About Bed Bugs

A Little History of Bed Bugs

Bed bugs have feasted on sleeping humans for thousands of years. After World War II, they were eradicated from most developed nations with the use of DDT. This pesticide has since been banned because it's so toxic to the environment.

Spurred perhaps by increases in international travel, bedbugs are becoming a problem once again. The risk of encountering bedbugs increases if you spend time in places with high turnovers of night-time guests - such as hotels, hospitals or homeless shelters.

What do Bed Bugs look like?

Bed bugs are reddish brown, oval and flat, about the size of an apple seed when they are adults. During the day, they hide in the cracks and crevices of beds, box springs, headboards and bed frames. It's a daunting task to eliminate bedbugs from your home. Professional help is recommended.

Life Cycle of a Bed Bug

Bed bugs begin as eggs, which hatch into nymphs. A bed bug is considered a nymph until it has had 5 blood meals and shed it’s skin with each feeding, growing through 5 nymphal stages before it is considered an adult.

Bed bugs deposit three to eight eggs at a time. A total of 300-500 eggs can be produced by a single bug. Their eggs are extremely tiny – only 0.8-1.3 mm long, clear and curved. They are deposited in clusters and attached to cracks, crevices or rough surfaces near adult harborages with a sticky epoxy-like substance. Eggs typically hatch in a week to 12 days.

Once hatched, the nymph is nearly transparent before feeding, and then turns a reddish color after getting a blood meal. The life cycle from newborn to adult usually takes about 32-48 days. Adult bed bugs can survive for up to seven months without blood and have been known to live in empty buildings for up to one year.

Bed bugs feed for 3 to 5 minutes at night, in the early morning hours, before returning to their harborage area, usually located a few meters from their feeding area.

What are the symptoms of bed bugs?

It can be difficult to distinguish bed bug bites from other insect bites. In general, bed bug bites usually are:

• Red and oddly shaped with no center point
• Arranged in a rough line where the body touches the mattress while asleep
• Located on the face, neck, torso, arms and hands
• Itchy

Many people have no reaction at all to bed bug bites, while others experience an allergic reaction that can include severe itching, blisters or hives.

Control

A thorough inspection of the area of infestation should be performed before proceeding with control procedures. All potential daytime harborage areas must be located and treated. The use of a K9 team will increase your chances of finding bed bugs.

Non-Chemical Management

A number of non-chemical control methods can help manage this pest. These methods are directed at killing or removing bugs or restricting access to beds or bedding materials.

You can remove bed bugs and eggs with the suction wand of a strong HEPA-filtered vacuum; however, you must target the vacuum on the seams of mattresses and box springs, along perimeters of carpets, under baseboards, and in other areas where bed bugs live. A single vacuuming rarely gets all bugs and eggs and, therefore, should be repeated. Also, the vacuum bag must be disposed of properly after use as bed bugs are still alive and could escape to reinfest your property Portable steam cleaners can also be used to clean mattresses and furniture.

Heat treatments are available to treat entire rooms in homes for bed bug infestations. The current label use for commercial heating services is 140 degrees F for two hours or 130 degrees F for three hours, which will kill all stages of bed bugs – eggs, nymphs and adults. The benefits of heat treatment include:

• Saves you time and money
• No need to throw away expensive furnishings
• Environmentally-safe and non-toxic
• Proven to kill all stages of bed bugs
• Treatment area can be re-entered same day

Insecticides/Pesticides

Insecticides alone won't control bed bug infestations. In fact, bed bug resistance to most chemicals on the market has been widely documented by researchers.

Insecticides may be applied as liquids directly to cracks, crevices, bed frames, baseboards, or similar sites, or they may be applied as dusts in cracks and crevices. Pesticides generally are not applied to mattresses or bedding because of risk to people.

Any chemical treatment must be combined with a program of removing and cleaning infested beds, bedding, and other harborage sites and followed up with a regular detection program to ensure treatment was effective.