Bed Bug Facts

Bed Bug Facts

1. Bed bugs are small, reddish-brown wingless insects that feed on human blood during the night. They are about the size of a lady bug or an apple seed. Bed bugs do not fly; they either crawl or are carried from place to place in a person’s belongings. Before a bed bug feeds on blood, its body looks flat with a circle shaped abdomen; however, after it has fed, the body lengthens and becomes narrow. Bed bugs can survive for weeks to months without a blood meal.

2. Bed bugs feed at night when people are sleeping. The bite of a bed bug is usually painless, and a person may not even know that they have been bitten until a large itchy welt appears on their skin several days later. Some people do not react to bed bug bites. While these bites may be a nuisance, bed bugs do not transmit disease to humans.

3. Female bed bugs will lay about 3-5 eggs per day but can lay up to 12, producing as many as 500 in their lifetime. Typical sites for egg laying include crevices and folds in mattresses, in the joints of bed frames, behind wallpaper, and along baseboards. 

4. Eggs hatch in six to 10 days and nymphs develop into adults in approximately a month and a half. However, nymphs require a blood meal prior to each molt to reach full adulthood. An adult bed bug typically lives about nine months and can survive cold temperatures and periods of starvation for up to a year, thus bed bugs may already be present in apparently ‘vacant’ and ‘clean’ apartments or other housing situations.

5. The mouth parts of bed bugs are especially adapted for piercing skin and sucking blood. Like most blood sucking arthropods, they inject saliva during feeding, which has anticoagulant properties. 

6. Bed bugs respond to the warmth and carbon dioxide of a host and quickly locate a suitable feeding site. They tend not to live on humans and the only contact is for a blood meal. Most blood feeding occurs at night, and they generally seek shelter during the day and become inactive while digesting the blood meal.

7. While their preferred host is human, they are known to feed on other warmblooded animals.

8. Bed bugs tend to stay in close contact with each other and heavy infestations are accompanied by a distinctive sweet ‘buggy’ smell.

9. The typical life span of a bed bug is about 10 months. They can survive for weeks to months without feeding.

10. In most cases, bed bugs are transported from infested areas to non-infested areas when they cling onto someone’s clothing, or crawl into luggage, furniture or bedding that is then brought into homes. 

Some of the things you can do yourself, include:

1. Consult with your local health department or a professional Pest Control operator to confirm that you have bed bugs. 

2. Inspect your mattress and bed frame, particularly the folds,crevices and the underside, and other locations where bed bugs like to hide. 

3. Use a nozzle attachment on the vacuum to capture the bed bugs and their eggs. Vacuum all crevices on your mattress, bed frame, baseboards and any objects close to the bed. It is essential to vacuum daily and empty the vacuum immediately. 

4. Wash all your linens in the hottest water possible and place them in a hot dryer for 20 minutes. Consider covering your pillows and mattress with a plastic cover. 

5. Remove all unnecessary clutter. 

6. Seal cracks and crevices between baseboards, on wood bed frames, floors and walls with caulking. Repair or remove peeling wallpaper, tighten loose light switch covers, and seal any openings where pipes, wires or other utilities come into your home (pay special attention to walls that are shared between apartments). 

7. Monitor daily by setting out glue boards or sticky tape (carpet tape works well) to catch the bed bugs. Closely examine any items that you are bringing into your home. 

8. Consult professional pest control services and discuss options that pose the least risk to humans and the environment. 

9. When it is colder than 25 degrees F, place mattresses and furniture outside for several hours to kill bed bugs. Temperatures below 25 degrees F will freeze and kill bed bugs.