Bedbugs!

"Jonathan did some research," Mina says, "and found this place with a collection of poisons." Called The Bug Clinic, it sells professional exterminator supplies to the public. The couple invested about $150 in an anti-arthropod arsenal, dismantled their bedroom, and attempted the job themselves. "There was a huge improvement right at the beginning," Mina says. "Now we've brought the level down so that we don't see them anymore." But Jonathan and Mina aren't resting easy—many neighbors in their porous hundred-year-old building in Greenwich Village are similarly afflicted. "The bugs are so small they can even live between the boards in our distressed hardwood floors," she says. "It's an uphill battle."