How to know if you have bed bugs reddit

Bedbugs are small, crawling, only blood sucking insects that take a three-in-a-row mosquito bite like bite about once per week per bug. Some people don't react to the bites or think it's mosquitoes, thus blow them off for a few weeks until they realize it's not them.

Bedbugs are hitchhikers, meaning they won't come to your home from the outside, rather from some other location on your person, items or on others mostly unawares to them. Since some don't react to the bites they can be major carriers if they don't body wash and change their clothes daily as bedbugs like stable places to hide close to their host.

Otherwise if one washes and changes their clothes daily, bedbugs like to hide close to a blood hosts resting location, in and around beds, couches, stuffed chairs, desks or anyplace nearby, even on walls, behind pictures, in floor cracks, under carpets and in items, including laptops.

If you know or don't know if you or anyone residing in your home does not react to bedbug bites, then you need to check your home much more often. Bedpost interceptors may catch some, but won't work for everyone. Otherwise dressing in front of a full length mirror each day is a easy way to check oneself for any new bites.

Another indicator of bedbugs is blood stains on the sheets, use a light color sheets so they show up. These stains occur when one rolls over or crushes a bedbug filled with blood before it's made it's escape to it's harborage, or hiding place to digest, poop and breed more bedbugs.

Using a magnifier, correctly identify the captured bug. Don't crush it, use sticky tape or scoop it up inside a smooth glass or plastic cup, they usually can't climb very smooth vertical surfaces, however tropical bedbugs can. Bedbugs are rather harmless, but their feces can carry Changa's Disease, so don't scratch the bites unless the area has been cleaned first.

Now if you discover bedbugs and only gotten a few bites over a few weeks, it's likely a lone hitch hiker, meaning once you find the little thing and capture it, your good, unless you receive more bites after that. Bedbugs are master hiders and it's unlikely you'll find it, but if you can recall your most visited resting location, then these are a good place to look. Again if you or yours don't react to the bites, then that complicates things.

If you have more than one bedbug or getting more bites, then if your in a multi-unit or have uncooperative housemates, you need to call in management as they need to address ALL areas to the outside walls using a professional or else it's a worthless effort. With uncooperative housemates, the presence of a professional gives weight to the situation as often some housemates don't care because they don't react to the bites, thus have a very "They are not bothering me" sort of attitude.

Often with a multi-unit, management is often responsible for treatment costs because the structure as a whole is being done, areas outside your unit. The best management will deal with the situation quickly or preferably do preventative treatment with an insecticidal dust that lasts 10 years like many hotels are doing now, to nip these hitchhikers in the bud before they bite, pair up and breed more. If your management needs to come around once in awhile to "do bug control" that's a good thing because allowing bedbugs a hold in a residence where people don't react to the bites causes a nightmare situation of tens of thousands of bugs and getting the building shut down by the government. So prevention is a lot cheaper than cure. Any management that doesn't do preventative bug control at least once a month using a pest control professional, I would look for another location to live in.

Bedbugs can be in everything just about, which makes them hard to eradicate. Personal items, clothes, furniture, structures, vehicles, workplaces etc., all can harbor bedbugs. They prefer cracks and crevices out of the light and where they can snuggle in for safety. Their bites can last for many weeks, months or even years, in exposed skin areas people will then think the worse of you. A tan often can hide their marks, but it's not perfect.

Whatever you do, do NOT use rubbing alcohol or run to the store to buy chemical pesticides, bedbugs are often immune to chemical pesticides as they adapt, so one thing works now won't work later on. Also many are repellents, so it only serves to drive them up the walls and into the ceilings to come out later on.

Only 50% of bedbugs died in 4 days from being sprayed with rubbing alcohol and since it's such an extreme fire and breathing hazard, it's not advised for the accident potential of burning down entire buildings and vehicles, which has occurred many times. MUCH MUCH better methods can be used instead, like using a near 100% silica dioxide dust for bedbugs (not DE, that doesn't work well for bedbugs and is an inhalation hazard) that contact them and dries them out of moisture, killing in a few hours to 2 days and also using them as trojans to reach the hidden harborages for a compounding effect. Problem of course this near 100% silica dust is hard to get in some areas due to it being labeled as a pesticide, so local laws come into effect.

If you can't get this 10 year lasting near 100% silica gel dust for bedbugs, or live in a multi-unit or with uncooperative housemates, is to call in management or an exterminator.

Otherwise for preventative or treatment, you can use this silica gel dust, very feather lightly coated, all around the home and in many items, in furniture etc. and all rooms and areas, thus mining them for the bedbugs to cross. The faster it gets on them, the faster they disappear.

Combined with washing and high heat drying one's clothes, bedding etc., more frequently, one can wipe out a small to medium infestation in a standalone structure and their vehicles in a few months, provided everything and all potential areas are treated, leaving them no place to hide or be safe.

As always, quantity comes into play with any treatment option and if one really has a huge infestation, only heat or full building fumigation steps may be required.

If all possible, do not leave a bedbug infested location with your items unless they have been heat treated in a moving truck first or your just carrying your problem with you. There are other cheaper methods, like starving them or dehydrating them having your items sealed up outside in a shipping container for instance. But this can take several months, the less humid the air is, the quicker they die.

If you need to leave, then taking a shower and donning hot fresh clean clothes directly from the dryer or from a plastic bag it was stored in from the hot dryer, then leaving right away taking nearly no items they can hide inside with you should do the trick. However if you sit, lie, lean or stand for too long, or take items they can crawl into, you could be bringing them with you. However it won't be as many as in the structure and all your items would be. Which could give one the illusion their problem is disappearing, when in fact your leaving many bugs behind and taking less with you. But if you manage to take a few, or a pregnant female, your problem will of course reappear again at your new location.

I strongly advise one contact a professional to take care of bedbugs, however I understand money or poor management can be a problem. Visit my sub to read more how to defeat bedbugs in other ways so you can apply some to your situation. For instance those who live in cold climates with houses that can be winterized for three months can self-eradicate bedbugs in one winter with no other cost needed. Vehicles in very hot dry climates will kill bedbugs if it gets over 120F or even over 100F for many months.

Many ways to kill bedbugs, learn the best, most safest ways and best of all, how not to get them in the first place!

Good Luck

Pirate

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