Archive for the ‘How Do You Know If You Have Bedbugs?’ Category

Do you have a suspicious feeling that you may have unwanted bedfellows?

Have you smelled a strange sickly sweet smell in your bedroom?

Have you waken up in the morning to find strange itchy red marks on your body that look like this:

Bed Bug Bites

Bed Bug Bites

Have you noticed strange little red dots on your bed sheets or mattress?

These are some of the telltale signs of a bed bug infestation. But how do you know if you have bed bugs?

As long as you act quickly, you can stop their breeding and reduce their impact using simple solutions like in this report. Acting quickly is very important as bed bugs breed and multiply VERY quickly!

But just remember, you are not alone.

How To Tell If You Have Bed Bugs

In a few steps, I will show you how to tell if you have bed bugs, and, if you find evidence that they are indeed there, I’ll show you what you can do about it.

First off, get yourself a flashlight. It doesn’t have to be anything too fancy. It just has to be able to light up some dark corners and crevices around your bed. Bed bugs feed at night and generally don’t like bright light. They seek out dark corners when not feeding (ie. daytime).  Contrary to popular belief, bed bugs can be seen by the naked eye. Fully grown adults are about the size of an apple seed.

  1. Remove all the sheets from your bed and inspect them for small red dots. This is blood. Your blood. This is what bed bugs feed on. They will feed on the blood of pets if nothing else is around.
  2. Now check all along the mattress seam flipping it up so that you can see the parts that weren’t previously exposed. Look for red dots or fecal matter or actual live bed bugs. Also check around and under the mattress buttons.
  3. Slide the mattress over to reveal the boxspring. Check the underside of the mattress and all along the edges of the boxspring paying close attention to any folds or crevices.
  4. Next check along and behind the headboard. Look closely at where 2 pieces of wood join. That could provide a space for bed bugs to hide. Also check inside any exposed screw holes.
  5. You can now start looking at anything around the bed, like nightstands (inside drawers, alarm clocks, picture frames, lamps/lampshades etc) and behind hanging pictures.
  6. Next check along the baseboard around the bed as well as electrical sockets and cracks in the walls.
  7. Check drapery that might be near the bed.

A good process to keep in mind is to start from the bed and work your way outward from there. Bed bugs like to be close to their food source ie. YOU!

You can also try various things to help stop their breeding frenzy and prevent them from becoming completely out of control. I would highly recommend getting a mattress encasement. You place your mattress inside one of these “bags” and zip it up. Any bugs that are already there will eventually die.

Next you should get some bed bug traps. You place these on the feet of your bed or other furniture and they will trap any bed bugs that attempt to crawl up the feet of your bed to get at you during the night.

Bed Bug Trap

Bed Bug Trap

Lastly, pillow protectors are a good idea. They are easy to put on, easy to clean and are effective.

These are all good first steps to getting rid of your bed bugs. You might want to check out a researcher named Michael Romner who recently documented his struggle with a bed bug infestation and wrote a tell-all report about how he got rid of them, with a focus on natural remedies called Bed Bugs Treatment – Secrets Revealed.

 

Hoping you will soon be bed bug free,

Dee

If you think you may have bed bugs, I feel for you. Before doing anything in haste, let’s first examine your situation and see if you really do have them. You may simply have something less harmful and easier to get rid of, like fleas. So, how do you know if you have bed bugs?

But How Do You Know If You Have Bed Bugs?

Bed Bug facts:

  • They are oval, flat and brownish in color
  • Bedbugs feed on human blood
  • When they are completely full they can be up to 3 times larger
  • After feeding their color becomes dark red
  • Bedbugs are about 1/4 inch in size
  • A single bedbug can lay up to 5 eggs a day and can number in the thousands very quickly
  • Bedbugs typically feed at night
  • Bedbugs can live up to a YEAR without feeding
  • They normally feed ie. draw blood for 5 to ten minutes
  • Luckily bedbugs have been found NOT to carry disease although their bites can become infected

If you have found a small insect on or around your bed and it:

  • jumps, usually surprisingly far
  • dies when exposed to cold
  • is about 1/8th of an inch in size
  • redish brown to black in color

You can rest easy as you are one of the lucky ones! It’s most likely a flea which are MUCH easier to get rid of than a bedbug. There are many products on the market that do a great job of getting rid of fleas safely and quickly. Don’t forget to treat your cat or dog as well since they were probably how the fleas got inside in the first place.

This is a Flea

This is a Flea

Bed Bug Bites

Bedbugs prefer human blood but will feed on other animal blood if they have to such as mice or even birds.

If you are bitten by a bedbug, the bite may burn or itch, get red and swell up. The reason for this is that when the bedbug bites, it injects it’s saliva into the wound which acts as a anticoagulant (stops your blood from clotting) in order to keep your blood flowing freely. This is what causes the skin reaction in most people.

Bitten by a bedbug

Bed Bug Bites

Spotting Bed Bugs

Bedbugs can be spotted quite easily by the naked eye. No magnification is needed but a flashlight may come in handy as bedbugs like to hide in dark crevices because they are nocturnal (they sleep during the day and feed at night). If you think you have them, take a look in the seams of your matress, underneath your matress (between your boxspring and matress), and under the buttons on the matress if it should have them. Also, check pleats or hems in your drapery and behind any paintings, photos or wall hangings. Here is one little bugger hiding out in a screw hole of a wooden bedframe:

Bedbug hiding

Bed Bug hiding

They also like electrical sockets and phone jacks so make sure you look in and around thos areas as well. Anywhere within 10 or 15 feet of your bed is the typical area that a bedbug will live in so don’t forget the insides of nightstands and cabinets.

What You’ll Be Looking For

When you are doing your visiual inspection, firstly look for the actual crawling, live bedbugs themselves. Then look for bedbug feces (dark spots) and/or tiny blood stains. Also, bedbugs prefer cloth and wood over plastic and steel so that may help you locate your unwanted guests should they be proving difficult to find. Occasionaly you may find a strange sickly sweet odour as a result of an infestation. But this isn’t always true. Here are the telltale traces around a mattress:

Finding Bedbugs

Finding Bed Bugs

How do you know if you have bed bugs? Keep reading to find out…

How do you know if you have bed bugs? Let’s find out and then get down to it and nip this problem in the bud!

Bedbug

Typical Bed Bug

You’ll be very glad you found How Do You Know If You Have Bed Bugs .com so come back soon for everything you NEED to know about that nasty little critter known as the bed bug and how to get rid of them!