouldn’t matter as much? The thought of not knowing for sure for up to another month is making me super uneasy but I also don’t want to have a “false negative” 

I also was looking back at pictures I had taken that were things that worried me and found this picture of a black dot on my sheets (above the leaves). Does this look like  a fecal trace? I can’t remember if I did a smear test but if I did it obviously didn’t smear. 

Thank you so much for reading and for any advice. And sorry again about the long post 

Passive monitor question