Blood-sucking insects in bed or who bites at night?

The insects that have settled in your home are unlikely to delight anyone. And the habit of “sleeping” in your bed can completely terrify many. And no wonder! After all, such parasites can cause a lot of trouble with their bites and subsequent itching. And probably not everyone knows that these “comrades” are also carriers of very unpleasant and serious diseases. In particular, plague, encephalitis, typhoid and anthrax are transmitted by blood-sucking parasites. And this is a compelling reason to immediately launch a war against domestic insects.

Even if you live in a large metropolis, this does not provide any guarantee that bloodthirsty monsters will not crawl into your bed. External living conditions do not bother them at all. All that harmful parasites are interested in is human blood. And on the way to their goal they are ready to overcome a lot.

Interesting to know
The most unpleasant thing in your beds is house bugs. It would seem that large cities with developed infrastructure should be least susceptible to their attack. However, no, Amsterdam, Stockholm and London are literally suffering from the invasion of these parasites. According to statistics, even pest control services in large European cities can barely cope with infestations in apartments. The parasite population is constantly growing and adapting to antiparasitic drugs. In the United States, more than half of residential buildings have been infested with bedbugs at least once.

To understand who bothers us at night, it is better to catch the parasite “red-handed” and carefully examine it.

Not every one of them can be caught, but you can try. Below are photos of the most common bed bloodsuckers.

House bugs. Length up to 8 mm. This is how he transforms from the moment when he is hungry until the moment he is completely full.
Fleas have excellent jumping ability. Usually they are overcome by bites in the morning. If it is difficult to catch a representative, most likely it is a flea. Here she is during the bite.
Linen lice. Despite the name, their attachment to the body is much stronger than to clothing. They bite both during the day and at night, but at night they are much more active. Below is a photo of an adult.
Well, how can we not mention mosquitoes! We have known these bloodsuckers since childhood, so it is not difficult for us to distinguish them from other parasites.

Some species can be identified by just one specific bite, but it’s still better to look at the bloodsucker in person.

In truth, our lovers of waste and crumbs, cockroaches, can also crawl into bed, but this is rare. With a lack of moisture, red-haired and mustachioed animals can gnaw the epithelium in the lip area on a person.

Thus, after you have seen your “problem” in person, you need to begin methods of getting rid of it. This is not so difficult to do, because currently there are many ways to destroy parasites.

Bedbugs and their way of life

These are the largest bloodsuckers in our beds. Below you can see the bedbugs. This is roughly the picture they will imagine if they suddenly turn on the light at night and look into their bed.

Bedbugs also locate their nests closer to humans. Below in the photo is a cluster of eggs and adults right in the sofa.

Review
We are a clean family and have never encountered bedbugs. And then in the morning, like a bolt from the blue, bites began to be discovered. And this is in winter!!! One night we woke up on purpose and found a bug right in our bed. Horrible, such a creature! Nasty, greasy and smelly! You may not believe it, but I even moved in with my mother for a while while my husband dealt with this. He called some specialists and processed it. Now I still check it every day.
Lilia, Ekaterinburg

Any bug, be it a larva or an adult, must drink blood at least once. Small ones need it for development, big ones need it to increase their numbers. The only thing they can feed on is human blood. They pierce the skin with their trunk and make their way to the blood vessel. Sometimes in the morning you can find bloody marks on the sheets. This is a sign that a person, tossing and turning in his sleep, crushed a bug with his body.

This is interesting
A long time ago, when humans were just taking on their distinctive characteristics, bedbugs fed on the blood of bats. As humans colonized the caves, these parasites moved on to new victims. Even now on Wed. In Asia, there are bed bugs in caves that feed on the blood of bats.

Bedbugs are characterized by nocturnal activity. During the day, you will not find them casually walking around the apartment; they carefully hide behind carpets, under mattress upholstery, in cabinet furniture, behind paintings, baseboards, etc. Their hunt for humans begins late at night, at about two or three o'clock.

If you completely disassemble a bed or sofa, you can find nests that have no structure. These are disgusting aggregations of eggs, larvae and adults.

Clothes (linen) louse

Body lice (also known as linen or scabies) lice infest in old, unwashed clothes or bedding. They hide in the fabric and then bite a person at night if they are close to him. It is possible that they may well live in sofa upholstery, penetrating deeply into its structure. This is why fogging or spraying with a deep-penetrating insecticide is the most effective way to get rid of these insects. Linen louse activity is observed at night; they are invisible during the day. The body is smooth, ranging in size from 2 to 5 mm, has antennae, and the color of the body changes depending on blood saturation. A hungry louse is light and translucent yellowish , while a well-fed louse has a dark dot on its abdomen.

Fighting methods:

Boil clothes more often when washing , or wash in a mode where there is hot water in the washing machine. Woolen items should be dried properly to prevent shrinkage.
add vinegar to the wash , which softens not only the integument of adults, but also nits.
It will be useful to take the sofa out into the sun or frost.
Even ironing a sofa with a steaming iron , if it has fabric upholstery, can easily destroy a good part of the lice. Vinegar is also added to the water in the iron.
Especially when steaming a sofa, you should repeatedly go over the seams of the upholstery , where larvae and lice can get clogged.
Treat with any preparation that destroys lice. Eg. Karbofos or a composition such as a mixture of kerosene and soap solution.

What are the consequences of a bug bite

Like most bites, bug bites are simply reddish spots on the skin with a mark from the inserted proboscis. Most often, the bug leaves a peculiar series of such bites (3-7 pieces each). If you spot such a path on your body, you know that bedbugs are biting you!

If there is a large infection or a person is sensitive to its bites, an allergy may develop. This puts children at risk of developing anemia. The rashes from the bites are too profuse, and in some cases they can fester. This causes a lot of discomfort.

Bed bugs are clear carriers of many infectious diseases through their bites, but there are no recorded cases of transmission of hepatitis and HIV infection.

Prevention of spread

Start by preventing pests from spreading outside your mattress. The best solution would be to get him out of the room. If this fails for some reason, you need to do the following:

move the sofa away from the wall, closer to the center of the room;
go through all sides with a vacuum cleaner using special crevice nozzles;
the dust collector must be thrown away;
carefully inspect linen drawers, especially if they are not often used. These places are very popular with bedbugs;
If you have a steam cleaner, use it to treat furniture with insects. Steam works well against annoying pests;
Worth knowing! Note that it will not be possible to completely get rid of them in this way, since household appliances are not powerful enough, so steam does not penetrate into all the cracks, which is where bedbugs hide.
It is recommended to cover all furniture with special tape. It copes with its duties perfectly, because these pests do not fly or jump, so when trying to leave their homes, the bugs will fall into this glue trap.

These pests need to be combated comprehensively, then the result will be the best.

How to defeat bedbugs

There are only two ways for a person to get rid of bedbugs:

Poisoning from aerosols and other insecticides. For example, in the form of a spray “Lambda Zone”, Get, Executioner, Sinuzan, Karbofos. Aerosols include Dichlorvos, Combat, Raptor, etc. Sprays are more effective than aerosols, especially when there are a lot of parasites.
The second option is to call a professional team to protect yourself from poisoning and transfer the care of bedbugs to the shoulders of pest control specialists. In this case, it is important to choose well-established companies, or ask for advice from friends or acquaintances who have encountered a similar problem.

Those who want to save money can try to withdraw them on their own, but do not forget that this does not save your time and effort. And if you contact companies, it is important not to run into scammers, carefully study the documents and first read reviews about it.

If you notice bed bugs in your sofa, keep in mind that they can be frozen out. But you will need a temperature below -20 degrees. You will take out the furniture and freeze it outside. But, unfortunately, the method is not always effective, since bedbugs often hide in other places in the room.

Just like frost, you can kill insects with heat. This requires a temperature of plus 50 and above. This can be achieved using industrial heat fans, observing safety measures.

Important Tips

If the sofa has to be processed, then increased attention must be paid to the seams of the upholstery and the joints of individual furniture parts. It is there that parasites of all the above species prefer to settle and lay eggs.

When choosing factory-produced chemicals, it is better to choose highly specialized preparations intended to kill a specific type of insect. Widely advertised universal formulations either have extremely high toxicity or demonstrate low effectiveness against large populations of pests that have long settled in the sofa and managed to multiply.

It is advisable to repeat any selected treatment procedures two weeks after the first disinfestation session, since this is approximately the time for the next generation of parasites to hatch from the surviving eggs. After re-processing the furniture and premises, the problem with uninvited guests will be completely resolved.

How to fight fleas

Fleas are incredibly jumping, mobile parasitic insects. They look for prey almost only when it is light. It is fleas that carry the most severe and dangerous diseases, but few people think about it.

This is interesting
Fleas and their hosts, rats, caused the spread of plague in the Middle Ages, as a result of which almost a third of Europe died out.

Their bites are incredibly similar to bedbug bites and can also be in the form of a chain. It is not difficult to notice fleas on light-colored underwear, but catching them is not so easy. They jump quickly, and not every person can react.

They should be destroyed in two steps: first from the spreading animal, then throughout the entire premises.

To poison fleas indoors, you need to use the same means as for bedbugs, but a veterinarian will recommend a remedy for your pet.

Methods to combat furniture parasites

Once you find traces of beetles eating furniture, you should immediately begin removing them. The first step is to identify the scope of the problem. Opening and tapping are carried out. The affected areas are treated with professional means.

Types of drugs:

Contact. They destroy beetles after the first use and are highly toxic.
Fumigants. They quickly evaporate, which is why they are considered insufficiently effective. Exposure through the respiratory tract.
Intestinal. They enter the digestive system of insects, destroying them. They often have a very pungent odor, which is why they are not widely used indoors.

In ancient times, the freezing method was used. In winter, the furniture was placed in a cold, dry room for 2-3 months. With this method, it is very important to control the humidity of the room; if it is high, there is a risk of damage to the furniture.

If the infection is large-scale, you can use the services of professionals. In one session they will be able to solve the problem.

Chemicals

When considering how to get rid of bugs in furniture, you should note various chemicals. “Pentabos” is effective, helping to get rid of not only beetles, but also fungi. “Drevotox” will help you get rid of the grinders; you should work with the drug in an apron, glasses, and gloves.

Safety regulations:

You cannot smoke, eat or drink.
After finishing treatment, wash your hands.
After completing the treatment, it is recommended to go out into the fresh air.

Biodrev, Healthy Home, Faktura Stop Zhuk, Caysar Doctor products will help you get rid of woodworms.

Before you fight the borer beetle, you should pay attention to insecticides. These are highly toxic drugs that are unsafe for humans and pets. The treatment is carried out strictly according to the instructions, after which it is undesirable to stay in the room for some time.

Solutions

Solutions options:

Sodium fluoride (200 g per 10 liters of water).
Ammonium silicofluoride (1 kg per 10 liters of water).
BB (800 g boric acid, 1.2 g borax per 10 liters of water).
XM-11 (250 g of copper sulfate, 250 g of sodium or potassium bichromate per 10 liters of water, add 2 tablespoons of vinegar essence).

Hot water is used to prepare solutions; treatment is carried out by brushing, injecting into the flight holes, or spraying with a spray gun.

To kill beetles, furniture is treated with hot steam, for example, from a hairdryer. A solution of kerosene and turpentine in a ratio of 1:3 helps to get rid of shashel.

other methods

To combat the borer beetle, ammonia is used. Procedure:

Cover the furniture with polyethylene.
Place a container of alcohol below.
The vapors will evaporate and the substance will penetrate the wood, destroying the grinder.
Repeat the treatment after a month.

All surfaces are treated with vinegar, boric acid, soda, and chlorine-containing products. You can also use motor oil, saline solution, kerosene.

Boiling water is an effective remedy for woodworm. It is injected into the passages created by the larvae with a syringe. The main disadvantage is that the larvae leave plugs that water cannot overcome. To increase effectiveness, salt is added to the water.

To get rid of the borer beetle, you should replace the damaged area of the surface. If pests are detected, the affected fragment is dismantled, burned and replaced with a new one. Before installation, you should make sure that there are no passages or holes left by larvae nearby.

When considering how to get rid of the grinder beetle in the house, the microwave treatment method should be mentioned. The affected area is subjected to heat; the method is convenient because people and animals do not have to leave the apartment during treatment.

Treatment against the borer beetle can be carried out using fumigators with phosphine gas. It kills adults and larvae.

Lice

Lice in your bed are rare. They spend their entire lives in the hairy part of the head. They are quite clumsy and slow, so any fall from their hair can be fatal for them. They constantly need blood, and once they fall down, it is no longer possible for them to climb to a food source.

As we have already said, they spend their entire lives on the head or pubic area of a person. There are also types of linen, but they are not so common now. They mainly affect homeless people and tramps who do not change or wash their clothes for a long time.

Lice bites are not as painful as those of fleas or bedbugs. But they can also cause a lot of discomfort with their itching.

These parasitic insects are removed with lice shampoos and sprays. At the same time, it is important to constantly comb them with a special fine-toothed comb.

Review
My daughter has very long thick hair. When she went to second grade, she accidentally caught lice from someone. When I remember how many times I took these parasites out of my head, it becomes scary. I probably bought different products five times, but in the end the lice shampoo helped. But I still had to part with my long hair. It's a pity, but what will you do? After that, apparently out of habit, I check her head almost every evening.
Elena, Arzamas

What types of grinders are there?

Today science knows a huge number of these insects that live in nature. The “domestic” beetle species includes several varieties. These are:

furniture;
brownie;
combed;
bread

Furniture beetles include insects that have a body 2-5 mm long. In suitable conditions, it can breed several generations of young individuals within one calendar year. Its dark brown color will help you understand that it is he. In addition, it has stripes consisting of dots located on the elytra. In insect larvae can reach a size of 6 mm. They appear from eggs laid by the female insect. Often the female lays eggs in the most inaccessible places in wooden furniture. In this case, holes appear on the surface, the diameter of which is several millimeters.

Can a cockroach bite at night?

It is unlikely that a cockroach will attack a person. For him, it is much more interesting how many crumbs and leftovers of other food are in the kitchen. Only in some cases, when their population has increased incredibly or there is not enough water, they can crawl into bed and gnaw the surface of the skin of the lips or near the nose. By the way, in dormitories such cases occur more often. For some reason, cockroaches are especially attracted to children. Apparently because the skin is more delicate.

As you can see, these insects do not suck our blood and their bites are not at all like flea or bedbug bites.

Be that as it may, the bite site of any of the above-mentioned insects should be treated. To reduce your itching risk of contracting a disease:

Wash the bite area with soap
Treat with alcohol, propolis or calendula tincture
Apply gel like Fenistil.

But only if after a bite a person experiences an undesirable reaction (headache, fever, strange rashes), you should not hesitate and consult a doctor. Allergies to bites can be different for everyone. And even if the symptoms are not too severe now, things may become more serious in the future.

Source

Preventive measures

In order not to rack your brains over the question of what to do if there are insects in the sofa, it is rational to take simple measures in advance to avoid the invasion of the apartment by uninvited tenants:

Carry out wet cleaning and ventilation regularly.
Constantly open the curtains - insects do not like sunlight.
Place bunches of lavender, wormwood and other plants that repel insects on the sofa and other pieces of upholstered furniture.
When you get home, clean your shoes and trouser legs from dirt, in which the insects themselves and their eggs can hide.
Clean the hallway especially carefully and often.

Mosquitoes

If insects bite at night, it could be mosquitoes that have simply flown into the window. In the warm season, when these pests breed abundantly not only near swamps and other bodies of water, in the forest, but also in the city, they try to fly into a person’s apartment “for dinner.” You may not feel the pain of a mosquito bite during a sound sleep, but you will certainly notice itchy spots on your body in the morning. The skin will itch for several days.

How can you tell if there are mosquitoes flying around your house? An annoying buzzing sound is the first sign of their appearance. Mosquitoes squeak in a special way, and it is unlikely that they can be confused with someone else. Only females drink blood to reproduce. Mosquitoes only live for a couple of days, but the harm from their presence in a person’s home and on the street is noticeable. Mosquitoes bite on any areas of the skin that are not covered by a blanket or clothing.

Attention: In warm countries or regions with a favorable climate, even mosquitoes and malaria mosquitoes can fly into a person’s home. If the former are dangerous due to powerful allergic reactions, then the latter are a source of dangerous infectious disease.

If you have to poison other blood-sucking insects with insecticides, you can protect yourself from mosquitoes using lavender oil, “Star” balm or special products that are sold in any store (they are applied to the body). Repellers based on ultrasound or smoke are also excellent against mosquitoes.

Insect pests

Woodworms are furniture pests that lay eggs in recesses and small cracks. In three years, the larva grows into an adult. They make passages in the wood where they live.

Human life is connected with living nature, and insects are part of it. This neighborhood has been going on since time immemorial. People have even managed to domesticate some insects. For ants, there are special farms for raising them in apartments - formicariums.

What readers say:

Anatoly
Evgeniya
“I learned from my own experience whether bedbugs live in mattresses. But such a problem is very difficult to cope with. No matter what measures I took, nothing worked. These bloodsuckers settled so deeply and comfortably on the inside surface of the bed that I had to get rid of the furniture.”

Svetlana
To summarize the above, we say with confidence that cotton mattresses are excellent shelters for night bloodsuckers. If you notice an insect in the bed, immediately begin to fight. And don't forget:
Be meticulous about the things you bring into the house.
Clean bedding furniture more often.
Don't delay calling specialists.

The most modern, stylish apartment is not protected from insects. Small crawling, flying individuals do not pay attention to the degree of grooming or the design of the home. Penetrating in different ways, they can cause a lot of problems for the owner, especially if they choose a sofa as their habitat. In this article, we suggest finding out what can grow in upholstered furniture, and we will also tell you about the ways that insects can enter the apartment.

What types of insects can live in a home sofa?

Any living creature seen on your living space is incoming or brought. They do not appear by themselves. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about old furniture or excess hair from a pet. On the contrary, a new sofa brought from a warehouse may be infected. So, the main ways insects appear in upholstered furniture are:

Purchase of an initially infected sofa. This can be either new or used furniture. To protect yourself, be sure to inspect the upholstery, niches, and cracks of the sofa before unloading. If you notice any larvae, black spots, odors that are not specific to furniture, or single bugs, do not bring such furniture into the house under any circumstances.
Transfer of insects from neighbors through communications. Mass infection of a neighboring apartment, a single treatment with strong chemicals, can lead to the migration of individuals into the adjacent room and the furniture in it.
Infection with new things thrown on the sofa. Any new item (clothes, parcels, wooden souvenirs) should not be left on the sofa. Before use, you need to conduct a thorough inspection (after all, in postal and other warehouses there are often bedbugs and beetles), wash, wash, and only then allow it to be used.
Returning home after business trips or hospital stay. Insects brought on things from public places can quickly spread throughout the apartment and settle in the sofa. To prevent this from happening, immediately upon arrival, disassemble and wash things at high temperatures.

Cozy, beloved upholstered furniture can become a temporary shelter for several types of insects:

Fleas. Small, black, jumping dots that bite painfully. They appear not only in rooms with pets. They can drop into any apartment and be carried in on outer clothing, especially if homeless animals often wander around the entrance. This is also a common problem for residents of the first floors; fleas multiply in the basement and jump to nearby dwellings.

Bedbugs. They look a little like cockroaches, but have a more rounded shape. They hide in the cracks of the sofa, and at night crawl out to snack on human blood. They can be identified by bites on the body, traces of vital activity on bed linen: black spots of excrement, blood stains from individuals crushed in sleep, brown dry scales that bedbugs shed as they grow.

Carpet beetles. They do not bite a person directly, but they can start in a sofa that is rarely cleaned. They readily eat crumbs, particles of dead epithelium of humans and animals, fibers of old fabrics, and natural leather upholstery untreated with protective agents. They can get into the apartment through open windows that are not protected by mosquito nets, or fly into bags and packages on the street. They are dangerous for both leather and fabric sofas, because they devour everything.

Linen lice. They can start in sofa upholstery, which consists of natural fibers, mattresses, and bed linen. Lice are invisible during the day, but at night they actively bite sleeping people. Most often they appear upon contact with contaminated things or people. Therefore, you should not put someone else’s clothes on your home sofa, or seat an unfamiliar, unkempt person on it.

Now you know which insects live in the sofa, which can bite, and which can damage the upholstery. In any case, such a neighborhood is dangerous for human health; if you find at least one individual, it is better to immediately sanitize the furniture. Even a new sofa is not a guarantee of the absence of insects, especially if it is of an unknown manufacturer. Check any furniture before bringing it into the house, and if you want to protect yourself one hundred percent, choose sofas from Dommino