Pest Advice - Bed Bugs

Bed bugs are parasites that preferentially feed on humans. They are a persistent pest and have developed a number of highly evolved abilities to remain close to humans.

In the past decade, bedbugs have begun making a comeback across the world.  Although they are not considered to be a major pest or health hazard they can be highly unpleasant to live with and can cause a severe lack of sleep. International travel and commerce are thought to facilitate the spread because eggs, young, and adult bed bugs are all readily transported in luggage, clothing, bedding, and furniture. Bedbugs can infest aircraft, ships, trains, and buses as well as offices and public spaces.  In some recent cases we have found that the source of infestation was connected with the journey rather than staying in an infected location.

Bedbugs are most frequently found in dwellings with a high rate of occupant turnover, such as hotels, motels, hostels, dormitories, shelters, apartment complexes, tenements, and prisons. Such infestations are not usually a reflection of poor hygiene or bad housekeeping but that a previous occupant had come into contact with them at some stage.

Adult bed bugs are brown to reddish-brown, oval-shaped, flattened, and about 5mm to 7mm long. Their flat shape enables them to readily hide in cracks and crevices. In some cases colonies have been found in places where it is difficult to insert a sheet of paper.

Life Cycle

Female bedbugs lay from one to twelve eggs per day, and the eggs are deposited on rough surfaces or in crack and crevices. The eggs are coated with a sticky substance so they adhere to the surface. Eggs hatch in around 10 days, and nymphs can immediately begin to feed. They require a blood meal in order to moult and develop into the next stage. Bedbugs reach maturity after five moults. Developmental time (egg to adult) is affected by temperature and takes about 21 days at 86° F to 120 days at 65° F. The nymphal period is greatly prolonged when food is scarce. The adult's life span may encompass 12-18 months and they are known to be able to survive for 12 months between feeds.

Because of their incomplete metamorphic lifecycle juvenile bedbugs are nymphs rather than larvae (caterpillars are larvae and turn into adult butterflies).  This simple fact can often be used to establish if someone knows their subject.

Habits

Bedbugs are fast moving insects that are blood-feeders using a stylet to pierce the skin and feed. Nymphs may become engorged with blood within three minutes, whereas a full-grown bed bug usually feeds for ten to fifteen minutes. They then crawl away to a hiding place to digest the meal, which may take 3 or 4 days.  Although widely reported as such they are not nocturnal and become active when food is most readily available.

Bedbugs often hide during the day in dark protected sites, preferring fabric, wood, and paper surfaces. They usually occur in fairly close proximity to the host, although they can travel significant distances for food when necessary. Bedbugs can often be found in tufts, seams, and folds of mattresses, later spreading to crevices in the bedstead. In heavier infestations, they also may occupy hiding places further from the bed. They may hide in window and door frames, electrical boxes, floor cracks, baseboards, furniture, and under the tack board of wall-to-wall carpeting. Bed bugs often crawl upward to hide in pictures, wall hangings, drapery pleats, loosened wallpaper, cracks in plaster, and ceiling moulding's.

The use of inappropriate treatment solutions such as aerosol insecticides, foggers and products that they are tolerant to will often spread an infestation.  Our experience has enabled us on many occasions to tell people what products have been used in a property before we have even checked the paperwork.

Injury

The bite is often painless at the time but will typically causes the skin to become irritated and inflamed. Individuals differ greatly in both the extent and timing of their response to a bite. A small, hard, swollen, white welt may develop at the site of each bite which can occur in rows or batches of three or four although this does vary from person to person and is not a confirming sign of bedbugs. This is usually accompanied by severe itching that lasts for several hours to days.   In rare cases an allergic reaction may follow -in such cases seek medical attention immediately. The morphology of bites is highly variable and bedbugs are impossible to diagnose on bites alone.

It is believed that 1 in 10 people show no signs of biting, often leading to the myth that they only attack certain people. Cases of extreme reaction seem to be on the increase and affect as many as 2 in 10 people. If you have a severe reaction to other insect bites such as fleas and mosquitoes you are more likely to have an extreme reaction to bed bugs. We have also noted increasing anecdotal evidence that once you have been bitten, the environment that you find yourself in can induce a more severe reaction so if possible avoid areas of high pollution or concentrations of irritants that will enter through the open wounds.

Some individuals respond to bedbug infestations with anxiety, stress, and insomnia. Bedbugs are not known to transmit any diseases although some studies have shown that they are capable of carrying infectious material  it is believed that their evolutionary path prevents them from transmitting anything person to person.

If an infestation is heavy or prolonged it is advisable to use an Iron containing dietary supplement as anaemia or iron deficiency can develop. If you are feeling tired and lethargic this may help significantly.

There is some evidence that prescribed anti histamines can help reduce the effects but it is essential that you explain to your GP that the problem is bedbugs related as the symptoms can be mistaken for more serious complaints such as scabies although they are in no way related. We advise our clients that they should show the evidence newsletter in the Helpful Advice section to their GP.  To get relief from the itch Eurax cream which is available from pharmacists is recommended but as with all medication you should consult a medical professional.

Signs

A bed bug infestation can be recognized by blood stains seeping from wounds or by rusty (sometimes dark) spots of excrement on sheets and mattresses, bed clothes, and walls. Faecal spots, eggshells, and shed skins may be found in the vicinity of their hiding places. An offensive, sweet, musty odour from their scent glands may be detected when bedbug infestations are severe. As the smell develops over time you may become accustomed to it and not detect it.

The confirming signs of an infestation are:

• Live samples
• Cast skins
• Faecal traces

Prevention

Do not bring infested items into the home. It is important to carefully inspect clothing and baggage of travellers, being on the lookout for bed bugs and their tell-tale faecal spots. Also, inspect all second-hand beds, bedding, and furniture. Identifying the source is one of the key aspects to controlling an infestation. Unless the source is excluded from the property the stock of bed bugs will be continually replenished and the life cycle will continue.

A thorough inspection of the premises to locate bedbugs and their harbourage sites is necessary so that cleaning efforts and insecticide treatments can be focused. Inspection efforts should concentrate on the mattress, box springs, and bed frame, as well as cracks and crevices that the bed bugs may hide in during the day or when digesting a blood meal. The latter sites include window and door frames, floor cracks, carpet tack boards, baseboards, electrical boxes, furniture, pictures, wall hangings, drapery pleats, loosened wallpaper, cracks in plaster, and ceiling moulding's. Detection is something that you develop an "eye for" with time, particularly in the case of eggs which appear amber in colour when fertile and pearlescent white when hatched.

Sanitation measures include frequently vacuuming the mattress and premises, laundering bedding and clothing in hot water, and cleaning and sanitizing dwellings. After vacuuming, immediately place the vacuum cleaner bag in a plastic bag, seal tightly, and discard in a container outdoors, this prevents captured bedbugs from escaping back into your home. A stiff brush can be used to scrub the mattress seams to dislodge bedbugs and eggs. Discarding the mattress is another option, although a new mattress can quickly become infested if bedbugs are still on the premises so this is often a false economy.   It is always best to treat and replace at a later date than face having to keep replacing new items.

Control of bed bugs is best achieved by following an integrated pest management (IPM) approach that involves multiple tactics, such as preventive measures, sanitation, and chemicals applied to targeted sites.  It is a job where experience is essential to getting rapid results.  The fact that most home owner have rarely encountered bedbugs means that self treatment may seem cost effective and simple but the reality is that its a steep learning curve and can be a gamble with your families health and safety.

Although many pest controllers will tell you it is essential to prepare a room prior to inspection and treatment we take a very different view.  Until the problem is confirmed and inspected how do you know what preparations will be needed to treat an area, after all it may not be bedbugs.  It is therefore best to leave things as stationary as possible and allow the problem to be inspected without the risk of inadvertently spreading the problem to other rooms.