Have you ever heard of bed bugs? I hadn't either - except from way back in the day when Queen Victoria was still in charge and people were filthy...that was until we lived in THE FLAT. For those of you who didn't read the first installment of my column - since we moved into that attic of despair we've had nothing but problems: I discovered condom wrappers under my bed, the heating didn't work for 2 months and we found human faeces in our mop cupboard (although I think my exact, mature words were "ahhhhh! a jobbie!!!"). For those of you that did read that article yes, we still live in the flat with the condoms, cold and toilet-matter.

Still, all of that was almost bearable and we shuffled on like comrades in a battle of Somme proportions until the discovery that we were not alone. Bed bugs are really difficult to spot, mainly because they live in the dark and they're tiny for the first 6-8 weeks of their lives, so it wasn't until Susan emerged one morning from her room covered in lumps that we got suspicious. Either she'd brought someone home from the union the night before who was very hungry, or we had an infestation. Since then - despite stripping her room of all the furniature - the problem seems to have exploded. Since Christmas I've been going to bed head-to-toe in proper, outdoor clothes. Come get me now, you fiends!

Turns out they did and just went for the tiny patch of my face that I'd left uncovered for suffocation reasons. My actual face. So, I only had one bite in comparison to Susan (and Kerri by this point)'s skin rashing-up on a daily basis - but it doesn't make it any less disgusting. These little red brutes have been scuttling about in our walls, waiting to attack in the dead of night. For your own reference they're about 5mm long and the colour of blood. Blood that they just took from various parts of your sleeping body.

Last week 'the exterminator' (I didn't see him because I was at a lecture, but I have images of some sort of Arnold Swarchenegger kicking our front door down and filling the flat with dry-ice) came to rid us of our blood-sucking squatters. We left the flat for a few hours and when we came back there was a slight smell of baking-soda. I'm not really sure what went on but I'm absolutely terrified that I'll bump into the wall and hundreds of them will pour out like a scene from a parasite death-camp.

We're convinced that they've been there long before we have, although our landlord disagrees. Here's the worst bit: unless you take photos of everything and can prove it otherwise then legally it's your responsibility to pay for them to be gassed out of your flat. Renting somewhere is a LOT harder than we thought. And saying 'sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite' will never be the same again...