If you have a bed bug infestation, it is preferable to discover it before it becomes entrenched or spreads. Call Indy bed bug professionals now for assistance. Treatment of a tiny bed bug infestation, while inconvenient, is far less expensive and simpler than treatment of a vast infestation.

Nonetheless, low-level infestations are significantly more difficult to detect and appropriately characterize. It is easy to confuse other insects, such as carpet beetles, for bed bugs. If a bed bug infestation is misidentified, the bugs have more time to move to other areas of the home or hitchhike to a neighbor’s residence to create a new infestation. Learn Bed Bugs: How To Check.

Bites on the skin are a poor sign of an infection with bed bugs. Bites from bed bugs may resemble those from other insects (such as mosquitoes or chiggers), rashes (such as dermatitis or fungal diseases), or even hives. Some individuals do not react to bed insect bites.

Looking for Bed Bug Signs

The most accurate technique to diagnose a suspected bed bug infestation is to search for bed bug physical indications. Check for the following whether cleaning, changing bedding, or being away from home:

• Crushed bed bugs often behind rusty or crimson stains on bed linens and mattresses.
• Bed bug feces appears as little, dark dots (about the size of a comma) that may spill over fabrics as a marker might.
• Tiny eggs and eggshells (about 1 mm) and pale yellow skins that nymphs shed as they mature.
• Live bed bugs.

Where Bed Bugs Hide

When they are not eating, bed bugs hide in various locations. They can be discovered around the bed along the piping, seams, and tags of the mattress and box spring, as well as in cracks in the frame and headboard.

If the room is badly infested, bed bugs may be present:

• In the seams of chairs and sofas, between cushions, and curtain folds.
• In drawer joints.
• In electrical outlets and home appliances.
• Under wallpaper and wall hangings that are loose.
• At the intersection between the wall and ceiling.
• Even in the screw’s head.

Since bed bugs are around the thickness of a credit card, they can conceal themselves in extremely small spaces. If a crack can accommodate a credit card, it may conceal a bed insect.

Bed Bug Habits and Behavior

Understanding the behavior of bed bugs (how they feed, live, and reproduce) can enable you to detect an infestation before it becomes entrenched and to monitor for their continued presence in your house following treatment.

Feeding:

• They appear to favor people, but may also consume blood from other animals and birds.

• Will wander 5 to 20 feet away from established hiding areas (called harborage) to feed on a host.

• Even though they are typically active at night, they will seek food during the day if they are hungry.

• Feeding might take between 3 and 12 minutes.

• Rusty or tarry patches on bed linens or in insect hiding places are the result of adults and big nymphs excreting the leftovers of previous blood meals 20% of the time while still eating.

Life cycles and mating:

• Bed bugs must consume at least one blood meal before advancing to the next of their six life phases.

• They can feed many times.

• Each stage involves the shedding of skin.

• Males and females must eat at least once every 14 days to sustain mating and egg production.

• Each female may produce between one and three eggs each day and between two hundred and five hundred eggs in her lifetime (6-12 months but could be longer).

• Under good conditions, the egg-to-egg life cycle can last four to five weeks.

Habitual conditions:

• Bed bugs may live and remain active at temperatures as low as 7°C (46°F), but they perish around 45°C (113°F).

• To kill bed bugs using heat, the room must be significantly hotter so that persistent heat may reach the insects regardless of where they are hiding.

• Bed bugs are prevalent nearly wherever their hosts may reside.

• Tropical bed bugs (Cimex hemipterus) are prevalent in tropical and subtropical regions and require a higher average temperature than regular bed bugs.

If you feel that you have a chance of having or getting bed bugs and don’t know how to identify them, we recommend you stay on our site to read about Bed Bugs: How Big Are They? You can also contact Whistler Pest Control at (317)943-4008 for more pest knowledge and get free pest control quotes now!