Bed Bugs

Recommended Program Get a Free Quote Description Adult bed bugs are approximately 3/16 inch long and reddish-brown. They are generally flat with an oval shape. Although once fed, they become plump and reddish in color. The newly hatched nymph is white to a pale yellow color, until their first blood meal after which they become

reddish-brown in color.

Habitat

Bed bugs infest the humblest of homes and the most extravagant hotel or mansion. Bed bugs are bought into homes on infested furniture or in luggage and other personal belongings after staying in infested lodgings. In apartment buildings, townhouses, hotels and other connected dwellings bed bugs can migrate from one infested unit into other via electrical wiring, plumbing and adjoining walls.

Bed bugs generally hide during the day, coming out at night to feed on their hosts, such as humans, birds, or other family pets.

Diet

Bed bugs feed primarily on human blood, but they will also feed on the blood of poultry, mice, rats, birds, dogs and cats if necessary. If a host is not available, bed bugs can still survive for up to 365 days or more without a blood meal. During non-feeding periods, bed bugs will hide in cracks and crevices in close proximity to the host (e.g., mattresses, bed frames, headboards, box springs, behind wall hangings or baseboards, torn wall paper, bedroom furniture, etc.).

Generally, bed bugs are nocturnal, feeding when their host is asleep but will adjust their feeding habits to match the sleeping habits of the host. For example, if the host begins working at night and sleeps during the daytime hours, bed bugs will become day feeders. If the host begins sleeping in another room, bed bugs will follow to the new location.

Feeding only takes about 5 to 10 minutes and is usually unnoticed by the host. Afterward, the bite may become inflamed and itch, but many people never react

Life Cycle & Reproduction

Female bedbugs can lay up to five eggs in a day and 500 during a lifetime. Bed bugs can live for up to 18 months or more. Bed bug eggs are visible to the naked eye measuring about 1 mm in length (approximately 2 grains of salt) and are a milky-white tone in color. The eggs can often be found in dark, protected places such as under mattress, in box springs, walls, floor cracks, cracks in furniture, behind baseboards, under loose wallpaper and behind pictures. Eggs generally hatch in 7 to 10 days. At room temperature, development from the nymph stage to a sexually mature adult is about 5 weeks. A bed bug requires a blood meal for each of the five nymphal stages, as well as a blood meal by the adult female before she can lay eggs.

Threat

When a bed bug bites, it injects an anti-blood clotting chemical into the skin. Some people may actually be allergic to bed bugs and the degree of itching is determined by how allergic a person is. If you notice any signs of infection, call your physician IMMEDIATELY.  Scratching the bites can also result in an infection. If you do not get an infection, the bites are simply an irritating nuisance. It may take a few weeks for the itching to subside and for the welts to disappear. It is believed by many that bed bugs do not carry pathogens. However, this theory has never been proven or disproven.