If you believe your house has been infested with bed bugs, here’s how to do a fast visual check of your own mattress.
Knowing how to check for bed bugs may save you time and money (by discovering an infestation early) and give you a better sense of how serious the infestation may be.
Checking Your Mattress for Bed Bugs: What to Look for
- Bed bugs in the wild
- Blood stains that are scarlet or rust-colored
- Dark flecks or streaks caused by bed bug excrement
- Eggshells or tiny, whitish eggs
- Shell casings are hollow and transparent.
- Scents of must
Table of Contents
Checking Your Mattress for Bed Bugs
#1
Examine your linens, blankets, comforters, and pillowcases thoroughly.
Examine your surroundings for any marks that mimic blood spots or fecal stains left by bed bugs after a nightly meal.
Look for these stains around the top of the mattress and along the seams.
#2
Remove your mattress from the wall.
This exposes any bed bugs that may be lurking between the mattress and the wall.
It also provides you with extra space to do your inspection.
#3
Check the mattress below even if there are no apparent blood stains or fecal streaks on the sheets.
Remove all of the bedding with care.
If bed bugs are still lurking in your sheets, avoid shaking them so that the bed bugs are not scattered throughout your bedroom.
Place the sheets in plastic rubbish bags or dump them straight into a washing machine.
To ensure that all bed bugs are eliminated, dry them at a high temperature for at least 30 minutes.
#4
Examine the mattress’s folds and seams.
We urge that you use gloves to safeguard your hands.
You may also use a card to push out any bed bugs, eggs, or skin casings that have been lodged further within the gaps.
#5
After inspecting the top of the mattress, turn it over and rest it against a wall to check the bottom.
You may examine the same sections as you did on top.
#6
When the mattress has been removed from the bed frame, examine your box spring, if you have one.
Examine the creases and seams for spots.
Bed bugs may also be seen crawling around the dust cover on the bottom of the box spring, so turn it over.
#7
Finally, take a check around the bed frame.
Bed bugs may squeeze their tiny bodies into gaps and crevices, as well as below the bed frame.
They’ve even been discovered lurking within screw holes.
Canine Bed Bug Inspections
If you haven’t been successful in discovering the bed bugs that have been biting you at night, try having a canine bed bug examination.
Bed bug-detecting canines have been carefully taught to locate bed bugs as well as their casings, eggs, and other indicators that the human eye may miss.
During a canine examination, an expert handler guides the dog around each room, sniffing for bed bug-hiding locations.
These canines are able to find even a single live bed insect or egg with 96% accuracy.
If the dog discovers anything, it signals its handler, who then does a visual check for confirmation.
Bed bug dogs and their handlers must pass a rigorous certification procedure to guarantee you get dependable and accurate findings.
Where to Look for Bed Bugs
Canvas strap from an old box spring covering housing adults, skin casts, excrement, and eggs.
Bed bugs hide in a number of areas while they are not eating.
They may be discovered around the bed along the piping, seams and tags of the mattress and box spring, and gaps in the bed frame and headboard.
You may locate bed bugs if the room is badly infested:
In the seams of chairs and sofas, between cushions, and between curtain folds.
In the joints of drawers.
In receptacles and appliances that use electricity.
Wall hangings and loose wallpaper.
At the point where the wall and ceiling meet.
Even in a screw’s head.
Bed bugs may fit into very tiny hiding places since they are only about the diameter of a credit card.
A bed bug might be hidden in a crevice that can hold a credit card.
Bed Bug Habits and Behavior
Understanding bed bug behavior (how they feed, live, and reproduce) can assist you in detecting an infestation before it gets entrenched, as well as monitoring for the presence of bed bugs after your house has been treated.
#1. Feeding
It seems that they prefer to prey on people, although they will also eat on other animals and birds.
Will travel 5-20 feet from established hiding locations (known as harborage) to feed on a host.
Even though they are mostly active at night, if they are hungry, they will seek hosts in broad daylight.
Feeding might take anything from 3 to 12 minutes.
The rusty or tarry patches discovered on bed linens or in insect hiding places are caused by adults and big nymphs voiding leftovers of previous blood meals while still eating 20% of the time.
#2. Life Stages And Mating
Bed bugs need at least one blood meal before progressing to the next of six life phases.
They may feed many times.
Each stage necessitates skin molting.
others are out of the for the first time you as an important once again.
Each female may lay 1 to 3 eggs every day, for a total of 200-500 eggs in her lifespan.
Under ideal circumstances, the egg-to-egg life cycle might take four to five weeks.
#3. Conditions Of Living
Bed bugs may live and stay active at temperatures as low as 7°C (46°F), but they die around 45°C (113°F).
To kill bed bugs using heat, the room must be significantly hotter to guarantee that continuous heat reaches the bugs regardless of where they are hiding.
Bed bugs can dwell in practically any place their hosts can.
Tropical bed bugs (Cimex hemipterus) are prevalent in tropical and subtropical climates and need a higher average temperature than regular bed bugs.
How Do You Get Rid Of Bed Bugs?
If you have a bed bug infestation, getting rid of the bugs will most likely be expensive.
Even leaving one-bed insect alive may restart the process.
Some pest control firms deal with bed bugs, but they normally need fumigation of at least your bedroom, if not your whole property.
You may be unable to resist doing it.
Once the pest control firm has given you the all-clear that all of the horrible animals have died, you should shop for a new mattress.
Removing your old, contaminated mattress and replacing it with a new mattress can not only keep bed bugs at bay but will also allow you to sleep better, both physically and emotionally.
Of course, having a mattress protector and pillow protectors covering your mattress and pillows is an excellent approach to prevent catching bed bugs.
These can also help keep dust mites out of your sleeping environment, allowing you to breathe better at night.
