One of the most detested and least understood pest insect species known to man is the bed bug (Cimex lectularius). How many of us fell asleep to sleep at night as kids with the parting rhyme of our parents in our ears “sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite”?
Bed Bugs may have started to feed on man at about the period when we moved into caves, the bat bugs Cimex pilosellus and Cimex pipistrella primarily feed on bats and it is a fair chance that bat feeding species of bugs evolved to feed on human blood when our forebears started living} in bat infested caves.
Up to the production of DDT in the early 20th century bed bugs were common stowaways in most poor quality homes.
The later part of the 20th century saw pest operatives called out to very few bed bug call outs indeed, their presence being generally restricted to low quality holiday homes and student accomadation etc.
Most people confuse dust mites, which aren’t visible to the unaided eye, with bed bugs which most certainly.
Adult bedbugs are reddy-brown, about a few milemetres in size and very swollen after a feed of human blood.
Bed bugs usually feed on our blood every week or so, coming out in the early hours of the morning and locating their target by smelling the exhaled CO2 from human breath and when close in on their target, they sense infra red heat.
Lacking a suitable human meal to feed on they can lie in a period of dormancy for periods of up to a year or more.
Bed Bugs
The first signs of a bed bug presence are spots of blood on bed clothes and on the corners of mattresses and many people can react badly to the bites of these bugs.
The early part of this century has seen bed bug infestations multiplying across the planet, the easy availability of overseas and economic migration have both been put forward for the resurgence.
What is known is that that are now making a real fightback not only in slum quality housing but first class hotels, schools and even hospitals.
One London borough cited a doubling of bed bugs reports every year from 1995 to 2001.
One night stay in an infested premises is all it takes, they hitch a ride in your suitcases or bags. Stretford Pest control companies are also now reporting cases of transport related bed bug infestations on tubes and buses so a simple journey to work on an infested tube or train can be all it takes to bring the infestation to your own home.
They are an difficult pest to eradicate as contrary to popular belief they do not just live in beds. They hide in any nook and cranny suitably close to a sleeping target, beds, electrical sockets, televisions, bed side telephones etc and dealing with them is both laborious and time consuming. They have even been revealed found living under the toe-nails of infirm people and in the creases of flesh on very fat people.
They are not a pest that can be dealt with by an amateur and a pest control professional will almost certainly be needed.
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