How do you know if you have bed bugs?
Look behind any hanging artwork. Bed bugs love to hide behind paintings and photographs hanging on walls. Use a flashlight: Bed bugs are tiny (adult bed bugs are about 1/5" long and reddish-brown) and come out at night. OR Take the bedding off your bed and check under your mattress, under your box spring, and in corners and crevices. Bed bugs like to hang upside down from the bottom of box springs. Also check the frame where they have been known to hide in corners. These are all places that bed bugs will hide during the day.
I have seen one bed bug does that mean there are more?
Last night I was on the couch with my sister who was visiting from out of town and on my pillow she was using was on my legs as we were watching TV. I looked down and saw a bug running across the pillow. I quickly grabbed a paper towel and got hold of the bug. I took it into the kitchen looked at it and sure enough it looked just like a bed bug. Of course I killed it. I recently was doing research about them for my daughters father (who lives elsewhere) because his families house has an infestation. He came and stayed with us for one night almost 3 weeks ago. I have NEVER seen a big like this before in my house and have stayed here almost 3 years. It was very flat so I assume it had not fed recently but from what I read they lay eggs all the time. So today I took my mattress off my bed after thoroughly checking the seams and all over it and I saw nothing. I vacuumed it and still saw nothing. I checked the box spring and vacuumed it and saw nothing. I should note it was on my couch so I went through today took all the cushions off all of my couches and vacuumed them completely. I saw no bugs, no skins, no stains...nothing to indicate there are others but reading other posts about the same thing has me feeling icky and paranoid that there may be others lurking somewhere in my house. So is it possible that this one bedbug came from my daughter's fathers visit to my house nearly 3 weeks ago and if so does it mean that there are more in my house? Is there any way it was just the one bug (since this is the first time I have seen one, no bites ever, no indication of others)?
Do I have bed bugs? Paranoid!?
I was exposed to bed bugs about 2 months ago at a friends house. Once I realized he had bed bugs I stopped going over there. Every night after coming home from his house, I changed and put my clothes in the hamper (so they never went in my room). I also cleaned and sprayed just in case upon finding out. When I was bitten by the bed bugs at his place, they were HUGE welts and they were VERY itchy. I have been checking my bed quite frequently to no signs. (A bit paranoid after watching many documentaries on them). Last month I woke up to a few bites (not sure if I had them before I went to bed or not) but they were on my upper thigh which was not an exposed area of skin... so I washed all my sheets and blankets and pillow cases and many of my clothes and I sprayed everything with bed bug killer. I hadn't gotten bitten again at all, and saw zero signs of them in my bed/box spring. This morning I woke up with a line of bites, maybe 4-5 on my lower leg but no other bites anywhere. They're rather small and not very itchy and these are the first bites I've gotten. Is there a chance these are bed bug bites or am I just being paranoid? Can you have them with zero signs on your mattress/box spring? The reason I am extra paranoid is because a friend who had also been exposed to the same bed bugs just got bed bugs a few days ago and he believes he took them home from our friends apartment. However, he had spotting on his mattress and box spring and saw some. I do not. HELP!
What are the best ways to get rid of bed bugs? How do you deal with one’s clothes in this situation? What about dry-clean only materials, or books? Will walking around an infested area with shoes on mean that the shoes are now infested?
You CAN get rid of bedbugs, although it is an uphill battle, the tiny bloodsuckers got time and patience on their side, they can survive for verrrryyyyy long periods without food(your yummy blood)!You will find it easier to get rid of them if you sleep on beds which are like thisBut, if you have beds like this then you will have difficulties.Follow the below steps if you have bed with legstake empty cans (1 for each leg, I used small empty paint cans) and fill them half with water and a few drops of turpentine oil and put them under each leg, the leg should be in the water, so that bugs which are not already in your bed don’t climb up and oil is there to discourage the ones which dare to swim across the water.Use an insect spray on every nook and corner of the bed to kill whatever bugs are already hiding in the bed, this has to be done several times so that any left out ones gets killed too.Get a roll of shrink wrap and wrap your mattress with several layers, this is to prevent the eggs and baby bugs hiding in mattress to escape. Warning: It would be uncomfortable to sleep on a shrinkwrapped mattress, but less so than getting your blood sucked.Keep an eye on shrink wrap, it may get torn due to you sleeping on it (and doing other fun activities if you are a couple), if you see it getting torn then replace it with new wraps.Make sure your blankets do not fall on the floor while you sleep at night, if your bed is set against a wall then move it away so bugs don’t climb on the bed from the wall.That’s it, you need to wait for a minimum of 6 months, I recommend at least 1 year, keep refilling the cans with water(it will evaporate), refill the oil too, and keep an eye on the bugs, if they are still biting you at night then there is a leakage somewhere, they are either still there hiding in your bed or in the blankets or coming up from some other place, wear the detective gloves and get on the job to plug the hole.If the empty paint cans look ugly under the bed, get creative, wrap up some decorative paper or something like that.This is a cheap fix but doable, I spent nothing less than 10K USD to get rid of the bug infestation, it was all waste till I used the method above.Good Luck!
How do I keep spiders out of my bed? I've been waking up in the past few days with what appear to be spider bites. I looked around my bed (which is on the floor in the corner of my room) and saw a few spiders living there.
The way to keep spiders out of your bed is to keep your bed elevated off the floor and make sure your blankets or sheets don’t hang down to the floor. Even if a spider ends up in your bed, the odds of it biting you are pretty slim.Here’s how you know if spiders are biting you.You see the spider bite you. If you do not witness a spider biting you, then you cannot claim that the mysterious wounds or bites you have are in fact spider bites. Having a few spiders on the floor of your room is not evidence of spiders biting you.If you have never watched a spider bite you, or seen a spider bite someone else, how do you know what a spider bite looks like?Too many people attribute mysterious wounds to spider bites because they assume that is what spiders do, they go around, find unconscious people, and bite them.I have spiders in my house. I have woken up with mysterious wounds that itch and even bleed on occasion. Are they spider bites? No, they are not. How do I know? Because I’ve never seen a spider biting me. I might as well assume they are unicorn bites, even though I have never been bitten by a unicorn, or seen one in the house.There are about 40 medical conditions that are often attributed to the work of nefarious spiders biting people while they sleep. Here is a list of medical conditions that are often confused as spider bites. You need to rule out all of these before you go accusing spiders of causing you harm.Bacterial• Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcusaureus (MRSA or false spider bite diagnosis)• Other Staphylococcus infections• Streptococcus infection• Gonococcal arthritis dermatitis• Cutaneous anthraxReaction to drugs• Warfarin poisoningViral• Infected herpes simplex• Chronic herpes simplex• Varicella zoster (shingles)Arthropod-induced• Lyme disease• Rocky Mountain spotted fever• Ornithodoros coriaceus bite (soft tick)• Insect bites (flea, mite, biting fly)Fungal• Sporotrichosis• Keratin cell mediated response to fungusTopical• Poison ivy/poison oak• Chemical burnLymphoproliferative disorders• Lymphoma• Lymphomatoid papulosisUnderlying disease states• Diabetic ulcerVascular disorders• Focal vasculitis• Purpura fulminans• Thromboembolic phenomena• Polyarteritis nodosaMiscellaneous/Multiple causative agents• Pyoderma gangrenosum• Pressure ulcers• Stevens-Johnson syndrome• Erythema multiforme• Erythema nodosum• Toxic epidermal necrolysis• Lyell syndrome
How long does it take for bed bugs to infest?
A pregnant female can lay about 1- 12 eggs per day at a time, up to 300 to 500 eggs. The eggs take about 10 days to hatch. So the simple answer to your questions is 10 days (figure 1 to 2 weeks). That said, bites are not the best indicator of a bed bug infestation since each time you are bitten can result in a different skin reaction. For example, the first time you might have no skin reaction while the second time you can have a skin reaction within an hour. Since it is an allergic reaction skin response times are usually an hour, but there are cases where individuals react days after being bitten. After skin reactions appear, bites go away on their own in 2 to 3 days. In highly allergic people, where blisters form on the skin, healing takes longer. I'd look for other signs such as bed bugs hiding deep inside the mattress seams, box spring, bed frame and other areas of the home that you believe have become infested. If you are worried, consider calling in an exterminator. Service Magic is a good place to start as they provide up to 3 free quotes (phone toll free 1.877.233.1145). Another approach, which is low cost is to buy an inexpensive bed bug trap. You can either buy one called a climbup which is placed under each bed leg (see resource) or a more expensive trap that uses carbon dioxide to attract bed bugs.