What is a Bed bug?
A bed bug is a small, flat, reddish-brown bug that can be found in homes all over the world. It hides during the day and comes out during the night to look for blood. A bed bug has a special ingredient in its saliva that keeps blood from clotting while it’s eating. They are visible to the naked eye, but often hide in cracks and crevices. When bed bugs feed, their bodies swell and become a brighter red. The typical life span of a bed bug is about 10 months. They can survive for months without feeding.
What a Bed bug Bite Looks and Feels Like:
Typically, the bite is painless and rarely awakens a sleeping person. If a person gets bitten by a bedbug, the bite will feel itchy. Bedbug bites look like little red bumps, and they can sometimes occur in a line on the body. Although bed bugs may be a nuisance to people, they are not known to spread disease.
What You Should Do:
If you think you’ve been bitten by a bed bug, wash the bites with soap and water. Put on some calamine lotion to help with the itching. Try not to scratch the bites too much because this can make the bites become infected.
How do I know if my home is infested with bed bugs?
If you have bed bugs, you may also notice itchy welts on you or your family member’s skin. You may also see the bed bugs themselves, small bloodstains from crushed bed bugs, or dark spots from bed bug droppings in your home. Bed bugs often hide in or near beds and bedroom furniture, and in the tufts, seams, and folds of mattresses and daybed covers.
In more severe infestations, bed bugs may spread to cracks and crevices in bed frames and box springs, behind headboards, inside nightstands, behind baseboards, window and door casings, pictures, and moldings, and in nearby furniture, loosened wallpaper, and cracks in plaster and flooring. Bed bugs may also hide in piles of books, papers, boxes, and other clutter near sleeping areas.
How can I get rid of bed bugs?
The surest way to get rid of bed bugs is first make sure it is bed bugs. Then call a Professional Pest Control Company to perform a thorough inspection to find and eliminate bed bug hiding places, after treatment is done the technician should return after a week or so to recheck for new bed bug activity.
Find out where bed bugs are hiding in your home. Use a bright flashlight to examine bedroom furniture for bed bugs or their dark droppings also check:
- Behind the headboard.
- In the seams and tufts of the mattress, and around or inside the box spring.
- Along the crevices of bedroom baseboards, especially the baseboard area below the headboard inside and around nightstands.
- Behind or within other items or cracks in the bedroom (for example, window and door casings, pictures, and moldings, nearby furniture, loosened wallpaper, and cracks in plaster and partitions, and clutter.)
- In addition to using a flashlight, carefully aiming a hot hair dryer into these crevices while looking will help force bed bugs out.
To learn more about bed bugs check out our pest library. You can also visit one of our retail store locations across western Canada or contact us online through our “What’s Bugging You” form. Our customer service representatives are ready to help!