If you have found bed bugs in your home recently, you are not alone. Over the past five years or so, there has been an increase in reported bed bugs in many homes, apartments buildings, hotels, hospitals, and offices.
How to Tell If You Have Bed Bugs
Bed bugs are insects that are about 5 mm long and are a reddish-brown colour. They get their nutrients when they feed off of humans and other warm-blooded animals like cats and dogs. Most adult bed bugs can survive over a year without feeding. Since they are so small and flat they can easily hide in tiny places like cracks in your floors, underneath the carpet, bed frames, sofas, baseboards, etc. If you have a large infestation of bedbugs, they will leave a sweetly unpleasant stench.
The average bed bug will go through three stages of life; they start in an egg, hatch into a nymph, then grow into an adult. A female bed bug can lay up to 500 eggs in her lifetime and usually lays 10 to 50 eggs at a time. The eggs will hatch within 17 days.
Bed bugs will live close to their hosts (usually humans) so they can feed off of them easier. This is why most bed bugs are found in hotels, homes, and apartment buildings. The bed bugs will usually feast at night because they are nocturnal and when they are done feeding they can quickly find their way back to their hiding spots. This is why a lot of bed bugs go unnoticed if they don’t leave any red marks on people after they are done eating.
How Do You Get Bed Bugs?
Bed bugs don’t actively try to leave in our belongings if they are found in a hotel, but they can get stuck in the fabrics of our suitcases or purses to get a free ride back to our homes. Even if you are a clean person, bed bugs can still make their way into your home through the items you carry around every day (like a backpack or computer bag).
How Do You Know If You Have Bed Bugs?
If you think you are harbouring bed bugs in your home, you will want to look for different signs. One of the easiest ways to determine if you have bed bugs is by looking for dead bugs or the skins they leave behind after they have molted. Another way to see if you have bed bugs is to check for any red marks on your body after you have woken up. They will also lay eggs in dark areas of your room or close to their feeding source.
How Bed Bugs Spread?
Once the bed bugs have established a space for dwelling, they can spread due to one or many of the following reasons:
• Being disrupted by incorrect pesticide use
• A shortage of food may make them disperse around your home or to different hotel rooms
• Communal laundry machines
• Furniture that has been moved down a hall
• Vacuum cleaners that are used to clean multiple rooms
All credit goes to Action Pest Control
