Reasons for the appearance of bedbugs in an apartment

General information about bedbugs

Before you begin to destroy parasites, you need to understand what they are and what kind of life they lead. These are small, flat, brown bugs. They feed only on human blood. Among the domestic varieties, only two are distinguished:

Cimex lectularius;
Cimex hemipterus.

Lectularis live mainly in temperate latitudes, while Hemipterus - in the hot climate of the tropics. Both species are united by a predilection for biting people at night for food. The consequences of such attacks are called chemiptorosis. Parasites rarely attack domestic animals, since their skin is denser.

After a feast of insects, traces of red dots remain on the human body, resulting in inflammation and severe itching. For allergy sufferers, more serious consequences are possible, such as urticaria and even anaphylactic shock. Parasites are not considered carriers of infectious diseases.

How do they reproduce?

The life cycle of bedbugs lasts from 12 months to 2 years, even in the absence of a constant source of food. This is provided they enter hibernation when the ambient temperature drops to 15 °C, which does not in any way affect their reproductive capabilities.

The female bug does not have genitals, in place of which there is an egg deposit. During a lifetime, a female lays up to 500 eggs, which will soon turn into larvae, and within a month they will be ready for reproduction.

Externally, the larvae are similar to adult parasites, only smaller in size and colorless. During the transition to adulthood, they undergo up to five molts and darken. This explains why numerous parasitic colonies form so quickly.

Where do bed bugs come from and how to get rid of them once and for all?

The appearance of bedbugs in the house is a surprise for the owners, and an unpleasant one at that. The vast majority of people, when faced with this problem, are ashamed to talk about it. This is due to the fact that there is a certain myth that bedbugs live where it is dirty. It's a delusion! Bedbugs are not interested in dirt. But during frequent cleaning and removal of unnecessary items, you can quickly notice them and therefore get rid of them faster. They may come from neighbors, but they can also be brought from work, guests or travel. Bed bugs are found even in places where they should not be found. They are common in buses, trains, airplanes, hotels, nightclubs, and hotels. Even very expensive and prestigious establishments are affected by the problem of bed bugs. The fight against bedbugs can take a long time if you do not start it on time and do not use effective methods.

How can you tell if there are bed bugs?

They live in colonies, usually hiding during the day and going out to hunt at night. The presence of bedbugs at home can be seen by the bite marks on the body. They usually bite on the places where the skin is thinnest: the inside of the arms and thighs, the back, the neck. The bite may take about 5-10 minutes, but the person does not feel it. These pests inject an anesthetic into the wound, which is why there is no feeling of pain, and inflammation appears later.

The appearance of the bites has its own distinctive features, for example, three wounds in a row around the ankle or bites running along the blood vessels. Bed bugs are carriers of many diseases, so their presence cannot be ignored. The site of their bite causes itching, redness, and scratching can cause infection. This causes anxiety, general weakness and insomnia. Children and the elderly suffer greatly from bites, as bites often provoke serious allergies.

They leave typical traces of their existence in places where they gather. These are empty eggs and droppings in the form of dark spots - the most common evidence of their development indoors.

Where should you look for bedbugs in an apartment?

The discovery of bedbugs suggests that perhaps they live with neighbors, both those on the sides and those living above or below. They can migrate through ventilation and other passages, even covering distances of dozens of floors. This is confirmed by the observations of specialists who exterminate bedbugs in St. Petersburg and the region.

The bug's body is flat, so it can hide in all sorts of crevices. Insects prefer dark places. They love to live on objects made of wood, paper, fabric, so you first need to look for them in such places. Bed bugs are most often found inside or near the bed to be closer to their prey. This way they can easily attack and retreat unnoticed.

Bed bugs can be found in the house:

In sofa and bed frames.
In narrow holes.
On mattresses.
In the bends and seams of the fabric.
In picture frames.
Behind the wallpaper.
Under the carpets.
Inside the socket housings.
In the folds of curtains.
In drawer hinges.
Behind panels and baseboards.
In furniture crevices.
In linen that is stored in the bedroom.

How to deal with bed bugs?

With the appearance of bedbugs, many people begin to buy different types of drugs to combat such pests. But not all sold insecticides, traps, sprays, and baits help get rid of them quickly and reliably. Many products only disturb bed bugs, so they begin to look for other hiding places in the apartment. This almost always costs more than immediately contacting specialized companies that destroy bedbugs using modern methods and means. Conventional drugs available to everyone have too low a concentration of the active substance, so they do not get rid of uninvited guests. They also do not affect the larvae, from which new offspring will soon hatch. Therefore, such methods can only aggravate the situation and lead to an increase in the number of insects and their partial migration to neighbors.

Professional companies fight bedbugs using certified chemicals that are absolutely safe for humans. The treatment is carried out using special equipment that splits the solution into nanoparticles, which, in turn, fall into the most hidden corners. The method of exposure to hot and cold fog is combined. Bed bugs die in low and high temperatures. Hot mist is very effective as it kills bedbugs at any stage of development, including eggs, which are not affected by most insecticides.

If you are interested in the destruction of bedbugs in St. Petersburg, Leningrad, Pskov, Novgorod regions, then we can give an example. Its employees have the required permits and approvals, equipment and means to carry out the bedbug removal procedure quickly, inexpensively, and with a guarantee.

How to prevent bed bugs from appearing in your home?

When visiting problem areas or when delivering furniture or things to your home, it is advisable to check them for the presence of bedbugs:

Before purchasing items or used furniture, you should check them for obvious signs of bedbugs.
When returning home from a trip, you need to carefully check your luggage before it is returned to your apartment.
It is worth reducing the number of objects cluttering the apartment, especially in the bedrooms.
It is recommended to regularly check beds, as well as other furniture in the bedroom, for the presence of bedbugs.

If you detect individual specimens of these unpleasant insects in a timely manner, you can completely protect your home from their appearance.

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Lifestyle

Bedbugs are a synanthropic species of insects that can only exist near humans. This is a source of food for them. The vital activity of bedbugs increases at night, when the victim is fast asleep and you can freely feast on blood.

During the day, they hide in hidden places: bedding, in the mattress, on the bed frame, in cracks and crevices, behind wallpaper and frames on the wall.

The bites of adult bloodsuckers are not felt, since when they puncture the epidermis, they release an anesthetic enzyme with saliva. Nymphs do not possess this property, so their attacks are more painful to bear.

On the bottom of the abdomen, bedbugs have glands that emit a pungent odor in case of danger. That is why, during mass persecution, a sickening aroma is felt in the places where insects are localized, with which they give a signal for migration.

Why are bedbugs looking for new territory to settle in?

Bed bugs can spread intensively in case of urgent need. They are characterized by two types of behavior: local and long-distance spread. The first case involves short runs from the nest to the person, which contributes to the formation of new settlements in the same area.

The main way for parasites to spread throughout an apartment and even an apartment building is through active dispersal. Insect populations move in different ways. It can be:

ventilation shafts;
wiring;
external walls of houses, with penetration through window frames;
doorways.

Since bloodsuckers can go without food for a long time, such trips are not a burden to them.

Bedbugs are not cockroaches, they are not greedy for garbage, but they are more likely to settle in housing that does not comply with sanitary standards. In a cluttered space there are many nooks and crannies where you can hide and start reproducing.

The problem with exterminating modern bedbugs is that over many years of fighting them, they have developed immunity to many chemicals. Effective sanitation can only be done by contacting specialized SES services or using insecticides on the recommendation of professionals.

The advantage of exterminators is that they use advanced preparations that provide long-term protection of the property. In one treatment, it is possible to destroy not only adult parasites, but their larvae and eggs. It's difficult to do this on your own.

This procedure does not take much time and is reasonably priced. Safe for people and pets living in the apartment. So, after sanitization, you can go back and live on the same day without worrying about your own health.

Prevention measures

Since bedbugs appear in an apartment mainly from neighbors, you need to start with preventive measures that prevent the independent migration of parasites:

Place small mesh for ventilation, and in the warm season, for windows. This measure will protect against emerging adults and large larvae, the speed of which allows them to cover significant distances. Very small bugs can easily crawl into the mesh cells, but they go on this journey much less often, since their speed is 4 times lower, and the supply of nutrients in the body is less.
Read also: How to deal with bedbugs yourself. How to kill bedbugs at home
Disassemble the sockets and insulate them using sealants or cement mixtures.
Repair windows and entrance doors, get rid of even the slightest cracks in them.
Treat all possible ways of entry into the apartment with long-acting anti-bedbug preparations: ventilation, windows, entrance and balcony doors.

In addition to blocking access routes for insects from neighboring rooms, you can significantly reduce the risk of infection by single insects carried into the house in things. Here's how to deal with them:

After traveling, all washable items should be washed at 60°C. The rest should be packed in sealed bags immediately after arrival and taken to dry cleaning.
Every item purchased second-hand must first be treated with a bedbug repellent, and then brought into the house. Used upholstered furniture and mattresses can only be purchased as a last resort. You need to be especially attentive to things that end up in the trash or are sold for pennies, even if they look like new. People often don't know how to effectively remove bedbugs, so they have no choice but to get rid of infested furniture.

We smoothly move on to the question of where it is possible for parasites to enter a living space. Previously, it turned out that the reason is not always the social status of the residents.

The main causes of infection in residential premises:

Carrying in together with things and furniture bought secondhand. The previous owner may not be aware of their presence. Therefore, it is necessary to inspect such purchases thoroughly.
A person comes to visit with an insect on his clothes. The newcomer quickly settles into a new place, where he soon creates a large population.
Brought back from vacation, along with luggage. A standard situation is when, after spending the night in an unreliable hotel, a couple of parasites crawl into a suitcase and move to another place of residence with the traveler. Therefore, it is recommended not to keep luggage bags under the bed, but to put them high in the closet and lock them.
Mass transition from neighbors. This is possible with persecution, hunger and repairs. Then the bloodsuckers have to look for a safe place with a new source of food. Neighborhood parasites begin to starve when colonies grow to incredible sizes and there are not enough local residents for everyone. Or the apartment is empty. Individuals of different ages take part in the hike, but not all of them reach their destination.

People who have not encountered the problem of parasitic cohabitation should adhere to preventive measures. Effective folk remedies with repellent properties will help with this. These include: fragrant grass, liquid strong-smelling chemicals. They keep the living space clean, do not clutter up the space, and systematically inspect sleeping areas and other hard-to-reach places for the presence of bedbugs.

Bed bugs in new housing

When moving into a purchased apartment, you must check it for the presence of bedbugs: carefully inspect the baseboards, cracks in the floor, and wallpaper. Attention should be paid to traces of insect activity: debris in nest sites, small black specks on the wallpaper in the bedroom.

At the slightest suspicion that bedbugs lived in the apartment, you need to treat the entire room with insect repellents even before moving in, because it will be much more difficult to get rid of the parasites once they drink fresh blood and lay eggs.

It is necessary to poison bedbugs in a new apartment even if not a single living insect was found.

If no one has lived in the room for some time, the parasites dry out, turning into a kind of dry shells, and then easily restore to their previous size after the first meal.

In some cases, it is possible to detect insects in a purchased home only after several months. The cause of the appearance of parasites in this case will be the balcony. In the middle zone, they can easily spend the winter on glazed balconies, and in the south - on open ones, calmly surviving 10-degree frosts. The first time you open the balcony door, bedbugs will be in the room for a long time.

Signs of blood-sucking insects

It is possible to detect the unwanted presence of parasites in the house based on a number of signs:

Bite marks on the body after waking up, which subsequently begin to itch and swell. Such bites are arranged in a chain.
Red spots appear on bed linen and pajamas, resulting from the activity of bloodsuckers at night.
Black debris on the bed is bedbug excrement.
There is an unpleasant sweetish smell near the sleeping places, which is typical when there is a large concentration of parasites.

Any of the listed signs serves as a signal to take immediate countermeasures. But first they look for nests so that disinfestation is more productive. Insects settle closer to the victim when it is in a helpless state, that is, sleeping or resting. These are beds, sofas, armchairs. When you remove the mattress, it becomes clear who is the culprit of the night's troubles.

Sources of bedbugs

To solve the problem of emerging pests or prevent the problem in advance, you do not need to immediately run to the store. The first thing you need to understand is what are the different ways for individuals to get into a human home.

Let's consider the reasons why the comfort of your own home is disturbed by an unpleasant phenomenon.

1. Unsanitary conditions. It is not always clear why pests chose this particular apartment and not another. And in some cases the answer lies on the surface. Although bedbugs, unlike cockroaches and ants, have no interest in trash cans and leftover crumbs, they are more likely to choose a home with general unsanitary conditions. The carelessness of the residents becomes an invitation card for bloodsuckers, who can calmly settle and reproduce. All other things being equal, bedbugs are likely to bypass a clean home and choose an untidy one. In the process of searching for the original source of infection, first of all pay attention to the condition of the home. It is possible that in your case the answer is on the surface.

2. Unclean neighbors. Why do bedbugs appear in an apartment that is carefully monitored? The question is relevant. Indeed, we are accustomed to firmly associate the presence of insects with the uncleanliness of the owners, but this is not always the case.

If you are an exemplary housewife, and the neighbor’s apartment is a real hotbed of dirt, cleanliness will not help. In almost 100% of cases, rapidly reproducing parasites will colonize your territory. In such a situation, it is useless to fight both neighbors and insects. If you destroy some aliens, new ones will still come running.

There is only one option - installing barrier protection. This service is offered by sanitation services as part of general pest control.

Order professional pest control. The arriving technician will definitely determine the source of the problem (in this case, the source is the neighbors). In this regard, the specialist will offer you, after the main treatment of the premises, to install barrier protection for the apartment. We highly recommend agreeing to this measure. In the case of conventional processing, you will simply throw money away. After all, even professional extermination of insects will not prevent new individuals from coming running from outside.

By its principle, barrier protection involves the application of an insecticidal preparation in the areas of entrance doors, ventilation openings, and so on. Thus, foreign parasites simply will not be able to penetrate the premises.

3. Foreign objects . Very often, parasites “come” to a person’s home inside various objects. Most often these are furniture, household appliances, bags. This can happen when buying used items, because it is not known in what environment these items were previously. We advise you to carefully treat new items that enter your home. You should not purchase household appliances and furniture in dubious places or from dubious people.

Moreover, it sometimes happens that contaminated furniture and equipment are completely new, brought from the factory warehouse. The presence of insects in production premises indicates only one thing: those in charge ignore mandatory sanitary standards, which puts the activities of the organization and its clients at risk.

4. The result of a trip to warm countries. It also happens: you went to a resort or just to a warm country, and on the way back you took a couple of bloodsuckers with you. This seems paradoxical. But if you look at it, there is nothing surprising in this. After all, bedbugs come from the warmer parts of the planet. And you shouldn’t assume that only in Russia people neglect sanitary standards. It is possible that you have stayed in an infected place.

Upon arrival home, the parasite, hidden in the suitcase, gets out and begins to multiply in a new territory.

To prevent this from happening, be careful about the places you stop at when traveling. And upon return, carefully check the contents. It is better to wash all clothes immediately in hot water. Inspect the remaining items. As a preventive measure, you can spray the contents of bags and suitcases with insect repellent spray.

5. Recording on a person. In addition to objects and bags, parasites can enter a room directly on a person. These could be the residents themselves, their pets, or some workers. This happens in different ways.

For example, visiting guests whose sanitary situation is unknown to you may have this result. The parasite gets into the folds of clothing and simply does not have time to crawl back out when the person puts on this item and goes to his home.

In addition, bedbugs can jump high and far. Therefore, an individual can jump on you even in public transport. And on your beloved pet - when he walks near the yard garbage dump.

There are many options. The advice is the same - a thorough examination of yourself and your pets after unfamiliar places.

6. Pests may be waiting in your new home. Yes, this happens. Think about it, if we are talking about buying a secondary home, and you are not familiar with the former owners, as well as their level of love for cleanliness. The sanitary condition of the premises can be completely different.

As frequent eyewitnesses of this situation, we recommend that all happy owners of a new apartment call sanitary technicians to carry out professional disinfection. There is no need to wait for surprises to reveal themselves. It is better to anticipate this exciting moment and sleep peacefully.