bed bugs. i arrived at lorena's apartment around midnight on saturday. by sunday mid day i noticed almost a dozen red marks on my body. they were swollen and itchy. i mistakenly thought they were mosquito bites. monday morning, a new one on my face, a dozen more on my back and abdomen. again i thought they were mosquitoes. tuesday afternoon, i find a bug in my bed. i kill it, inspect it, search online and find that it is a bed bug. i was in denial at first so i began to look up the symptoms of bed bug bites vs mosquito bites. firstly, its not mosquito season in mexico. second, mosquito bites are sparse and isolated, bed bug bites often come in clusters of three which is exactly how many of the bites on my body appeared. i bring this issue to lorena's attention - she appears shocked. she suggests that her friend come by to *spray* the bedroom so i can continue to sleep there. i carefully explain that bed bugs do not get resolved in this way, as i have experience dealing with them over 10 years ago in my first apartment. i tell her that i will be looking for another place to stay, ideally that night but worst case the following morning. i then spend my night drying my clothes (heat kills the bugs and their eggs), inspecting my suitcase, etc. lorena's washer/dryer unit weirdly does not allow you to control the amount of time spent on the drying cycle. i had to spend 2.5-3.5 hours on each load i put in. because of this i had to spend the night at the apartment waiting for my clothes to dry. many of my items shrunk because of these long cycles. i stay in the living room, not sleeping, until 7am on wednesday when i can finally check into my new airbnb. lorena has not reimbursed me for my trip. she argued that i should get refunded only the night i did not stay (i had booked saturday-friday), she argued i should not pay wednesday+thursday. i have had to take allergy medication twice a day since monday. the bites are red and swollen because i am mildly allergic to bug bites. i have had to buy allergy medication out of pocket. once i arrived at my new airbnb i again washed+dried my clothes to be safe. on top of all of this, when i brought the issue to her attention she did not ask if i was ok, if i needed anything, etc. she was only concerned with getting me to stay so that she would not lose money on the booking. airbnb has not helped me in receiving a full refund for this trip. outside of this, the apartment is not very clean. the host puts minimal effort into providing a space that feels welcoming.