Posts Tagged ‘How To Check For Bed Bugs’

Do you feel something crawling on your body at night? Do you wake up with strange marks or rashes? Bed Bugs are a disgusting scourge! They crawl around on your body in the dead of night and feed on your blood. They are also EXTREMELY difficult to get rid of. People used to think that only poor people got infestations…. nowadays, anyone is vulnerable but particularly people with means. I’ll explain later why if you have disposable income you are, in fact, MORE vulnerable. “What are bed bugs?” I’ll tell you about that below…

Here’s an excerpt from a documentary on bed bugs and bed bug bites.

WARNING!! There are very disturbing images in this video.
This video may not be appropriate for all viewers…


If you travel a lot, you are particularly at risk of getting a bed bug infestation. But there are ways to prevent bed bugs and it only takes a few minutes of your time and no special tools…

You can perform this 10 step check in under 10 minutes and it will save you months of aggravation if you were to get a bed bug infestation. This check works great at home as well. How to tell if you have bed bugs in your hotel room – When you first arrive at your room:

  1. NEVER, EVER put your luggage directly on the bed.
  2. Place your luggage on top of a table or the often supplied foldaway luggage rack, ideally as far from the bed as possible. If the room is very small and this isn’t possible, place your luggage in the bathtub.
  3. Have a good look under the bottom fitted sheet and particularly along the seams of the mattress. Look for traces of blood, bed bugs or feces.
  4. If the mattress has a cover remove it and look directly on the seams and folds of the mattress. Also check in and around the buttons if there are any as this is a favorite hiding place.
  5. Slide the mattress to one side and have a look directly at the top of the box-spring. Look for the same traces.
  6. Check along the folds and seams of the box-spring skirt.
  7. Check screw holes and any dark spaces that are formed when 2 pieces of the frame are joined.
  8. Check around the headboard.
  9. Check around any hanging pictures around the bed.
  10. Check in and around the nightstand.

If you find any traces of bed bugs, immediately leave the room and take your luggage with you. Report your findings to the front desk. They will more than likely give you a free upgrade suite as an apology or even pay for a night a different hotel.

If you choose to stay at this hotel, make sure you check your new room even more thoroughly as bed bugs can easily travel to other rooms in the same building.

This check goes a long way in answering the question: how do you know if you have bed bugs?

Bed bugs were once quite common as a household pest. Their population declined gradually through the mid 20th century. As  you have probably seen through recent news reports, bed bugs have undergone a dramatic comeback in the world at large and in North America  there are many reports of increasing numbers of infestations.

Thanks to their human hosts, bed bugs have become one of the  great travelers of the world. They can attach themselves or their eggs quite easily to luggage or clothes that happen to be laying  about a hotel room.

Symptoms of a Bed Bug Infestation –

How Do You Know If You Have Bed Bugs?

The first hint of something not quite right in your bedroom is usually a strange welt or bite discovered.  These bites are usually painless because the bed bug injects an anesthetic before it punctures it’s victim’s skin. That is why the host doesn’t usually wake up while being bitten. It is this and other saliva coming from the bed bug that irritate the skin to become red, swollen and itchy, although some victims feel almost nothing at all. The itching can be severe and it could last for several hours to days.
A bed bug infestation can be recognized by tiny blood stains or dark spots that are found on bed sheets or on box springs and maybe even walls. The blood stains would be your blood, of course, while the dark spots would be their excrement.  Fecal spots, eggshells, and shed skins might be seen near their hiding  places. Which are usually small cracks or crevices where they can hide during daylight hours. A sickly, sweet odor may be obvious when bed bug infestations are really bad.

bed bug picture

Bed Bug Picture

What Do Bed Bugs Look Like?

  • They are flat
  • Shiny brownish in color when not fed
  • After feeding they appear reddish brown and larger (swollen)
  • They are wingless
  • 1/4 of an inch long
  • They have 6 legs
  • Can be seen by human eye

Hopefully this post will help you in identifying if you have a possible problem. If you suspect an infestation, it is important to act as quickly as possible. If you have mysterious bites that aren’t going away you should see a doctor to make sure they are not infected.

If you need further help in dealing with bed bugs or if you need more info on how to tell if you have bed bugs, check out Michael Romner’s tell-all report about how he got rid of them, with a focus on natural remedies called Bed Bugs Treatment – Secrets Revealed.

Sleep tight,

Dee

Bed bugs have been in the news a lot recently. There is hardly a month that goes by without another widespread infestation reported often centering on major city centers like New York. These bloodsucking creatures are back, and in quantities amounting to a plague.

Bed bugs are a real threat. Some journalists argue that feeding the paranoia sends a panic among citizens. Others point to very real statistics that show a 70% increase in bed bug infestations reported in the U.S.

After a ban on the pesticide DDT bed bugs (Cimex lectularius) are increasing. A worldwide scourge throughout human history, insects, fleas and lice are regular nightly bedfellows.  Don’t let the bedbugs bite! – Is based in reality before the Second World War, life, if bugs were found frequently in the beds U.S. in the 1930 people would wallpaper their room with wallpaper laced with arsenic to kill insects. Development of DDT-based insecticides after the war were helpful in eradicating bedbugs.

The discovery of DDT cancer risk to humans and deadly threat to wildlife lead to it being banned in 1970. Until mid 1990, bed bug infestations in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the surface of western Europe multiplied and spread. Since mid 1990, the number of reported infestations have almost doubled each year. London bed bug infestations have risen tenfold since 1996. Last year bedbug infestations in all states in the U.S. and reports are exponentially every year. This is the plague of the 21st century.

Scientists have not established a single cause for the spread of bed bugs, but a combination of factors, including ease of international travel, the lack of potent insecticides, and the discovery of pesticide resistant bed bugs . The size of an apple seed, wingless insects active at night, hiding in small cracks and crevices of mattresses and beds in the area and come at night to feed on human blood. Females lay 500 eggs, usually during the period of six to 12 months. The eggs hatch in four to 12 days and the larvae begin feeding to reach the adult stage in about a month. Three or more generations may occur in a year. Easy to transport, insects often used to enter a house on clothing, or rental of furniture. They spread by multi-unit properties such as apartments and hotels through air ducts, electrical and plumbing pipes and wall cavities. New York has recently launched a public awareness campaign, in case of serious infestations of bugs associated with the immigrant community in selling second-hand mattresses.

Sometimes the power of suggestion in delusional parasitosis or Ekbom syndrome, in which real environmental elements such as static electricity, severe itching of dry skin because the perceived harm caused by insects. Bleeding welts and scratching can only serve to validate victims claims of an insect infestation. Most incidents are the seasonal fluctuations in humidity caused by the operation of heating or air conditioning systems.

For those who really have to do bed bugs, the experience can be traumatic. Bites leave red itchy welts. While scientists assure us that bedbugs are a nuisance pest and do not transmit diseases, while we sleep they nibbled enough to send many of the victims screaming from their beds. New technologies such as Cryonite freezes and kills insects and eggs with the carbon dioxide vapor is not toxic. But if the bed bugs bite, most people panic.

So then, how do you know if you have bed bugs? Read more here at howdoyouknowifyouhavebedbugs.com to find out all you need to know…