Archive for the ‘Bedbug Information’ Category

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 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

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…

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!