Bed bugs are parasitic insects whose bite causes itchy welts on the skin. These pests can affect your home and health if left untreated. However, professional exterminators can eradicate them, so contact one today to help you eliminate these annoying bed bug infestations.
If you’ve recently woken up with itchy welts, the chances are that you have a bed bug infestation in your home. Unfortunately, identifying this type of infestation isn’t always as easy as spotting the bugs themselves since their presence leaves no obvious marks or stains on your sheets or furniture. Sometimes these pests can hide inside rugs or clothes, making them difficult to find at first glance. When bed bugs aren’t visible, check for the following tell-tale signs that may indicate an infestation:
- Irritated skin and rashes. As mentioned earlier, your skin may break out in red sores and welts as a reaction to bed bug bites. However, not everyone reacts the same way since some people don’t even feel any discomfort from bed bug bites. For those who do react to their bite, itching and irritation is the most common symptom. These reactions are caused by excessive scratching, which can lead to secondary infections when left untreated. Some visible signs of these types of infections include pus-filled blisters or scabbing in the affected area.
- Dark spots on sheets or mattresses. Bed bugs often leave behind blood stains when they feed on their hosts. Tiny black spots are another sign that you have a bed bug infestation on your hands. These are caused by dried blood left behind after feeding, which differs in color depending on how recently the host was fed. The more fresh the bloodstains are, the darker they will appear.
- Bed bug excrement or droppings. Bed bugs defecate while feeding, leaving dark-colored fecal spots of excrement around their nesting areas. This waste can be found wherever these pests live and hide, including mattresses, furniture, box springs, and even inside wall cracks.
- Odor associated with bed bugs. A distinct musty smell may indicate an infestation of bed bugs. Bed bugs give off this scent after the first few days of hatching, so you may be able to identify an early infestation by its distinctive odor.
- Immature bed bug nymphs (immature bed bug stages). These immature stages are tiny, oval-shaped insects almost impossible to spot with the naked eye since they don’t grow to more than five millimeters. Their small size makes it difficult to see them without magnification, and their coloration changes as they reach maturity. This can make it hard for non-experts to properly ID these pests, especially if the only visible sign is discoloration on sheets or mattresses caused by their waste products.
If you suspect that your home has a bed bug infestation, it’s important to act quickly since these bugs multiply rapidly. Their small size allows them to reproduce at an accelerated rate, increasing the severity of your problem in days. Although their lifespan is only 15 months if they are allowed to eat daily (which isn’t always the case), each female can lay hundreds of eggs during that time. Each adult lays five to ten eggs per day and can produce 500-1000 during her lifetime.
Can bed bugs live in your hair?
Even though bed bugs infest human hair with the same ease as clothing, they are unlikely to make hairs their permanent home. They are more like parasites or hitchhikers than permanent residents. This doesn’t mean you can’t get them in your hair; in fact, you may end up with more of these pesky parasites nesting in your locks if you don’t address your problem quickly enough.
Keeping bed bugs out of your head starts with keeping them out of your house and away from your body. This is why pest control professionals emphasize preventative measures to avoid having an infestation at all costs.
Your best defense against getting bed bugs in your hair is vigilance when traveling and using public transportation such as cabs or planes where bedbugs can easily travel.
Whether you have long or short hair doesn’t matter when it comes to bed bugs getting in there and multiplying, so prevention is no less critical for those with shoulder-length locks than bald heads. And since you can’t avoid head-to-head contact with people at the gym or on crowded dance floors, try not to panic if you get your hair caught up in a stranger’s scarf or ponytail. With vigilance and diligence, you should be able to keep your hair free of these parasites and live bug-free.
Can bed bugs jump?
The bed bug’s ability to jump while attached to a host is a common topic of discussion. The answer is yes, and they can jump while being on a person or animal and while unattached. However, their jumping skills are not the greatest. They cannot launch themselves off walls or ceilings, nor do they have ballistic tongues like some insects.
The best way to picture the bed bugs’ jumping ability is by analogy with fleas. While they can jump from wall to wall, they cannot jump from the floor to ceiling because their load factor (body/wings) would be too heavy against gravity.
This study on bed bugs discusses their leaping abilities: ‘Bedbugs lack flight muscles and cannot take off from a flat surface instead, most maturing nymphs and adults use their strong legs to jump onto a passing host
Does Lysol kill bed bugs?
Lysol is a brand name of household cleaner and disinfectant. The active ingredients in Lysol products include benzalkonium chloride, dichlorobenzene alcohol, and ethyl alcohol. Benzalkonium chloride and dichlorobenzene alcohols are antiseptics and disinfectants used for cleaning dining tables, bathrooms, toilet seats. At the same time, ethyl alcohol is an irritant that can also be dangerous if consumed in large quantities.
Neither benzalkonium chloride nor dichlorobenzene alcohol is effective against insects such as roaches or bedbugs. Ethanol is sometimes used to kill small pests such as ants or cockroaches but is not effective against bedbugs. The use of ethanol to kill bedbugs is a folk remedy that has few studies to prove its effectiveness.
Lysol is sometimes used as a disinfectant. It works mostly on nonporous surfaces such as toilets and tiles; when sprayed onto porous surfaces such as clothes, Lysol doesn’t work effectively. The spray can also cause skin irritation in rare cases when it comes in contact with the skin.
Scabies vs. bed bugs
Scabies and bed bugs are not the same thing. They do, however, have some similarities. One can mistake them for each other due to their similar appearance and behaviors.
Studies show a common misconception about scabies and bed bugs among laypeople because of their resemblance, especially when in a close distance or without a microscope to help identify them correctly.
It is also quite possible for one who has been suffering from bed bug bites to suspect that what he’s experiencing might be scabies because it can be mistaken as such due to their similar symptoms. In reality, though, both skin conditions are unrelated but can happen simultaneously if someone is exposed to scabies before being bitten by bed bugs. Bed bugs cling themselves on the skin and suck the blood of their host through a beak (or rostrum), while scabies burrows themselves under the skin to feed on human blood.
Bug infestation is probably the last thing you want for your home because if left untreated, it can lead to severe itchiness and other related skin conditions like dermatitis. Not only will you need an effective solution to take care of them, but you will also have to learn more about bed bugs so that you’ll know how to get rid of them fast at any given time.
Are baby bed bugs bites scarier than adult ones?
It’s a little bit of a different story with babies and adults. This sounds very strange that they develop into anything more than just “bugs,” but they indeed have several stages of growth before adulthood. There are larva, nymph, and full-grown bedbugs. For some reason, as many as 50% of the population will show allergic reactions to the bites as babies! So if you think about it from a natural perspective, those were the smallest bites out there, so they would be more inclined to react. By contrast, only 20% will react by the adult stage (when their size increases). On top of that, babies aren’t big enough to leave those “bedbug poop” stains as often as their bigger counterparts, so you won’t see the brownish-black (or sometimes even red) marks that show up if they’ve been feasting on your skin.
Booklice bed bugs
Booklice Bed bugs are tiny little insects, but they can turn your life upside down if you let them. They look like tiny termites the size of a pinhead and are typically found in homes around books or places where there is dampness, indicating that there may be a moisture issue. They feed on a microscopic mold that grows in these conditions.
Booklice bed bugs are known to bite people, usually at night when they are sleeping, but what happens is very small bites that are not seen straight away because they usually happen before someone wakes up.
The booklouse feeds only on the spores of molds and mildews that thrive in moist areas such as bathrooms and kitchens with inadequate ventilation (and libraries!); they do not need blood to survive.
If booklice bed bugs are left untreated, they can reproduce quickly and become a real nuisance in your house. It will be necessary to take immediate action if you want to prevent them from multiplying. Here is a guide on how to get rid of this small insect infestation.
Does baking soda kill bed bugs?
Baking soda is a great solution for killing adult bedbugs – just remember that it should be used as a foaming agent so CO2 is built up in the area and the little buggers suffocate to death as they can’t breathe without oxygen. But for babies or those eggs hiding under wallpaper or carpeting because there’s no way to have them all come to one place at once. So don’t waste your time with this method; find something more effective like Sterifab (which kills 99% of germs and bedbugs).
How fast do bed bugs spread from room to room?
Bed bugs are not known to spread disease, but they can be annoying because the bites cause severe itching. Once established in an apartment or house, bed bugs can move quickly between adjoining rooms.
They do this by crawling on household objects and traveling through small openings and cracks within the walls, floor, or ceiling. They also crawl along utility pipes and wires that pass through walls, floors, and ceilings.
According to one study of infestations between apartments in five-unit building groups, bed bugs often moved from one infested unit to another via physical contact among residents. For example, residents sometimes brought used furniture into their homes without knowing it was infested with bed bugs. Within six months after moving into a five-unit building group, a resident could potentially pick up bed bugs from a neighbor s-infested furniture and bring them back into their apartment.
Bed bugs might also spread between units by traveling through shared utility lines or pipes that connect different apartments. Because of this, it often isn’t possible to prevent bed bug infestations simply by blocking the cracks and crevices in walls and around pipe penetrations.
Different types of bed bugs
There are five different species of bedbugs: Cimex hemipterus, Cimex lectularius L., Cimex latipennis , Leptocimex boueti , and Pectinophora gossypiella. They all have slightly different behaviors, but for the most part, you can expect them to be very small (about 1/5 of an inch), flat, and brown. And all species feed on blood, human or animal.
Does bleach kill bed bugs?
Bleach, and most other strong chemicals for that matter, will kill the nymphs and adults pretty quickly. However, it also kills off everything else in your house, so beware! If you want to use this method, you’ll need to do it in stages: first, put everything away (clothes, books, dishes) and move out anything that can’t be bleached (like carpeting or walls). Then go about spraying down all surfaces with a 1:1 water-bleach solution. Remember when bleaching porous material that the spray could soak through like wood paneling and make a mess where you don’t want it. So only use one part bleach for every ten parts of water to be safe.
Bed bugs worse after treatment
Bedbugs start to flare up again within a week or two of treatment because you haven’t gotten to the eggs! After all, it’s much harder for them to look for food and raise offspring than it is for an adult to recover from a few days without blood – so once they mature, they’ll start multiplying like crazy (some at 500-600 times their original size in just 14 weeks!). And that means you’ll need several treatments if you want them gone for good.
Can boric acid kill bed bugs?
Boric acid, the main component of borax powder, is used to kill ants, cockroaches, bed bugs, etc. It has been effective in killing these pests by dehydrating them, making them unable to reproduce further.
Boric acid can kill bed bugs but not all of them because it only works in contact with the insects, for example, when they walk over it or ingest it since boric acid is harmful to them and their eggs. It is also useful against hatching eggs. One of the most recommended ways of using boric acid against bed bugs is to place a small amount inside crevices so that crawling insects will contact it as they cross or hide in those areas. This method should be done at night as bed bugs tend to come out at night.
Boric acid has been used as a household product for years now. It has been used as a roach and ant killer because it dehydrates and makes their eggs not hatchable. Boric acid is cheap, safe for humans but harmful to insects; therefore, killing bed bugs with boric acid will be beneficial since it is affordable and safe compared to other methods such as spraying chemicals that can harm the user and the environment. However, if you do not apply boric acid properly or use too much of it, this method will not yield good results, so you must follow instructions on using it correctly.
How To Get Rid Of Bed Bugs With Dryer Sheets
Creating a water solution and rubbing alcohol (1:3 ratio) is much more effective at killing bedbugs because it penetrates their shells better. But still, keep in mind that the nymphs need to come into contact with the mixture for several minutes before they die, hence why using dryer sheets is not as effective! You’d be better off using them as part of your treatment by taping or stapling them directly onto surfaces where you’ve found bedbugs before simply leave them there overnight every couple of days.
Conclusion
Bedbugs can be a huge pain to get rid of and seem like they’re never really gone for good! But if you invest the time and money into treating your house thoroughly, then you’ll be able to sleep at night knowing that those little suckers won’t be coming back any time soon (or ever again). And if you’re worried about spending too much cash on treatments, don’t.
