Tiny Sting Critters Called Bed Bugs: What Are They? How To Prevent them?

Bed bugs are small creatures that feed by warm blood of people or animals.  Usually, they live in human home: bed mattresses, recliners, sofas and other soft furniture.  Nowadays, in spite of all modern efficient disinfectant, bed bugs are the problem of all types of dwellings from flats and private homes to military barracks, hotels and cruise ships.

What Are Bed Bugs? How To Identify Them?

Bed bugs are as little as a rice seed and almost visible when hungry. Adults, nymphs and eggs are visible to the naked eye. They can be light-yellow, white, brown or reddish. It depends on how much blood they have consumed before.

Are Bed Bugs Dangerous to Humans?

Most people know what bed bugs are but don’t even imagine how dangerous they can be. These insects assault humans while they are sleeping. That’s why people don’t feel pain. One more reason of painless bite off is that bed bugs inject some saliva into the victim’s skin. Tiny bloodsuckers do it from day to day, and the host becomes sensitive to saliva which results in allergic reaction.

People who are bitten by bed bugs undergo from intense itching, local inflammation and bad sleep.

You should know that these insects are carriers of a bacterial infection which causes serious health problems. They carry causative agents for yellow fever, relapsing fever, typhus, plague, anthrax, and tularemia.

In profoundly infested houses people may receive more than one hundred bites per night. It is dangerous for little children and babies because can result in anemia. As a rule, bed bugs injure face, hands, legs, neck, and waist.

How Do Bed Bugs Feed?

Bed bugs are especially active in the early morning, nearly an hour before the dawn.  It’s their peak time for feeding. But if they are too hungry, they can leave their shelter any time a day or night and find a host. They can’t stand sunlight, that’s why specialists recommend not drawing the curtains in the daytime.

Little bloodsuckers reach the host by climbing a wall or a part of furniture. They are attracted to a human by both his warmth and the existence of carbon dioxide.

A bitten person will not feel any discomfort until scratches the bites. Then come itching, burning, and pain. Bed bugs can stay several months without feeding. If there is no host, they become dormant for over a year. A lifespan of a bed bug usually lasts from six to nine months.

How Do Bed Bugs Reproduce?

Bed bugs reproduce by hypodermic insemination. The female bed bug put down around 5 eggs for every day and almost five hundred during its lifetime. Eggs have milky-white color, and are evident without microscope. It takes them two weeks to hatch. Then five weeks pass and nymphs become mature and ready for reproduction.

How Do They Get Into The House?

Furniture, clothes, luggage moved into a new home can bring you new residents or neighbors – bed bugs.  Second-hand furniture and clothes often contain bed bugs and their eggs.  Be careful buying second-hand things, inspect your purchases and wash with disinfectant for the sake of good order.  Don’t believe that bed bugs live in dirty flats only. Cleanness in rooms is not security and compliance pledge of bed bugs.

How To Detect These Petty Pests?

First of all, observe the rooms for signs of bed bug movement. Look with awareness into the fold in the bed linen and tufts of mattresses. Perhaps, you will find bug eggs. They look like poppy seeds, but the color is white.

Loose areas of wallpaper near beds, corners of desks and dressers a can be shelters for bed bugs and their eggs. Don’t forget about laundry and drawers.

You also can notice brown spots on the linen. These are excrement of insects. If you detect these signs, use special disinfectant. It has detrimental odor that kills parasites.

Wash your clothes and linen with hot water and a big amount of washing powder.

You should also bear in mind that pets, especially dogs and cats, can be hosts for bed bugs. Moreover, parasites can live in their fur all the time.

How To Protect The Bed From Bed Bugs?

Now you know what bed bugs can do to you. So, it’s better to protect your bed from these tiny pests than stand painful itching bites.

Make sure that insects don’t live in the bed frame mattresses, pillows, etc.

Buy mattresses with high quality bed bug-proof encasement.

Wash the wall margins of your room with disinfectant.

Apply the pest solution chemicals spray to kill them and Put an End on Bed Bug Infestation.