Bed Bugs Symptoms

Bed Bugs Alert: Know the Bed Bugs Symptoms

Many people these days are unaware of bed bugs symptoms. It is understandable since bed bugs, together with some other pests, were basically exterminated through the widespread use of DDT in the United States after the Second World War.

But because of international travel and immigration plus pesticide immunity, bed bugs and the resulting symptoms have returned.

Most people don't detect bed bugs symptoms until someone complains of excessive itching and has oval-shaped insect bite marks which are often mistaken as moquitoes or dust mites bites.

When a household experiences a typical bed bugs symptoms, they don't check their mattresses, beddings, and couch uphosltery for bed bugs. Instead the typical reaction is to spray a gel-type insect spray that kills cockroaches or mosquitoes. But this kind of insect spray does not kill bed bugs, and therefore, furniture and upholstery remain bed bug infested.

Bed bugs - symptoms of infestation

How do I know, if my home is infested with bed bugs?

A heavily infested home will have an offensive, sweet, musty scent. This odor is released by bed bugs through their scent glands, as they mark their territories.

Another bed bugs symptoms to look out for is red or brown fecal stains, egg cases, and shed skins of bed bug nymphs in crevices, cracks or holes on the bed or near it. Furniture near the bed should be checked as well. Bedroom wallpapers, bed springs and clothings in your dresser, should be examined for these reddish brown excrement stains.

Your living room couch should be checked for these stains, especially if you or any member of your family get bed bugs symptoms such as swollen bites after sitting on the couch. Every place in your house where a person stays more than 30 minutes must be checked for bed bugs.

Hiding Places

A thin crack or seams in mattresses are one of the more common hiding place of bed bugs. Bed bugs wants to live close to their source of food, which is human blood, so cracks near the bed or around the bedroom and livingroom are the primary places where bed bugs hide.

Once you find a bed bug anywhere in your house, the other parts of your house will undoubtedly have bed bugs, too.

Finding Bed Bugs

Inspect your entire house the moment bed bugs symptoms are detected. Dismantle the bed, check the headboard, inspect the seams of of your mattresses. If you found reddish brown excrement and sheddings of insect skin, it means that your house is infested with bed bugs.

If you detected these bed bugs symptoms, you must tear off your wallpaper, too. Chances are that bed bugs have created their biggest colony under the wallpaper. All wood furniture that you own, should be inspected for bed bugs. Bed bugs prefer wood or cloth as their hiding place rather than plastic or metal.

Empty the contents of your nightstands and examine it inside and out. Tip it over to inspect the crevices, cracks, recesses and corners of the woodwork underneath. Since bed bugs love woods, there is a big chance that they are hiding in there.

Some bed bugs facts

Bed bugs bites are often mistaken as being due to mosquitoes or dust mites. So how would you know the bed bugs symptoms of being bitten? Below are some basic bed bugs bite facts: