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:
NEVER, EVER put your luggage directly on the bed.
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.
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.
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.
Slide the mattress to one side and have a look directly at the top of the box-spring. Look for the same traces.
Check along the folds and seams of the box-spring skirt.
Check screw holes and any dark spaces that are formed when 2 pieces of the frame are joined.
Check around the headboard.
Check around any hanging pictures around the bed.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Next check along the baseboard around the bed as well as electrical sockets and cracks in the walls.
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
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.
Bed bugs have been in the news a lot lately. Epidemics are being reported regularly. Almost every month there is another report on an infestation. Large city centers are particularly vulnerable because they have a huge number of people crammed into a relatively small area.
To name only a few cities – New York, Toronto, Fort Worth, Seattle and Denver have all been in the news recently regarding widespread infestations.
ABC, CBS and CBC are all major television networks that have had reports on bed bug infestations lately.
Denver Bed Bugs
Shown in this map are the reports of bed bug infestations in the Denver area for the year 2010 only. Clearly this is a widespread problem that must be taken seriously!
Bed bugs are being found in movie theaters, shoe stores, lingerie stores, office buildings and even hospitals are not immune.
It used to be thought that bed bugs were a scourge of the poor and the unclean but this myth has been crushed. In fact it is the affluent and people of means that may be more at risk as hotel rooms seem to be of major concern.
Bed bugs travel by hitching a ride on their human meals. The Grand Central hub for a bed bug would be hotel rooms. These rooms are highly trafficked areas and are akin to a tasty all you can eat buffet to a bed bug. They feed at night when their prey is asleep and then go back into hiding when daylight returns. But sometimes a bed bug may find it’s way into an opened piece of luggage or lay eggs on a carelessly tossed piece of clothing on the floor.
If you travel a lot, always make sure you check your hotel room for bed bugs the second you enter it. It takes less than 10 minutes and will save you weeks of headaches and fistfuls of cash. As they say, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.
Take a look at this informative video of bed bugs in the news:
Much more information to come here on… How Do You Know If You Have Bed Bugs?
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…
We’ve come across an exciting new solution for people who need to know how to get rid of bed bugs. A researcher named Michael Romner 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.
According to Michael, he has found out how to tell if you have bed bugs and has found a solution to the bed bug problem that is effective and most importantly, safe for you, your family and your pets. All this and natural too.
His report is an easy to follow, step-by-step resource guide for quickly, safely and permanently getting rid of bed bugs. He compiled this guide as a result of researching and dealing with his own bed bug infestation.
How do you know if you have bed bugs? Do any of these sound familiar to you?:
finding strange bite marks on your body in the morning
finding tiny red blood stains on your sheets
a strange sickly sweet odor in your bedroom
tiny insects in the crevices of your mattress that hide from direct light
If you have bed bugs there is one important thing you need to know…
You are not alone…
Statistics show that bed bug infestations are on the rise. Bed bugs do not discriminate based on race, sex or income bracket. We are all vulnerable.
Here are a few sneak peaks of what’s inside Michael’s bed bug treatment guide:
Bed bugs removal secrets only found in this guide
Step-by-step methods to eliminate an existing bed bug infestation
How to protect yourself from bed bug bites while sleeping (until the infestation is removed)
Things you should NEVER do when dealing with a bed bug infestation
5 simple keys to saving hundreds with commercial exterminators
10 time tested and proven strategies for quickly and naturally removing ANY bed bug infestation
1 little known special tip for detecting where bed bugs more efficiently than exterminators or trained dogs!
16 University tested and scientifically proven chemicals for very severe infestations presented (as an option to the natural remedies)
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 yourcat or dog as well since they were probably how the fleas got inside in the first place.
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.
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:
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 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!
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!
