How Hard Are Bed Bugs To Get Rid Of In Phoenix

Easy-To-Spot Signs Of Bed Bugs In Your Home

When bed bugs first get into your home, they'll likely stay in one isolated spot. They may do this for a few months. If you get bites while sleeping, check your bed. If you get bites while watching television, check your couch. If someone else in your home is getting bed bug bites, check where they are sleeping, sitting, or lounging. Here are some easy-to-spot signs of bed bug activity.

Feces: Bed bug feces are black. They leave these feces mostly in tight spaces, so you can have lots of bed bugs and not see any feces. However, once in a while, they cause obvious spotting on sheets, pillowcases, bedspreads, or mattresses. Most of the time, you'll need to probe for evidence of bed bug feces. 

Blood: Bed bugs sometimes excrete blood. They do this at night, so you'll likely find tan or brown stains in the morning, rather than red stains. Like feces, brown stains are often in tight spaces that are concealed from view. Bed bugs spend most of their time in tight spaces because they are thigmotactic. That is a fancy word that means, they like tight spaces. 

Skins: Bed bugs shed their skins as they pass through their five instars of development. Each time they shed their skin, they provide more evidence for you to find. You may see these tiny, yellowish skins attached to fabrics or littered on your carpets, but like black and brown stains, you may need to probe for this warning sign.

Eggs: Bed bug eggs are 1/24 of an inch long and white. Since they're so small, they're not easy to find. But when probing gaps, cracks, and holes, it is helpful to know what they look like so that you can identify this warning sign when it appears.

Nymphs: A baby bed bug is called a nymph. It starts as a pale-colored, six-legged insect, and is about 1/24 of an inch long. If it has had a blood meal, it will have a bright red abdomen. The abdomen is significantly larger than the head and thorax, so an abdomen filled with red blood will completely alter the coloration of the insect. For this reason, we sometimes have customers tell us that they've found tiny red insects, even though nymphs are white or tan.  

Smells: Bed bugs have an odor. If you smell something that is a little off, it may be a warning sign of bed bugs. Do a quick search on the internet for a description of what bed bugs smell like. There are several opinions on this topic. We think they smell like coriander.

When you search for warning signs of bed bugs in your home, it helps to know where to specifically search beds, couches, living room chairs, office chairs, and other furniture. Get a flashlight to search gaps and recesses, and a credit card or butter knife to probe tight spaces. Here are a few places to search:

• The seams of mattresses and box springs

• The gaps around mattress grommets

• Underneath mattress and box spring lables

• The tight spaces between mattresses and box springs and under living room furniture cushions

• The area where cushions touch

• Underneath the feet of beds, bedstands, and other furniture

• Folds in fabric

• Around stitching

• In laundry

• In luggage, bags, and pocketbooks

• Along carpet edges

• On outlet plates

• On baseboards

• Along the edges of crown molding

• On the surface of electronics

As you search for warning signs of bed bugs, keep a vacuum at hand. Use one that has strong suction and apply a crack and crevice attachment. When you see bed bugs, suck those suckers up. If bed bugs haven't spread around your home, doing this may correct your infestation. After sucking bed bugs up, dispose of the bag outside and take steps to wash all of your linen and laundry in hot soapy water. Then put your laundry through a dryer cycle. We're crossing our fingers and hoping that this is all your need, but if they've spread and you keep getting bites, more control is needed. 

The Problem With Having Bed Bugs In Your Home

Bed bugs have a psychological impact on some people, but we don't want you to fear these bugs. While it is certainly a good idea to address a bed bug infestation effectively when you first detect them, it is only because bed bugs are harder to deal with once they've spread to more than one location. Bed bug bites aren't generally a health concern. You have much more to worry about if mosquitoes, ticks, or fleas bite you.

Studies reveal that bed bugs have the ability to carry disease pathogens and spread disease, but there are no real-world examples or reported cases of disease transmission from bed bugs to people. The reason the risk is low in the real world is that bed bugs tend to establish themselves in one location and bite whoever frequents that location. If no one in your home has a disease that bed bugs can pick up and spread, you have little to fear from these insects.

The primary concern with bed bugs is that repeated bites can lead to infection or anemia, which is the case with any biting pests that invade your home. Bed bugs can also damage your belongings by leaving black fecal stains or blood stains on fabrics. But overall, they aren't nearly as bad as other pests. That's a relief, isn't it?   

Why You Can't Get Rid Of Bed Bugs On Your Own

Have you been trying to get rid of bed bugs? Have you noticed that your efforts are falling short? There are many reasons why DIY bed bug treatments fall short. We don't know what you have tried, but the following tips may provide some clues as to why your treatments aren't getting the job done.

• Bed bugs hide in tight spaces and dark voids. Topical products don't get deep enough or they wear out before bed bugs get near them.
• Some all-natural mixtures have no impact at all on bed bugs and other insects once they've dried on surfaces.
• Bed bugs avoid treated surfaces if they can detect a harmful product.
• Bed bugs work together to avoid danger. When a few bed bugs go out to feed and don't come back, the others take notice. So, finding a few bed bugs in a trap and then not seeing bed bugs in your traps provides a false positive of treatment success.
• Bed bugs shed their skins as they grow. The new skins they develop are made to withstand harmful things in their environment. They can become immune to control products.

Bed bug control is tricky. These insects are indoor pests that have lived with humans for as long as we've been on the earth. We would have driven them to extinction by now if they were easy to control. Does that make sense?