The regular presence of blood-sucking insects in the bed means not only sleep disturbances, nightmares at night and itchy bites in the morning, but also a constant risk of contracting quite dangerous infections. Yes, such that the next day you can be busy all day just getting rid of such bites. For example, some blood-sucking human parasites are potentially capable of transmitting the causative agents of plague, encephalitis (and we are not just talking about ticks), anthrax and typhoid. This alone is enough for you to immediately take measures to remove them at the first suspicion of the presence of “bed” insects in the house.
You shouldn’t expect that living in a big city and a comfortable apartment will guarantee protection from insects in your bed. A characteristic feature of such human parasites is their indifference to the cleanliness and sanitary condition of the room, because they feed on blood, and not on the remains of our food.
On a note
Perhaps the most unpleasant blood-sucking insects that you can find in your bed are house bugs. It may seem strange, but they are a real disaster in Amsterdam, London and Stockholm. According to statistics, in most large European cities the number of apartments and houses infested with bedbugs is constantly growing, and disinfestation services cannot always cope with rapidly multiplying parasites that manage to develop resistance to the insecticides used. According to statistics, more than half of the homes in Florida, USA, have also been infested with bedbugs at some time.
When figuring out what insects bite you in bed, the easiest way will be to catch the parasite right at the scene of the crime, carefully examine it and compare it with the photographs below. Below are photos of the most common “bed” insects, in which you can recognize your offenders.
Bed bugs - their length, depending on age and degree of saturation, usually varies from 2-3 to 8 mm. The photo below shows this using an example of an adult bedbug:
This is what a bedbug larva looks like:
Fleas usually bite in the morning. They jump very well, and if you can’t catch an insect in the bed, perhaps it’s them.
The photo shows a flea on a human body at the time of the bite:
Linen lice are insects that are not even attached to the bed, but more to the human body. They bite around the clock, but at night their activity is especially noticeable.
Photo of an adult louse:
And this is what nits look like - lice eggs in a dense shell:
And, of course, mosquitoes - everyone knows them, so there will be no problems with their identification:
Some of these insects can be identified by the appearance of their bites, but the most reliable way to see the parasite itself is to see it in person.
Generally speaking, the insects that can be found on the sofa or in the bed include domestic cockroaches, but such cases are quite rare. Meanwhile, even ordinary red cockroaches, with a lack of water, can eat away the epithelium around the lips of sleeping people, especially children. This is exactly the case when we can say that even cockroaches bite.
So, if you have already managed to recognize which insects bite in bed, it’s time to get to know these parasites in detail to find out how you can fight them...
A little about bedbugs: photos, behavioral features, lifestyle
Bed bugs are perhaps the largest blood-sucking parasites of humans, and to this day they are quite often found in apartments. The photo below shows several of these insects on the bed (usually this picture can be seen at night when the light is suddenly turned on):
And in the next photo there is a nest of bedbugs in the sofa. These insects prefer to hide as close as possible to human resting places:
Review
“This is some kind of nightmare. Never in our life have we had any insects in our apartment, but then we began to discover that in the morning some kind of bites appeared on our bodies. We started to find out and once caught a bug at night. Such a disgusting creature, still fat, it’s clear that he’s pumped up some blood. I was hysterical, I went to live with a friend, and my husband called some services to poison everything. Now they don’t seem to be there, but I still check myself in the morning.”
Svetlana, Moscow
Each bug must feed on blood once every few days. Larvae need this for growth, and adult insects need it for reproduction. Their only food is human blood, which they suck by piercing the skin with a thin proboscis and getting to the blood vessel.
It is also useful to read: Types of insects that can live in an apartment and their photographs
And one more thing: This is what bites from various insects look like on the human body - not the most pleasant sight... (the article has more)
The photo below shows bed bug marks in the bed. Red dots indicate places where blood-sucking insects were accidentally crushed by a tossing and turning person:
This is interesting
Initially, at the dawn of the development of humans as a species, bedbugs parasitized bats in caves. And only when people began to actively populate the caves did they switch to a new victim. Today, in some caves in Central Asia, there are populations of bed bugs that continue to parasitize bats.
Bed bugs are nocturnal, and they can only be found in an apartment during the day in exceptional cases. During daylight hours, they hide in sofas, under mattresses, in household appliances, behind baseboards and on bookshelves, and go hunting at about 2-3 am. Bedbugs are the most common insects found in furniture.
The following photo shows bedbugs in a disassembled bed. These insects settle in unorganized nests:
Domestic insects in the apartment
Let's try to figure out which insects are more often found in the houses and apartments of modern St. Petersburg residents. In fact, there are so many insect species successfully neighboring us that it would take a long time to list them, so it is best to distinguish them by the harm they cause or threat to human health. Let's start with the most dangerous ones - parasitic on humans.
Domestic blood-sucking insects. Parasites
As you can easily guess from the name of the group, these insects parasitize humans, that is, they bite and feed on our blood. Such insects, of course, include bed bugs, mosquitoes, fleas lice. Getting along with such insects at home is extremely difficult and unnecessary, because in addition to the discomfort from bites, there is a possibility of blood poisoning with pathogens carried by parasites.
Domestic bed bugs
Inconspicuous small brown insects with a flattened body, leading a hidden lifestyle during the day. At night, when people sleep, bed bugs emerge from their shelters to quench their thirst for blood.
In the morning after a bedbug attack, itchy bite marks are found on the human body. At the same time, it is difficult to detect the insects themselves, while there are few of them in the apartment, but traces of their excrement and blood stains on the bed linen are clear signs of a home being infected with bedbugs, but in order to avoid getting an infection from the parasite, a person should take up the destruction of bedbugs as soon as possible without . Bedbugs are potential carriers of smallpox, hepatitis B, tularemia, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, anthrax and others.
House fleas
When fleas get into people's homes, they do not get lost, but almost immediately begin to bite a person. Typical indications of the presence of fleas in an apartment are multiple bites on the legs in the lower part.
Fleas are even smaller in size than bed bugs and are dark brown or black in color. Fleas do not hide in shelters, but bite a person or pet at any time. These small insects move around the apartment by jumping over impressive distances.
Despite their insignificant size, fleas, like bedbugs, pose a serious threat to human peace and health. Flea bites are much more painful than bed bug bites, and they are also potential carriers of dangerous infections: bubonic plague, typhus, hepatitis and encephalitis, pulicosis and others. The destruction of fleas in an apartment is achieved
House lice in the apartment
Formally, the home for head lice is not our home, but the person himself, or rather his hairline, where the lice live and reproduce safely, while feeding on blood. Body lice prefer to live on the fibers of clothing and in folds. From clothing, body lice easily enter the human body and begin to bite.
Although lice themselves cannot be found in an apartment, they themselves and their nits (eggs) can easily be found on a person’s personal items, for example, on combs or dressing gowns, which is how lice spread among the inhabitants of an apartment or house.
Lice bites are also quite painful; they provoke constant scratching on the head. Infection of a person with lice is called pediculosis. Removing lice is quite difficult; treatment is often accompanied by complete cutting of the hair on the head.
Lice are also potential carriers of typhus.
Household insect pests
Pests include insects that do not directly touch a person, but actively feed on his products, clothing and furniture. The most famous representatives of household pests are cockroaches, moths
Domestic cockroaches
Domestic cockroaches are a clear sign of sloppiness and unsanitary conditions in the apartment. Cockroaches multiply quickly and take over the apartment, starting from the kitchen and common areas. Cockroaches feed on food and waste in garbage bags and buckets. Cockroaches are carriers of bacteria and infectious diseases, so proximity to such pests is unacceptable in a self-respecting family. The destruction of cockroaches in an apartment is possible
House moth
Everyone has seen house moths; along with cockroaches, they are well known especially to the older generation. In almost any apartment you can find moths that feed on fur or fabric, hence the names fur moth or clothes moth . The coat moth feeds on fur and lays eggs, but the clothes moth is not as harmful as its caterpillars, which make holes in clothes, upholstery, and also stores of cereals and flour.
House ants
These are one of the most difficult insect pests to remove that live in an apartment or house. Domestic red ants are also known by the name “pharaoh ants”, since the scientist who gave the name mistakenly believed that they came from Egypt, but in fact these ants came to us from India.
All ants are social insects and live according to strict laws. Having settled with a person, they form a colony, which can consist of several nests located in different places, which complicates the destruction of ants .
House ants are omnivores, so they eat everything that comes their way with equal pleasure. And the paths of ants can run from a sugar bowl, a basket of sweets and a bread bin towards a trash can with waste and back, therefore, like cockroaches, house ants can spread various harmful microbes, bacteria and infections .
Other domestic insects
This group includes all other insects that live in our houses and apartments. These include spiders, midges, centipedes, and so on. This also includes visiting insects that do not live in the apartment, but entered it by accident through windows, doors, on the clothes of a person from the street - flies, wasps, ladybugs, and so on.
house fly
House flies and midges are real flying irritants. Flying to us through open windows and vents, they successfully settle and annoy people with their buzzing and presence in general.
Disinfection against insects in the apartment
Whatever they are, insects in an apartment are Of course, when there are no parasites or pests in the apartment, it is much more difficult for a person to gather his courage and start fighting against domestic insects . In most cases, there is simply not enough time or desire to use, for example, folk remedies or resort to chemicals.
It’s a completely different matter when pests and parasites have settled at home. If a person is able to tolerate parasites in the form of cockroaches or moths for a long time without resorting to measures to eliminate them, then if there are bedbugs or fleas at home, then there is no time for delay. Bedbugs bite every night, and fleas bite all the time. After one or two such bloody nights, any sane person will take up the extermination of parasites .
Extermination of domestic insects can be carried out in two ways:
- independently using folk methods and remedies or using drugs;
- call a disinfectant to carry out the treatment.
For the first method, there are many instructions and tips that can be freely found on the Internet. The effectiveness of using a traditional method or drug will depend only on you, and the main thing here is not to overdo it. When using strong disinfectants, you must strictly adhere to the instructions included with the disinfectant, otherwise baiting domestic insects can have serious consequences for human health.
Professional insect extermination
The second way to exterminate unwanted parasites and pests in an apartment involves contacting a specialized insect baiting service, which In addition to modern equipment and highly effective certified drugs that cannot be bought in a regular store, professional employees of the SES service have 100% destruction of pests and parasites .
In Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk region and Berezovsk, you can We guarantee the complete destruction of bedbugs, fleas, cockroaches, mosquitoes and other insects in an apartment, house, or premises for any purpose. Don't hesitate to seek professional help when dealing with insect problems at home. We will help you quickly and efficiently deal with this delicate problem. We give a guarantee! Health and comfort in your home are the most important!
Bedbug bites and their consequences
Bedbug bites appear as red spots on the skin with a characteristic point where the insect inserted its proboscis. Often the bug leaves a whole chain of 3-7 such bites, piercing the skin in several places. It is by such chains (paths) that these insects, which often live directly in beds, are easily recognized.
If there are a large number of bed bugs in the house and high sensitivity to their bites, a person under attack may develop an allergic reaction with profuse rashes on the skin and generalized symptoms. Children with heavy and regular bedbug bites may even develop anemia. In addition, constant itching from bites does not allow the victim to feel normal, and when scratching the wounds, pustular inflammation can develop.
Bed bugs are potential carriers of many infections, but doctors have not recorded cases of transmission of diseases such as HIV or hepatitis.
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Read further:
Bedbug bite in a child and an adult: what it looks like and how you can get rid of it
What do bed bugs fear most: temperature, smells, what chemicals?
How to effectively and permanently remove bed bugs from your apartment
How to get rid of nits at home, traditional methods
How to get rid of roundworms at home using tablets and folk recipes
Treatment of head lice and nits at home with folk remedies
How to deal with bedbugs
There are two reliable ways to remove bedbugs:
- Poisoning them with special insecticidal sprays or aerosols. The first include, for example, concentrates for dilution Delta Zone, Lambda Zone, Get, Karbofos, Executioner, Sinuzan. The second includes ready-to-use products in aerosol cans: Raptor, Dichlorvos, Combat and their analogues. Sprays are more effective, especially if there are a large number of bloodsuckers in the house, but are somewhat more difficult to use.
- The second option is to call special pest control teams that poison bedbugs often with the same insecticides, but relieve the apartment resident from the risk of poisoning himself.
Removing bedbugs yourself is cheaper, but requires a serious investment of time and effort. When contacting pest control services, you need to be careful so as not to encounter scammers or those who, in fact, do not do the work.
In the photo there is a nest of bedbugs in furniture:
If these insects are infested in a sofa or other furniture, they can be frozen out outside in winter at temperatures below minus 20°C. However, this method is rarely effective, since bedbugs often hide not only in the sofa, but also in other places in the apartment.
You can also kill bedbugs in an apartment with heat, raising the room temperature to +50°C, which is usually achieved using industrial fan heaters. Of course, such a procedure must be carried out very carefully and with all precautions.
It is also useful to read: Small jumping insects in the apartment and methods of dealing with them
And one more thing: We catch bedbugs and perform lethal experiments on them - this is a must see!
Bed bugs
Small parasite. An adult reaches a length of 0.7 mm. The larvae go through several stages of development, molt 7 times, each time increasing in size. The body of the bug is flattened, round, color from gray to red. Depending on how long the insect was without food.
A clear sign of the presence of bed parasites are bites on the body, which are arranged in the form of a path. Arms, legs, back, neck, shoulders suffer. Very rarely the stomach or face is bitten. They prefer the thin skin of women and children. They multiply rapidly.
In 1 month, a comfortable apartment turns into a bedbug infestation. It becomes unbearable to be in it. Bed bugs have scent glands. They navigate by smells and emit them themselves, especially during the mating period. The smell is reminiscent of cheap cognac, almonds, rotten raspberries. If one is present, you should immediately begin searching for parasites.
They can be located near a person’s sleeping place. Very often they form a nest under the mattress or in the sofa. The most inventive bedbugs build nests anywhere in the bedroom.
Bed bug infestation occurs in several ways:
- with purchases from the store;
- with parcels;
- gifts;
- from neighbors;
- a person himself brings it into his home from an infected premises.
To pick up a bug, you need to spend the night in an infested place. Daytime stays are less dangerous.
A bedbug bite causes skin irritation, swelling, and severe itching. In people prone to allergies, they provoke a rash, hives, as well as dizziness, weakness, headache, and difficulty breathing. Getting rid of this type of bed parasites can be very difficult.
Insects are able to develop immunity to poisons, skillfully hide, and without food they fall into suspended animation. They can remain in this state for about 2 years. When the opportunity arises, they come to life and return to normal life.
You can get rid of bed bugs using the temperature method - they are afraid of both frost and extreme heat, using modern insecticide-based means. Or call the SES staff. It is quite difficult to get rid of a heavily contaminated room on your own.
Bed bug
Fleas: when they bite and how to deal with them
A flea is a small jumping blood-sucking insect that attacks mainly during daylight hours. Not everyone thinks about it, but fleas can potentially carry plague, anthrax, typhoid, encephalitis, brucellosis and many other serious diseases, so you should be especially careful about protecting yourself from these parasites.
On a note
It was fleas and their hosts, rats, that became the cause of the extensive bubonic plague pandemic in the Middle Ages, during which almost a third of the European population died out.
Flea bites are quite similar to bedbug bites and can also form characteristic tracks, only short ones.
The photo shows a flea on human skin:
These insects are clearly visible on white bedding, but it can be quite difficult to catch them: they jump so quickly that the jump itself is not noticeable at all.
Fleas need to be removed in two stages: first, they are poisoned from pets, and then from the entire apartment.
Sometimes fleas have to be poisoned again if the infestation of the premises is especially high.
When baiting fleas in an apartment, the same drugs are used as against bedbugs. But to remove fleas from cats and dogs, you need to use completely different means, more gentle and safe, with reduced concentrations of insecticides.
Methods of disposal
If you suspect little vampires in the room, check their possible habitats. If you discover their nest, immediately take measures to clean the house.
Let's look at how to get rid of bed parasites at home. The main methods can be divided into two groups:
- Folk and insecticidal remedies;
- Thermal and mechanical methods.
Insecticides
The following popular drugs are used for this:
- “Get” – suspension with capsules. Dissolve in water in a ratio of 1:5 and treat areas where parasites accumulate and move. The capsules stick to the insects and end up in their lair. The product is active from six months to a year, does not smell, is safe for humans and animals;
- "Riapan" - powder. It is poured into the center of the bug infestation, along thresholds and window sills, left for a certain time, then wet cleaning is carried out. But after it, allergies and headaches may occur;
- “Executioner” is a liquid that has a nerve-paralytic effect on insects. It is diluted with water and sprayed on the surface. Books, textiles, clothing, and bedding are easy to clean. The product is safe for people;
- “Raid” is an aerosol that is applied to the surface. It lasts up to 15 days after spraying and has a pungent odor. Helps in the war against bloodsuckers if there are few of them in the home.
Bedbug nesting sites
Traditional methods
Plants with a strong scent will repel pests, but will not have much effect. If anyone in your household has allergies, be careful.
Wormwood, tansy, wild rosemary, and valerian (or tincture) are very popular.
- Wormwood does not provide complete relief from insects. Its bitter aroma can only scare them off for a while;
- Tansy is cut when it blooms. They dry it, place it in the habitats of bloodsuckers who cannot stand its smell and leave. But the plant is very toxic, so when using it, ventilate the rooms and supervise children;
- An infusion is made from marsh wild rosemary, a plant with a specific odor, which is used to spray the affected furniture. After cleaning, a sharp toxic aroma remains in the room, so the rooms must be ventilated for at least 1-2 days;
- Valerian is added to water and sprayed.
Turpentine
Has a pungent odor and toxicity. To clean the surface, you can use the following emulsions:
- Mix 10 ml of turpentine in 100 ml of water. A caustic emulsion will be obtained by adding 15 ml of kerosene and 30 g of green soap;
- Mix 100 ml of turpentine and kerosene, add naphthalene - 20 g;
- We combine 40 g of benzene, 10 g of ammonia, 150 g of denatured alcohol;
- Drip salicylic acid (3 g) into a container, pour phenol (20 ml), add turpentine (40 ml).
The prepared products are poured directly onto the parasites and their lair. At this time, there should be no children or pets in the home because the substances are toxic.
They use vinegar essence or 9% vinegar to repel pests. The essence is used to lubricate vents, baseboards, cracks, and corners. Wipe doors, window sills, frames, and furniture with a solution of water and vinegar (50/50). Treatment is carried out 3 times a day for three days.
Lice: the parasites that are always around
Lice in bed are quite rare. For these insects, falling from the hair or body of a person is fatal - they are slow and rarely able to climb back (at the same time, they vitally need to feed on blood very often). Lice cannot be called typical bed blood-sucking insects.
Lice spend their entire lives on the head (head lice) or other hairy parts of a person (pubic lice). There are also linen lice that live in clothes, but today they are found only among tramps who very rarely change their clothes and never wash them.
Lice bites are usually less noticeable and less painful than flea or bedbug bites, but because they are so numerous, they can also be quite itchy.
The photo shows nits in a child’s hair (lice eggs):
Lice should be removed with special pediculicidal shampoos or sprays. Special thick combs for combing parasites out of hair also work well against them.
Types of bed parasites
The bed is an ideal environment for the life of bed parasites. Bedbugs, fleas, linen lice, and ticks thrive in conditions of heat and high humidity created by blankets, sheets, pillows and humans.
The distribution area of insects is large. They are everywhere - in public transport, at neighbors' houses, in the hairdresser's, in the fur of dogs, cats, parrots.
Fleas, numbering 2,500 varieties, are collectively called bed fleas or household fleas based on their habitat. The most common types of fleas are cat, dog, chicken, and rat. Parasitism on animals does not prevent them from feeding on human blood.
Do cockroaches bite at night?
Cockroaches rarely bite humans. They are inhabitants of kitchens, feeding on crumbs from the table and leftover food in trash cans. Only with very abundant reproduction and a lack of water can they crawl onto the bed and gnaw the epidermis around the lips and nose of people. Today, similar situations sometimes occur in hostels.
Of course, cockroaches are not blood-sucking insects, so even if they bite, it’s completely different from the way fleas or bed bugs do.
In any case, if you are bitten by insects, their bites should be treated to reduce itching and prevent infection:
- bite sites are washed with soapy water
- the most painful bites are wiped with alcohol or alcohol tincture of calendula or propolis
- Itching from bites can be reduced with Fenistil gel.
But if, after being bitten by blood-sucking insects, the temperature begins to rise and a characteristic rash appears on the skin, it is advisable to show the person to a doctor. An allergy to bites can have serious consequences, and even if at a particular moment it does not manifest itself very strongly, in the future the reaction to bites can be extremely acute.
How to choose an insect extermination service
Interesting video: where do lice crawl from?
Worms on a person's face
Having settled in the body, the parasite releases its waste products into the human blood. The presence of a helminth impairs the functioning of internal organs and reduces immunity. The constant release of toxins has a negative impact on your overall health. Skin rashes serve as an indicator of dysfunction of internal organs. Worms and pimples on the skin are concomitant phenomena.
Acne and parasite pimples are not exactly the same skin conditions. Parasites cause redness similar to hives. And sometimes papules containing worm larvae are identified. If they have settled under the skin, then helminths even become visible on the neck, arms, face and epidermis (the disease is called dirofilariasis).
The larva enters the human body through an insect bite.
In such cases, only a surgeon can help get rid of helminths. Although surgery is not a panacea. Worms are able to migrate in the epidermis, changing their location.
Nobody wants to put up with such a pathology. Nowadays, there are enough tools to help get rid of uninvited tenants. Pediculosis, a spread of head lice, is caused by another type of parasite. Males are no more than 2 mm in length, females are almost 2.5 mm. Nits are yellow-white in color. Initially, they are attached to the hair in close proximity to the follicular ostium. But 10 days pass, and their active reproduction begins. The louse moves very quickly, so finding it in the hair can be quite difficult.
Where there was a bite and salivation, papules, erythematous spots and vesicles appear. All this leads to symptoms of dermatitis, excoriation and eczema. The skin becomes inflamed and purulent-bloody crusts form. The affected areas peel, change color and itch. And what’s most unpleasant is that all this happens in open areas of the face and ears. A person feels uncomfortable with such an appearance.
What blood-sucking insects can live in a city apartment?
There are a lot of synanthropic species among insects that have settled near humans. Some go for clothes and furs, others for food, while others like books and newspapers. Blood-sucking species are the most dangerous, because blood is an ideal environment for viruses and bacteria, the main infectious agents. Thanks to the bloodstream, they quickly infect body tissues, and the person becomes a virus carrier.
Among the most dangerous blood-sucking species, the following can live in an apartment:
- Bedbugs. Infection occurs when insects are present among neighbors or in basements - small parasites enter the apartment through ventilation or through microscopic cracks.
- Fleas. In this case, the insects are usually brought home by pets after contact with a stray dog or cat.
- Lice. Most often, the source of infection is an infected person (usually a child), someone else's comb, or improperly washed linen in a camp or train.
- Flies and mosquitoes. Flying insects enter the apartment through the windows; if hygiene is observed, they quickly disappear (are caught or driven out).
If getting rid of flies and mosquitoes is quite simple with the help of repellents, mosquito nets, insecticidal lamps, then the fight against other blood-sucking insects requires a professional approach.
Who bites at night: regular mosquitoes
These blood-sucking insects have long and everywhere become habitual neighbors of people in the warm season. A healthy person does not care about the night bite of an ordinary mosquito. A blister after such a bite and slight swelling often goes unnoticed by them. The only concern is the itching, which goes away quickly. But there are people who are especially sensitive to the saliva of this flying insect. They may experience serious symptoms of complications such as fever, nausea, shortness of breath and severe headaches. In this situation, one good thing is that mosquitoes, unlike bedbugs, are easy to notice and recognize by their annoying ringing sound. Mosquitoes are easy to kill the moment they bite.
Important! The most important thing is that when parasites are found in the house, immediately take measures to destroy them. In a comfortable environment, pests multiply at a rapid pace and it becomes more difficult to remove them.
If the cause of night attacks is bedbugs, fleas or cockroaches, the premises must be thoroughly disinfested. You should do the same if your fears about the presence of ticks in the house are confirmed. Lice on the human body are eliminated in a few days by using special preparations that are sold in pharmacies.
