Bedbugs are blood-sucking insects from the order Hemiptera. For full life, the insect must eat; pests choose the blood of people and domestic animals as a delicacy. Thanks to the piercing apparatus, the bug pierces the body and drinks the blood of the sleeping victim. Due to the nocturnal lifestyle of insects, detecting bloodsuckers in homes is complicated, but when pests multiply, then they can be found everywhere. There is no need to allow hordes of bloodsuckers to move around the apartment, poisoning everyday life. Useful information will tell you how to detect bedbugs in your bed.
How to detect bedbugs in an apartment
To know what to look for, you need to understand what a bug looks like. Indoor insects do not have wings, unlike their outdoor relatives. The absence of wings helps the insect to be less vulnerable; it cannot be crushed if the insect is hungry. Domestic bugs have a small round body, brown in color; when the bloodsucker is full, the body color becomes dark burgundy, almost black. The pest's body is divided into segments that have peculiar constrictions. While the pest is hungry, the abdomen is rounded; as the bloodsucker becomes saturated, the body elongates in length.
What does a bedbug nest look like? photo description
Considering that parasites crawl out mainly at night (as long as they have enough food), during the day they settle in places where sunlight does not reach. Moreover, bedbugs are packed into rather narrow cracks and flattened places. Traces of their vital activity remain here - black dots. If there are a lot of parasites, then the excrement stains large areas of the covering, as they merge together. The resulting cluster looks like a large dark mint.
A bedbug nest also contains other signs of insect habitation - a “husk” or chitinous shell, which young individuals lose during the molting process.
Individuals of different ages gather in habitat areas: from larvae to adult insects.
Bedbug eggs are also found here. These are small formations 1 mm long. Empty shells from them are also detected.
Cluster of bed bug eggs
A small nest of parasites with adults and young individuals
Characteristic traces of bed bugs accumulation
Signs of bedbug bites
Parasite bites have characteristic differences from other blood-sucking insects. How to recognize bedbug bites? The bug bites in a dotted line. This occurs due to the search for a suitable capillary for the insect, so one bite can consist of 5-7 holes. The damaged area on the body is characterized by edematous swelling and increased redness.
An allergic reaction after a bug bite is possible; it is expressed by severe itching, swelling and redness. This reaction occurs to a substance secreted by the parasite during a bite. When a bug bites through the skin, it releases an anesthetic liquid, which causes an allergy to flare up.
Bedbug bites increase every morning, this is due to the nocturnal lifestyle of the insect. Based on these signs on the body, you can independently determine the presence of night guests in bed.
Signs of bed bugs
Bedbugs in an apartment do not reveal their presence for a long time, which makes it difficult to find them at an early stage of infection. You can detect annoying guests by the following characteristic signs:
- Specific bites are a clear sign of an apartment being infested with parasites. Bedbug bites are characterized by a linear arrangement of punctures on the body - tracks, each of which has from 3 to 6 wounds. The bite site is a red, blister-like spot with signs of swelling and a lump in the center. Upon careful examination, the puncture itself is visible in the middle of the wound.
- A well-fed domestic parasite is very vulnerable to mechanical stress, so it is easy to crush. This usually happens accidentally and in the morning you can find dark brown spots on the bed.
- Waste products - droppings - are dark in color and look like miniature poppy seeds; they can be found on beds, wallpaper, and in bedbug habitats. The chitinous shells that the larva sheds can be found in any place in the apartment where the insect moved.
- Apartments in which bedbugs are firmly established have a specific smell. Some give it the aroma of cognac, others feel notes of fermented raspberries in it.
- If you suspect the presence of blood-sucking insects, you should use a simple method. Set an alarm for 3-4 a.m., after the signal, immediately turn on the light and take off the blanket. With a high degree of probability, several individuals will sit on the body and bed. If the bedbugs have not yet had time to breed in large numbers, repeat the process of identifying parasites the next night to detect them. To simplify the “hunt” for parasites, use the folk method. Cover the entire perimeter of the bed with adhesive tape and check for adhered insects in the morning.
Scotch
Detection of bedbugs in an apartment
How to detect bedbugs in an apartment? Household pests live in disarray. Among the adults you can find larvae and eggs. Pest nests look disorganized: eggs, larvae, young, adult individuals, along with the remains of old shells and excrement.
The easiest and most proven way to check for the presence of parasites that feed on blood is to wake up at night while pests are hunting. To do this, you need to set an alarm clock for 4 am, so as not to oversleep, prepare a flashlight. When the alarm clock rings, you need to act very quickly, as the parasites can hide. Turn on the flashlight and inspect the bed; you may notice one or two small insects on the sheet.
The smell of bed bugs is not the most obvious sign
Sometimes a smell in the room is indicated as a sign of the presence of bedbugs. They say that bedbugs smell like raspberries or cognac, and you can smell this smell.
In reality this is not the case. In practice, the smell of bedbugs themselves is not felt at all in apartments. Most likely, for there to be a smell of bedbugs here, there must be an incredibly large number of them.
In normal numbers, bedbugs do not smell much; their aroma is clogged with other odors in the apartment and sometimes does not even extend beyond their shelter. Therefore, this sign should not be considered significant.
How to Detect Bed Bugs
If you lay out a white sheet at night, upon examination, you will notice small blood spots. It is recommended to carefully examine the mattress cover from all sides, including seams, snakes and buttons. The mattress itself should be carefully examined: pull back the edging, inspect the bottom and side seams. If there are bedbugs, specks of blood, scales, eggs, and excrement will be found.
Bed bugs love to hide in wooden bed frames, so this is where your next inspection should be done. The first step is to inspect the joints, fasteners, and strips. It is advisable to turn the sleeping place upside down for a more thorough inspection. If the sleeping place has legs, you need to pay special attention to them, since this is the road along which the bedbugs got into the bed.
10 ways to detect blood-sucking insects
You can look for bed bugs in an apartment by external signs of their habitat, as well as by using different methods and available means. The most effective of them:
- sleeping places for people - insects make their home here;
- the source of light at night is a lantern, but you will have to wait for insects to appear;
- adhesives, streaks on surfaces;
- magnifying glass;
- focus on external signs of bedbugs;
- rubbish of unknown origin in the apartment: white and brown husks;
- bites on the body;
- red dots on the bed;
- liquid traps;
- sudden turning on of the light at night.
You can buy cardboard traps or make your own
How to find bedbugs in an apartment yourself in other places
The main way is to inspect the property. Moreover, it is not always necessary to look for insects in hidden places. If there are a lot of pests, then shells (chitinous shell) and excrement will remain in other areas (outside the nests), for example, near furniture, as well as inside cabinets, along baseboards. When there are few bedbugs, such traces can only be found in hidden areas - inside the bed, sofa, where residents usually sleep.
You can independently identify parasites by smell.
It usually appears as the number of insect colonies increases. It is especially noticeable in small rooms that are densely packed with furniture. It is more difficult to find bedbugs here because there are many hidden areas. However, upon entering the room you can smell the smell of old cognac (it’s not for nothing that they say that this alcoholic drink smells like bedbugs - the aromas are similar).
The presence of bedbugs in the house is indicated by a specific smell.
Furniture
How to find a bedbug nest in furniture? Pastel bugs often hide in furniture. To search for nests and accumulations of parasites, you need to move all cabinets and cabinets away from the walls, freeing the back panels for viewing, remove the drawers; a whole regiment of insects may be found in the grooves and fastenings. Walls hung with decorations can harbor clusters of parasites on the back walls. Clear the walls and inspect them.
Do not ignore the inspection of mezzanines, niches, storage rooms, built-in cabinets. Curtains, bedspreads, blankets, pillows, and clothing are subject to inspection.
Having considered how to detect bedbugs in an apartment, do an examination; if insects are found, proceed to destroy the bloodsuckers.
Where to look for parasites first
First: if you sleep on a bed, remove the bedding and inspect the mattress. Examine the seams and corners especially carefully - both the bedbugs themselves and their larvae may be present here.
Then lift the mattress and inspect the wooden frame underneath, the joints of all wooden structures, fasteners - bolt heads, nuts, washers.
Now unscrew all these fasteners and disassemble the bed. Inspect all joints of wooden structures. Everywhere there may be either bedbugs or traces of their activity.
If you sleep on a sofa or a folding chair, then disassemble them too. Here it is also important to go under the linings on the upholstery with a screwdriver or a knife, and it is advisable to remove these linings altogether and check the space under them. All internal cavities of the sofa are also inspected. Then it is disassembled, the backs, armrests, and all the elements on which the soft parts come into contact with each other are unscrewed - it is here, between these soft elements, that bedbugs most often hide.
If there are holes in the upholstery of the sofa, then there is a high probability that bedbugs will be inside the filling. If you don’t see them anywhere else in the apartment, then most likely they are not there at all, and here, under the upholstery, they are also absent. If there is a strong infestation, you can be sure that the bugs almost certainly got inside the filling through holes, and then before treatment you will need to think: pour the sofa with the product so that it saturates the filling, or gut it, or throw it away altogether and buy a new one. If there are no holes and the upholstery does not move away from the wooden elements anywhere, that is, you can be sure that bedbugs did not get under the upholstery, then in the future this will simplify the persecution of these insects.
Likewise, you need to disassemble and inspect the crib. Children are bitten by bedbugs just like adults. And they settle in a crib just as willingly as in an “adult” sofa.
Then, move the bedside tables and cabinets away from the walls, look at their back walls, at the lower surfaces. Here and everywhere in general you are looking for either bedbugs, or their excrement or eggs, or the remains of chitinous coverings. As a rule, in places where they accumulate there is everything - eggs, bedbugs, feces, and a lot of discarded skins.
We are sometimes asked whether it is necessary to look for bedbugs in clothes. According to the experience of exterminators, bedbugs rarely settle in clothing. People often take out clothes and rearrange them, that is, bedbugs do not feel safe here and do not make nests here. By chance, single insects may appear here, but there will be no clusters of them here. Therefore, there is no need to sort through things.
But you need to remove the baseboards and inspect them, the space behind them and under the edges of the flooring - this is where bedbugs’ favorite hiding places are located. In heavily infested apartments, exterminators sometimes had to remove the parquet flooring - under it there were also breeding grounds for bedbugs, with eggs and larvae. But you need to look at the situation - if there are a lot of parasites behind the baseboards, then look beyond the edges of the linoleum or laminate. If there is one there, lift the linoleum itself.
In addition, appliances usually need to be inspected. You need to remove the case from the computer system unit, from the TV - bedbugs can hide here too. If there are bookshelves in the room, you need to remove the books from them, and remove the shelves themselves from the walls. And in them, and behind them, and in books - between the binding and the pages - there can be bedbugs.
And so on. Large toys, carpets, paintings on the walls, flower pots, furniture - all these are possible hiding places for bedbugs. They need to be examined and the parasites themselves need to be looked for here.
It is very important during such searches not to stop only at the sofa or baseboards if you find bedbugs here. The fact is that if you have already found bedbugs in your house, then in any case you will need to fight them. You are unlikely to be able to live with them, at least for a long time. And in order to get rid of them for sure, you will need to treat all their nests with poison, or steam, or simply heat all their nests to a high temperature. That is, to process all their nests, you need to open them and understand exactly where they managed to settle and where they have not yet climbed. If you do not do this, there is a risk that when baiting, individual nests will remain untreated and parasites will survive in them. This increases the likelihood that you won’t be able to get rid of bedbugs completely. That is, if you have already found these insects, then you need to identify all their nests in the apartment, so that you can then treat them all, poison them and destroy the parasites here.
How to get rid of parasites
If pests are found in your home, every minute counts – the parasites multiply quickly. To get rid of bedbugs once and for all, you need to buy a chemical for treating your home and a steam cleaner. If you find out that bedbugs have been found in an apartment building, this indicates their frequent return, which means a steam cleaner is necessary for prevention.
The product must be safe, have a long residual effect, odorless, and not addictive to parasites. Delta Zone powder meets these characteristics. Before treatment, it is necessary to carry out general cleaning; if insects were searched for in the house before treatment, then the apartment is ready, the furniture has been moved away, the walls are free, nests have been found.
Before destroying pests, you need to carefully study the instructions. Next, prepare a solution, which is poured into a spray bottle. If the chemical is powdery, the treatment will be dry.
The person disinfecting the premises must wear closed work clothes, safety glasses and a respirator; the treatment is carried out in rubber gloves.
After treatment, you should close the room and leave for the recommended period. Arriving home, you need to do some cleaning, removing dead insects. It is recommended to do wet cleaning in places of frequent contact with people (dishes, household and plumbing equipment, tables and surfaces); a soda solution is suitable for these purposes.
How to find a bedbug nest?
As mentioned above, first of all you should carefully inspect the sleeping place and pay attention to unclear points, if of course there are any.
Often these dots can be missed because they are located in dark places or on a dark background, so it makes sense to use glasses or a magnifying glass and a flashlight.
When bedbugs have settled away from the sleeping area, for example, in carpets or in shelves, from the bed/sofa you can find a path of small dark dots in any direction.
Using the tracks mentioned above, you can easily find a bedbug nest.
Also, traces of the vital activity of these insects can be seen on bed linen, on the pillow and near the locations of the human body where there were bites.
In some cases, it makes sense to disassemble the furniture into its constituent elements, but this is, so to speak, an extreme option if there is an understanding that such actions cannot be done without.
You can find a bedbug nest nearby with a cluster of larvae.
These are small insects that hatch from eggs.
Arthropod eggs are opaque white grains, similar to rice granules or white beans pressed at the waist.
Fortunately, the female also lays eggs next to each other. In one clutch there can be about 10, or even 15 of them!
Parasites often settle in sockets and hoods.
Be careful if you intend to pick at such places with a screwdriver, because the consequences are unpredictable.
Picking out insects from such specific places is very difficult, therefore, as an option, you can use a vacuum cleaner with high power, and after the whole procedure, shake out the reusable bag directly into a trash can located on the street; simply throw away the disposable bag.
Attention!
Throwing bedbugs into the garbage chute is strictly prohibited! Otherwise, the entire house, including your apartment, will become infected with bedbugs.
A vacuum cleaner cannot be considered an absolute remedy, because... even one remaining bug in a socket or hood may in the near future multiply and everything will start all over again.
Therefore, it is best to spend time disassembling the outlet, but first, without fail, disconnect the power supply from it and check it with an indicator screwdriver.
This way you will protect yourself from electric shock.
In addition to all the actions described above, you also need to inspect various cabinets, ottomans, stools, other furniture, as well as lamps, lampshades, sconces, chandeliers, shades.
Also carefully inspect the walls and ceilings; oddly enough, even in the daytime you can find a simple crawling bug on a light surface, accidentally ending up where you didn’t expect to see it at all.
Looking for bed bug nests
Half the success in finding these insects comes from knowing their habitats. In addition, the conditions under which bed parasites best develop and reproduce are taken into account.
Food availability
Apartment bugs make their home wherever they can find a source of food. For them it is a person (his blood). Animals become food for pests only if there is no alternative.
Nests of bed bugs can always be found in upholstered furniture (mainly inside the sofa) and beds.
Insects are awake at night, and therefore look for food at this time. In addition, a person is active during the day, it is impossible to attack him until he goes to bed. Insects live where there is food, but even when the food source disappears, the bugs do not die, but go into a state of diapause (similar to suspended animation).
Bed bugs feed on human blood
Hidden places
Couch parasites cannot tolerate sunlight, so they look for places where the rays do not reach. Most often these are pieces of upholstered furniture; here there is a higher probability of attacking a person. As the colony grows, pests also colonize other places: cabinets, carpet, curtains, sockets, paintings, books, wallpaper (where the seams do not fit tightly to the wall), household appliances, even children's toys (in rare cases), areas under the baseboard . Bed bugs will not live far from humans. For example, they will meet in the attic or ceiling.
Parasites hide in the cracks and folds of upholstered furniture
Warm
Comfortable room temperature for apartment bugs is: +20°…25°C. Man lives under the same conditions. Cold weather provokes a slowdown in the development of individuals. However, they are not dying yet. Death occurs if the temperature drops below -10°C, which cannot be achieved at home. A warmer microclimate (up to 30°C and above) accelerates the development of insects, but they die when the temperature rises to +45°C.
Bedbugs die when treated with steam
My personal story “How I looked for bedbugs in my apartment”
“I’ll say right away that I am a lover of antiquities. Antiques, old appliances - I really like all this. This is the background, and now I’ll get to the point: I noticed that upon entering the house there was a strange smell. At first I thought that the food had gone bad, I washed everything and couldn’t find the source. Later I remembered that mosquitoes began to bite me more often, but were they mosquitoes? And then I began to suspect evil.
Olga, 35 years old, Tula
I have bedbugs in my house - I can’t think of anything worse, because there are so many places where they can hide. But I decided to defend my property, for me it became more important than my own health. I went through everything and found no parasites. Then I covered with tape the main places where they could be. But how surprised I was when I found insects on the tape in the morning near the socket above the bed.”
Bed bugs often hide in cracks near electrical outlets
