How to identify bed bugs?
Bed bugs are an oval shape and are up to 4-5 mm long when fully grown. Adult bed bugs have a flattened body and their skin colour is either rust brown or a deeper red brown.
Due to the flattened body of a bed bug they can easily hide in small places such as baseboards, cracks in floors, under carpets, behind loose wallpaper, bed frames, sofas, behind picture frames and many other places which makes them very difficult to detect. They tend to stay together and large infestations will give off a sweet but unpleasant smell.
What are some key signs of bed bugs?
If you suspect bed bugs, or want to be proactive, look for live or dead bugs or the skins they can leave behind when they are molting. After feeding, bed bugs will regularly leave behind small spots of reddish-black fecal matter on your bedding, mattress or box springs. They will lay their eggs (1/32″ to 1/8″ in size) in dark crevices near feeding areas.
Bed bug bites can also go unnoticed, and are even often misdiagnosed, making detection that much more difficult. Discover more answers to bed bug questions here.
Bed bugs spread
Once established, bed bugs tend to stay put but can spread due to any of the following;
- Being disturbed (i.e. disassembling furniture or incorrect pesticide application)
- A food shortage (i.e. no host) may cause them to migrate to neighbouring rooms
- A shortage of harbourage spaces may cause them to migrate to neighbouring rooms
- Infested furniture moved down a hall, or passed on to others
- Vacuum cleaners used for multiple rooms
- Commercial laundry machines
What to do if traces of bed bugs are found?
Do not
- Disturb the room further. Leaving the “scene” untouched will help Promax Pest Control diagnose the problem.
- Take any items out of the room. Doing so will only help the bed bugs spread.
Do
- Stop using the room and “quarantine” it
- If the room is occupied, work with management to move guests to a new room
- Contact a professional pest control company immediately in order to inspect the infested room and/or pre-treat rooms to which any guests might be moved. In British Columbia you can only pre-treat when evidence of an infestation is found.
How can I prevent bed bug infestation?
Look for live or dead bugs or their skins, Check beds for red spots of fecal matter, Clean and vacuum bedrooms regularly, Protect mattresses and boxsprings with certified bed bug encasements, Use light coloured sheets to spot stains, Check all furniture near sleeping areas, Look around seams, crevices, and folds, Seal cracks in walls, trim, and bed frames.
Since bed bugs are such good hitchhikers and often hide in hard to reach areas the best way to truly rid yourself of bed bugs is often professional pest control. Promax Pest Control uses specially trained bed bug dogs, to detect anywhere live bed bugs and their eggs are hiding – and uses customized control strategies to make sure they’re gone for good.
Habitat, Diet, and Behaviour
What is the lifecycle of a bed bug?
Bed bugs undergo gradual metamorphosis (egg, nymph, adult). Nymphs are smaller versions of the adults and will go through several molts until fully grown.
Females lay 200 to 500 eggs in her lifetime, 10 to 50 at a time, on rough surfaces. Eggs then hatch within 6 to 17 days, with adult bedbugs having the ability to survive over 1 year without feeding.
