Bedbugs
Bedbugs are small, oval, brownish insects that live on the blood of animals or humans. Adult bedbugs have flat bodies about the size of an apple seed. After feeding, however, their bodies swell and are a reddish color.
Bedbugs do not fly, but they can move quickly over floors, walls, and ceilings. Female bedbugs may lay hundreds of eggs, each of which is about the size of a speck of dust, over a lifetime.
Where Bed Bugs Hide
Bedbugs may enter your home undetected through luggage, clothing, used beds and couches, and other items. Their flattened bodies make it possible for them to fit into tiny spaces, about the width of a credit card. Bedbugs do not have nests like ants or bees, but tend to live in groups in hiding places. Their initial hiding places are typically in mattresses, box springs, bed frames, and headboards where they have easy access to people to bite in the night.
When Bedbugs Bite
Bedbugs are active mainly at night and usually bite people while they are sleeping. They feed by piercing the skin and withdrawing blood through an elongated beak. The bugs feed from three to 10 minutes to become engorged and then crawl away unnoticed.
Other signs that you have bedbugs include:
Blood stains on your sheets or pillowcases
Dark or rusty spots of bedbug excrement on sheets and mattresses, bed clothes, and walls
Bedbug fecal spots, egg shells, or shed skins in areas where bedbugs hide
An offensive, musty odor from the bugs’ scent glands
How to Check for Bed Bugs
Bed bugs are incredibly small and can fit into cracks as thin as a credit card. This makes bed bugs hard to find in the home, and can make bed bug control difficult. Use this guide to learn where bed bugs are most often found, then read the rest of our guide to learn more about getting rid of bed bugs and how to prevent bed bug infestations.
Check Common Bed Bug Hiding Spots
Using a flashlight and a stiff, flat-edged object like a credit card or paint scraper, check around beds, mattresses, and other areas where you suspect you might have bed bugs. Look for actual bugs, eggs, feces, or molted skin as evidence of an infestation. Be sure to look in the cracks, crevices, and folds of fabric and furniture. You may also want to wear protective gloves during this inspection.
Bed bugs are attracted to warmth. The number one hiding place for bed bugs is in mattresses and beds. Inspect your sheets for blood spots bed bugs may have left behind. Be sure to thoroughly inspect the seams, tufts, and folds of your mattress in addition to any corners or crevices of your bed.
Bed bugs also like to linger where humans sit or lay idle for long periods of time. Couches, recliners, and even office chairs are popular hiding spots for bed bugs. Don’t forget to look beneath furniture, where fabric meets the legs of the furniture, and between seat cushions.
Bed bugs will also hide around the perimeter of a room. The edges of baseboards and carpet should also be inspected.
Inspect Less Common Bed Bug Hiding Spots
Bed bugs are treated directly, which makes it important to know exactly where they are, and where they are not, in your home. This will help you target where to treat for bed bugs and avoid wasting chemical. You also do not want to miss any bed bugs, which can cause a longer infestation.
Using your flashlight and flat-edged object, inspect your nightstand and dressers. Empty out each drawer and examine the cracks and joints of the drawers. Don’t forget to turn your drawers over and inspect the bottoms.
Things That Bed Bugs Attracted
Bed bugs attracted to carbon dioxide
Generally bed bugs attracted to human beings, it’s simply because we produce carbon dioxide. This pesky little pest are also tend to settle down in areas with a high concentration of carbon dioxide.
Bed bugs attracted to warmth
Bed bugs aren’t attracted to dirt and grime, they attracted to the warmth of our bodies instead! Since human beings generate heat and warmth, bedtime is like a gold mine of warmth for bed bugs.
Bed bugs attracted to dark bed sheets
Bed bugs are accustomed to a dark environment! A recent research revealed that bed bugs attracted to certain colours, especially for red and black colours. Because these colours mimics two things that they will always go for: darkness and blood.
Bed bugs attracted to dirty laundry
In the absence of a human host, bed bugs tend to seek soiled laundry as a hive. The stack of dirty laundry on your bedroom floor can be the starting point of a bed bug’s journey across the entire room. Do you know what? Bed bugs love the smell of your dirty laundry!
How do you stop bedbugs from biting you?
Bed bugs prevention is a lot easier than eliminating the existing infestation at home. These are the list of bed bugs prevention tips that you can do according to the things bed bug attracted to!
How to Find Bed Bugs
Awful as bed bugs may be, the fear that you might have bed bugs may be just as bad if not worse. When you know you have bed bugs, at least you can take the steps necessary to get rid of them. If you’re not sure, however, it can be hard to know what to do next. It’s too easy to get in your own head. Are you just imagining things? Should you be nervous? Thinking you have bed bugs can turn bedtime into yet another anxiety-inducing part of your day. Even if you’re afraid to know, figuring out if you have bed bugs is always the right call. Finding bed bugs might be upsetting, but at least once you know they’re around you can wipe them out. Here are the telltale signs you have bed bugs, and how to track them down once and for all.
Signs You Have Bed Bugs
One of the many reasons why bed bug infestations are such a problem is that they’re hard to spot. Bed bugs leave behind evidence of their presence everywhere they go, but these signs are easy to mistake. For instance, bed bugs tend to leave small, circular blood stains near areas where they feed. This might happen when you accidentally crush the bed bugs while they’re feeding on you. Often, these stains smear or stain the sheets in small bloody streaks. Along with blood signs, bed bugs leave behind waste, shed skin, eggs, and stains on the surfaces they inhabit. These stains probably look rusty or reddish in color, and they’re often spot-shaped or smeared. Shed bed bug skin is pale yellow and flakey. As it ages, this skin might dry and get brittle or crusty. Bed bug eggs are tiny (1 millimeter), oval-shaped, and translucent. They’re somewhat sticky and very easy to miss.
Bed bugs spend their days hiding in dark, warm, inaccessible crevices. They have very flat bodies and are prone to wedging themselves into tight areas to stay out of sight. Start by searching for them in any nooks and crannies in your bed. Take off all the bed sheets and check their folds, seams, corners, and edges. Strip the bed completely and check the corners, seams, zipper, creases, and any other crevices. Don’t forget to turn the bed over, too. Contrary to popular belief, bed bugs don’t only infest beds. They’ll hide out in any dark, warm place where they can access food nearby. Your bed may be the most convenient place, but it’s far from their only option. Broaden your search. Check all the furniture, linens, decorations, and carpet in your bedroom. Pay particular attention to the undersides of couches and chairs, your headboard, and your curtains. The more thorough you are, the better you’ll feel.
What to Do If You Have Bed Bugs
Give us a call right away. Bed bugs are difficult to control and they’re capable of spreading quickly. If you fail to kill even two bed bugs, the infestation will continue to grow and spread. Most at-home methods of bed bug eradication are ineffective at best and harmful at worst. Professional heat treatment is the only truly effective strategy for eliminating a bed bug infestation permanently. Heat treatments kill adults and eggs alike, ending an infestation for good. In the meantime, there are a couple things you can do. Thoroughly wash, dry, and clean all your bed sheets and linens. Make sure you dry them on high for twenty minutes or more. The heat from the dryer will help kill bugs and eggs clinging to the fabric. Follow this same procedure for every machine-washable object in the infested room. Vacuum the room very thoroughly, and throw out the bag when you’re done. Don’t use the bed until the infestation has been eradicated.
How to Prevent Bed Bugs
Bed bugs are the ultimate hitchhiking pest. They travel by sneaking into bags, boxes, and other transported items. Nobody notices them, even as they carry their bags around. After the traveler gets home and sets down their bags, bed bugs creep out to infest their new home. Bed bugs hide in suitcases, purses, clothing bags, luggage, book and computer bags, and more. Whenever they have an opportunity to sneak inside something, they’ll take it. The best way to prevent bed bugs is to be very careful about what you bring into your home. Carefully inspect any and all bags you carry inside, especially after traveling. Whenever possible, you should throw clothes into your dryer when you get home to kill potential hiding bed bugs. While traveling, you should also take care not to leave your bags alone and open for extended periods of time. Store your belongings in elevated, secured places. If you find out you have bed bugs, don’t panic! It might seem impossible now, but it is possible to wipe out bed bugs completely and permanently. You just need a little professional help
HOW TO FIND AND GET RID OF BED BUGS IN YOUR HOME
How Do You Get Bed Bugs?
Bed bugs can hitchhike their way into your home from just about anywhere. Most homeowners want to know how to get rid of bed bugs before this happens, especially when they’re trying to sell a property. If they get a foothold, they can spread throughout the house and even travel into neighboring homes.
How to Find Bed Bugs: Why Is It Difficult?
Detecting the presence of bed bugs in your home is a little more challenging than you’d expect. A visual inspection is rarely reliable, unless it’s performed by an expert. These insects may be mistaken for other summer bugs, such as carpet bugs, and may have spread throughout your property by the time they’re correctly identified.
Feeding, Life Stages and Other Habits of Bed Bugs
If you want to know how to kill bed bugs or even find them, you have to understand how do bed bugs look like, their eating habits, preferred living conditions, reproductive cycles and behavior.
Feeding and Excretion
Bed bugs usually come out to feed at night, but will also seek a meal in daylight if they’re hungry. It can anywhere from 3 to 12 minutes for bed bugs to feed, and large nymphs or adults will often drop feces from earlier blood meals while feeding. This is what leads to the telltale dark spots on bedsheets and mattresses.Do bed bugs bite animals? Their meal of choice is generally human blood. However, they will also feed on dogs, cats and other mammals or even birds, travelling between 5 and 20 feet from their hiding spots to find a host.
Bed Bug Life Cycle & Reproduction
Bed bugs have 6 life stages, and they need a minimum of one blood meal to move from one to the next. They also shed skin at each stage, and may feed more than once between stages. Under the right conditions, the lifecycle from egg-to-egg takes around 4-5 weeks.Female bed bugs can lay 1-3 eggs every day, adding up to 200-500 eggs during their lifetime, which is generally 6 months to a year or longer. Both males and females need to feed at least once a fortnight to continue mating and producing eggs.