Plenty of pests are dangerous or harmful to your health, but some of the nastiest of them are bed bugs. These tiny, parasitic bugs feed on our blood while we sleep and, as if that weren’t enough, they are nearly impossible to get rid of without professional means. Learning how an infestation starts, and how you can act quickly to combat one, will help save you from itchy bites and worse.
Where To Spot Bed Bugs
Bed bugs aren’t just found in your mattress and box spring. While they certainly like to infest our beds, these parasites can be found in contaminated containers, articles of clothing, and furniture. As such, bed bugs can be easily transmitted in areas where these materials are abundant and where many people gather. Here are just some of the areas where bed bugs are commonly found:
- Hospitals: Not only are there plenty of beds to be found in healthcare facilities, but there are also plenty of other people coming and going for bed bugs to cling to.
- Hotels: Another place where beds, furnishings, and curtains provide ample nesting grounds for bed bugs, hotels also get a lot of foot traffic, making them a good place for transmission.
- Transit Stations: While bus stations and airplanes don’t generally provide enough cushioned and fabric areas for bed bugs to nest in, they do act as an area where one contaminated person or item can spread the bugs to multiple households.
- Schools: Just like transit stations, schools act as a transmission ground for bed bugs, which can hitchhike back to hundreds of different homes.
Signs Of A Bed Bug Problem
Since you need to act quickly to get rid of bed bugs before they grow like wildfire, you’ll need to know how to spot some of the tell-tale signs of a bed bug population:
- Bites: Often the first and only sign of an infestation, the bites bed bugs leave in the wake of their blood meals are itchy and annoying and often form a linear pattern.
- Stains: Bleeding wounds can cause blood stains on fabrics while we sleep. Also, yellow or brown stains can be left behind after bed bugs hatch.
- Eggs: Bed bugs lay eggs deep within the protection of fabrics. Once hatched, these eggs quickly produce ravenous larvae that feed even more often than adults.
How An Infestation Starts
People don’t often think about how bed bug infestations get started in the first place. While they nest in protected areas where people will rest and provide access to blood, bed bugs start outdoors or in one of the public spaces we mentioned above. They cling to tall grasses or contaminated items and wait for people or animals to brush by. They then hitch a ride back to our vehicles, homes, and places of business. This is what makes it so hard to prevent bed bugs, there are simply too many ways that people can unwittingly transmit them or introduce them to a property. Once an infestation starts, bed bugs can quickly grow out of control and their bites pile up. This is why you should call the experts the moment you notice the signs of bed bugs.
Protecting Aiken Is What We Do
You probably don’t need any more convincing as to how bed bugs are troublesome pests that you want no part of. Knowing the risks, the responsible thing to do to stay protected from bed bugs is to contact your local experts. At Aiken Pest, our technicians can thoroughly inspect for bed bugs or their signs, determining whether prevention measures or extermination methods are needed. No matter your situation, you can count on our methods to get rid of the problem, not just temporarily cover it up.