Bed bugs have never been shown to transmit human disease. Distinguishing bed bug bites from the bites of other arthropods such as mosquitoes, fleas, and spiders is difficult to impossible. People often confuse itching bed bug welts with mosquito bites. The only way you can really confirm bed bugs as the cause is to find the bugs or their signs in your bed or bedroom.
Often people are bitten when traveling and may be unable to produce a specimen, making diagnosis even more difficult. These spots are usually reddish brown or dark brown to black, sometimes yellowish, roughly round although sometimes they appear as streaks , and can be very small.
Confirmed bed bug infestations should be managed by trained professionals. Managing a bed bug infestation is a difficult task that requires removing or treating all infested material and follow-up monitoring to ensure the infestation has been eliminated. Management will require employing several nonchemical methods such as vacuuming, washing bedding at a high temperature, using steam or heat treatment, and sealing up hiding places.
Insecticides may be required to eliminate serious infestations. Several active ingredients are federally registered for bed bugs for over-the-counter use, but few have been demonstrated as effective. Pest management professionals PMPs have access to a wide range of effective registered products; however, insecticide resistance among bed bug populations is increasingly common. The best approach is to combine chemical and nonchemical tactics with increased sanitation and habitat modification practices.
Prevention and monitoring of bed bug infestations are paramount and should be ongoing. The presence of raised wheals, blisters, rashes, or any other dermal symptom associated with arthropod bites should never be used for diagnosis, since several household pests are known to bite humans, and since reactions vary widely between individuals.
You can confirm a bed bug infestation only by detecting the pests themselves or their signs, which include fecal spots, blood spots, egg cases, and shed skins exuviae. Lift the mattress and inspect all its seams and surfaces as well as those of the box spring. You may need to dismantle the bed. Keeping in mind bed bugs can utilize cracks and crevices as small as the width of a credit card, make sure to thoroughly inspect all potential harborage sites.
Use a flashlight and a small mirror to aid in the inspection process. It can take a good deal of time, patience, and perseverance to detect low-level infestations. Remember, these nocturnal insects are small.
Although you can see adults and aggregations of nymphs with the unaided eye, seeing the eggs requires a hand-magnifying lens. Bed bugs prefer fabric or wood surfaces to metal or plastic. When there are heavy infestations, keep in mind that adjoining rooms, filing areas, and clutter can be out-of-the-way shelters. Recent research has shown that canine detection utilizing dogs conditioned to the scent of bed bugs can be an effective tool for detecting bed bug infestations.
Laboratory and simulated field studies have shown this method can be very accurate; under actual field conditions, however, canine detection accuracy has been highly variable. Therefore, third-party certification and ongoing training of any canine team should be verified before hire, and any canine detection alert should be confirmed with a detailed inspection by a trained PMP. Other recent research indicates monitors that attract or intercept bed bugs moving between a hiding place and a host can aid in bed bug detection, particularly when using several monitors near beds or suspect locations.
Pest management professionals are already widely using these monitors. Although quite diverse in terms of size, appearance, and price, monitors generally fall within one of two categories: active monitors or passive monitors. All monitors have the benefit of ease of inspection as compared to potentially having to disassemble furniture and other household items to find bed bugs.
Active monitors employ an attractant—usually heat, carbon dioxide, host odors kairomones , pheromones, or a combination of these—to lure bed bugs out of their harborage areas and into a pitfall or sticky trap within the monitor.
These devices have the potential, especially in the absence of a host, to detect bed bugs that would normally remain hidden. Airborne aggregation pheromones and other behavior-modifying chemicals might someday help detect low-density infestations. Interceptor monitors are a hybrid between active and passive pitfall monitors in that they rely on the presence of a host a sleeping human to attract hungry bugs and then trap the parasites on route to their meal.
These small double-cupped monitors are easily installed under the legs of beds and other furniture items. Research has demonstrated that such interceptors trapped six times more bed bugs than were found from human visual searches alone. People may bring bed bugs into their homes in luggage or on clothes after visiting an infested dwelling or hotel.
If you travel frequently, look for signs of bed bugs in your hotel room by checking behind headboards and under sheets and by inspecting mattress seams and tufts, especially if you have been bitten. If you suspect bed bugs are present, change rooms or hotels. Inspect your luggage before leaving, and as soon as you get home, wash and dry all your clothes at the hottest settings the fabric will permit.
Frequent travelers may want to store luggage away from the bedroom, such as in the garage or a hall closet. You may also inadvertently bring bed bugs into your home on infested bedding or furniture.
If you purchase second-hand furniture, especially beds or mattresses, thoroughly inspect the item before bringing it into your home. Managers of hotels, furnished apartments, dormitories, homeless shelters, and other facilities that house transient populations need to train staff to recognize signs of bed bug activity and take action as soon as they find an infestation. One proactive step a manager can take is to regularly replace beds, mattress, and bedding materials.
Frequently laundering bedding and placing potentially infested items into walk-in freezers or heat units during tenant turnover can help prevent the spread and establishment of bed bugs. Keep clutter down, so it is easier to inspect and so bed bugs have fewer hiding places.
When first laid, eggs are sticky, causing them to adhere to surfaces. At room temperature, bed bug eggs hatch in about a week. The newly emerged nymphs are straw-colored and no bigger than a pinhead.
As the nymphs grow, they molt, shedding their skin five times before reaching maturity. A blood meal is needed between each successive molt. Adult females must also periodically feed in order to lay eggs. Cooler temperatures or limited access to a host prolongs development. Given adequate resources, the average lifespan of a bed bug is about 10 months.
Bed bugs are resilient. Nymphs and adults can persist months without feeding which is unusual for most insects. In temperature-controlled buildings, a more typical duration without feeding is about 1 to 4 months.
When infested dwellings such as apartments are vacant, bed bugs often disperse to nearby units, or reduce their activity until the unit is reoccupied. Bed bugs are active mainly at night. During the day, they tend to hide close to where people sleep.
Bed bugs prefer to hide close to where they feed, but if necessary will crawl longer distances in search of a meal. Initially they tend to be concentrated around beds, sofas, and other sleeping and resting areas—but if infestations are allowed to persist, they may disperse elsewhere making elimination more difficult. Their flattened bodies enable them to fit into tiny crevices no wider than a toothpick.
Characteristically, these areas are marked by dark spotting and staining, which is the dried excrement of the bugs. Another possible sign are rusty or reddish smears on bed sheets or mattresses from blood-engorged bed bugs that have been crushed. Bed bugs usually bite people at night while they are sleeping. Hungry bed bugs may also feed during the day, especially if this is when the occupant normally sleeps. They feed by piercing the skin with an elongated beak through which they withdraw blood.
Engorgement takes about three to 10 minutes, but because the bite is painless, people seldom realize they are being bitten. Bed bugs normally do not reside on or attach to people like lice or ticks; immediately after feeding they crawl to a secluded location to digest their meal. Symptoms after being bitten by bed bugs vary from person to person.
Many develop an itchy red welt within a day or so of the bite. Others have little or no reaction. Sometimes the reaction is delayed days or even weeks, which can make it difficult to determine where or when bites actually occurred. Studies conducted in bed bug-infested apartments suggest about 30 percent of people do not react even when bitten repeatedly, and even higher levels of non-reactivity occur among the elderly.
Unlike fleabites, which occur mainly around the ankles, bed bugs feed on any skin exposed while sleeping face, neck, shoulders, back, arms, legs, etc. The welts and itching are often wrongly attributed to other causes, such as mosquitoes.
As such, infestations may go a long time unnoticed, and can become large before being detected. Bed bugs also are suspect if you wake up with itchy welts you did not have when you went to sleep. A common concern with bed bugs is whether they transmit diseases.
Although the bugs can harbor various pathogens, transmission to humans has not been proven and is considered unlikely. Their medical significance is mainly attributed to itching and inflammation from their bites. Antihistamines and corticosteroids may be prescribed to reduce allergic reactions, and antiseptic or antibiotic ointments to prevent infection. Though not known to transmit diseases, bed bugs can reduce quality of life by causing discomfort, sleeplessness, anxiety, and embarrassment.
According to some health experts, the added stress from living with bed bugs can have a significant impact on the emotional health and well-being of certain individuals.
Insect repellents used to deter ticks and mosquitoes do not appear to be as effective against bed bugs, and applying them at bedtime is not recommended. It often seems that bed bugs arise from nowhere. The bugs are efficient hitchhikers and are easily transported into dwellings on luggage, clothing, beds, furniture, and belongings. This is a particular problem for hotels and apartments, where turnover of occupants is constant.
Bed bugs are small and agile, avoiding detection by crawling into concealed locations. Acquiring secondhand beds and furniture is another way they can be transported into buildings. Once bed bugs are introduced, they can crawl from room to room, or floor to floor via cracks and openings in walls, floors and ceilings. Unlike cockroaches and flies that feed on filth, there is often no relationship between bed bugs and cleanliness. Since the bugs feed solely on blood, pristine dwellings can be as vulnerable to infestation as are places of squalor.
Nonetheless, poverty and privation are often associated with persistent problems due to an inability to afford professional extermination. Some bed bug species are parasites of bats or birds e. Although similar in appearance, the species that normally feed on bats and birds can be differentiated from those that prefer humans.
Entomologists and pest professionals can make this determination. If bat bugs or bird bugs are present, roosting and nesting sites should be the focus of treatment, combined with exclusion of the wild hosts. Bed bugs are challenging to eradicate.
Since they can hide in so many places, inspections must be thorough and elimination is not always a certainty. Experienced pest controllers know where to look for bed bugs and have an assortment of management tools at their disposal. Bed bugs can live in almost any crevice or protected location. The most common place to find them is beds or areas where people rest or sleep. This is especially true during the early stages of an infestation.
As numbers grow larger, the bugs tend to move beyond beds into other locations, making control more difficult. Bed bugs often hide in seams, folds and crevices of the mattress, box spring, bed frame and headboard. A thorough inspection requires dismantling the bed, and standing the components on edge so that upper and lower seams and surfaces can be examined.
Things to look for are the bugs themselves, shed skins of the nymphs, and the blackish fecal spots. Dark spots of dried bed bug excrement are often present along mattress seams or wherever the bugs have resided. Box springs afford many places for bed bugs to hide, especially along the upper seams and underneath, where the bottom edge of the box rests on the frame. If an underlying dust cover is present, it may have to be removed to gain access for inspection and possible treatment.
Crevices of bed frames also should be examined, especially if the frame is wood. Bed bugs have an affinity for wood and fabric more so than metal or plastic. Wooden support boards, if present, should be removed and examined since bed bugs often congregate where the ends rest on the frame. Screw holes and other recesses are also common hiding places. Headboards affixed to walls should be removed and inspected. In hotels, the area behind the headboard is often the first place bed bugs become established.
Bed bugs also frequently hide within items stored under beds. Upholstered chairs, recliners and sofas are the next most likely areas for bed bugs, and should be examined carefully along seams, skirts and folds of fabric. Sofas and recliners can be major bed bug hotspots, especially when used for sleeping.
The host might eventually develop an allergic response. Bedbugs, like fleas, tend to bite in rows. There are likely to be two or three bites in each row. This is probably because the bedbug is interrupted while feeding, and then comes back about half an inch further down for its next bite.
Bites can take up to 14 days to become visible but often appear within several days. Bedbug bites are larger than fleabites and do not usually have a red dot at the center.
The bites tend to be raised and red. Most people who are bitten show no symptoms at all and often do not know it happened. This makes it more difficult to prevent or identify potential infestations. Some individuals, however, may become ill and nauseous. It is possible to get scars and skin infections from scratching the bites. Very rarely, people might have an anaphylactic reaction to bedbug bites.
It is possible but rare to have an asthmatic reaction to bedbugs. They may get into a new home as stowaways when luggage, furniture, and bedding is moved in.
People should be careful when purchasing second-hand furniture and should never purchase used mattresses. A careful visual inspection should allow a person to detect bedbugs or their droppings. Even vacant and seemingly clean homes may have bedbugs in them. They can survive for over two months without any food. It is also believed they can move from apartment to apartment through hollows and holes in the walls and the tubes through which wires and pipes run. It is possible to encase both the mattress and box spring in a protective cover, as some people do for allergy relief.
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These elusive pests can be found nearly anywhere inside a home, car, bus, or other shelter. I n hotels , t he most common place to find bed bugs is within the backside of headboards that are mounted on walls. It is important to know how to identify the tell-tale signs of bed bugs whenever s pending time in a populated area. Bed bugs usually come out at night to eat. However, they are opportunistic feeders and will take a blood meal during the day, especially in heavily-infested areas.
Bed bugs usually require minutes to engorge with blood. After feeding, they move to secluded places and congregate for several days until they are ready to feed again. During this time in the bed bug life cycle, they digest their meal, mate, and lay eggs. It is possible for adult bed bugs to go several months without a blood meal. They also can withstand temperatures from nearly freezing up to degrees Fahrenheit , allowing them to survive in harsh conditions.
Although bed bugs can dine on many warm-blooded animal s , they primarily feed on humans. Bed bugs do not transmit disease, but their bites can cause red, itchy welts. These bites do not need professional treatment , and p eople who experience severe itching usually can find relief with topical steroid creams.
Perhaps the most alarming feature of bed bug s is their fast-reproductive nature. Females lay eggs per day, reaching up to eggs in their lifetime. It only takes about 21 days for these nymphs to become adult bed bugs. I f a bed bug population goes un detected , these bugs can quickly infest an entire household or building. Once established, an infestation can be extremely difficult to get rid of.
Humans are the preferred host for bed bugs, and they will latch onto skin that is exposed while the host is sleeping. Although the bite is painless at the time of the attack, most people develop an allergic reaction to the saliva that is transmitted during the bite. This is what causes bites to become red, itchy and swollen. Bites tend to be found in a pattern or in small clusters. This can be an indication that the bites are from bed bugs and not a different pest.
However, some humans never have a reaction to bites, making a bed bug infestation hard to identify.
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