How to find a bedbug nest in an apartment

Those who have tried to remove bedbugs from an apartment on their own know well that this is not an easy task. People often complain that a couple of days or weeks after treatment, these parasites appear again and again. There are several reasons for this, and one of them is the lack of awareness of the apartment owner about the characteristics of these insects. Where to start the fight? How to find a bedbug den in an apartment ? The first step is to conduct a home inspection in order to correctly determine the level of contamination of the premises.

Why is it important to know how to find bedbugs?

Infection of an apartment with bedbugs usually occurs according to the following scenario: once in the house, the female parasite (or several individuals at once) chooses the most suitable place for a home. As a rule, in the area where a person sleeps, and gradually, day after day, lays its eggs there. This is how the primary focus of infection is formed.

In 90% of cases, insects are not noticed immediately. By the time the apartment owners notice the very first signs of the presence of vile parasites, they have already managed to multiply greatly.

If the residents of the apartment do not change their place of rest at night, then the new colony of parasites will not migrate through the home until they are disturbed, or they become very crowded in their lair. Thus, if you managed to detect a nest of bedbugs in time, you have a fairly important trump card in the fight against these uninvited guests. Now you can determine the approximate area of their localization and know where to direct the main blow. Therefore, knowing how to find bedbugs at home is very important.

How does a home become infected?

There are quite a few ways in which bedbugs can get into an apartment. The most common is the migration of parasites from a neighboring home. There are often cases when these pests enter a single apartment from furniture stores, when the owners buy sofas or cabinets, and then spread throughout the house.

Insects can be brought into the premises by guests or visitors on their clothes or shoes. If someone has bedbugs in their house, most likely this person runs the risk of bringing a couple of individuals into their friends’ home, which can quickly reproduce and create a colony. Bedbugs are often brought back from trips abroad, especially if tourists stayed in cheap hotels and hostels. In their belongings, without knowing it themselves, they may well bring several individuals from the hotel where they were vacationing.

Bedbugs are able to migrate if they are not satisfied with their habitat. These insects may lose interest in the apartment due to the long-term absence of owners, too sterile conditions, renovations, regular use of insecticides by the owners, unpleasant microclimate, etc. In apartment buildings, parasites can move inside walls through microscopic cracks, cable ducts, openings in ceilings for heating pipes and even ventilation. It is especially easy for bedbugs to “walk” from apartment to apartment in old and dilapidated houses with wooden floors.

What do bedbugs look like?

In order to know how to find a bedbug nest in an apartment , you need to understand what these insects look like and where they start. The length of an adult is approximately 3-9 mm. Their sizes depend on age, as well as the degree of saturation with human blood.

Hungry parasites are flat, so they can crawl into almost any crack or hide in a very narrow gap. After a night hunt, when the bedbugs have eaten, they double in size, with distinct segments appearing on the abdomen. At this time they are the easiest to catch and kill.

Their color also depends on the amount of blood in the bug’s stomach. As a rule, they are light brown in color and become dark after dinner. A person who does not have specific knowledge in entomology, or who sees a bug for the first time, may confuse it with other insects.

However, it is necessary to remember that bedbugs do not have wings, so they do not fly, but they are quite capable of jumping from the ceiling or wall onto a person. They run on six legs, and, for example, ticks have four pairs of legs. Also, another distinctive feature of the bedbug is that it is very difficult to crush.

Due to their very flexible chitinous shell, pests can press very tightly to surfaces. Therefore, it is much better to get rid of them with a knife, coin or something flat and hard.

Bed bugs usually live in nests, and there may be a couple of them at home. These accumulations represent the presence of adult bedbugs, their eggs, larvae, as well as shed chitinous shells.

The larvae are almost indistinguishable from adult parasites; they look like their small clones. Difference in size and color. The young are smaller, yellow, almost transparent. And the eggs are almost impossible to notice, because their length is only 0.5 mm. The saving grace is that the females glue them together in groups of three or four, so sometimes they can still be detected.

Looking for bedbug nests

Insects bite victims at night , feeding only on blood. Their way of life explains the choice of places for nests. About domestic pests: what bedbugs eat, reproduction, lifestyle can be found here.

Food availability

Although insects feed on blood, they cannot parasitize in the fur of animals or on the skin of people. Once every few days , bedbugs leave their nests to get food and immediately return. They “keep a course” towards the smell, warmth, but move slowly (in 60 seconds for 1 meter). Therefore, the optimal places for their housing are close to people’s sleeping places :

Of course, these are mattresses, sofas, beds.
Crevices near where people sleep (walls, floors).
Furniture that is located near the beds: bedside tables, rugs, shelves.

Hidden places

Bloodsuckers have a flat body, so they crawl into any cracks . Nests are made in dark corners. The optimal locations are where they touch surfaces with their back and belly:

Behind the wallpaper that has peeled off.
In furniture (cabinet).
In piles of linen (mostly natural).
In books, sockets, electronics, household appliances.
In the pile of carpets.
In the gaps of sofas and beds.
Behind the wall and the back of the wardrobes.
In the cracks of the floor and walls.

Bloodsuckers do not live in bedding; it is dangerous for them. The insect's body, swollen with blood, can be crushed. Therefore, they only populate the area between the filler and the pillowcase.

Warm

Blood-sucking insects love warmth, feel great and multiply rapidly at temperatures from + 20 to + 30 degrees, which usually occurs in a residential building. Therefore, it is unrealistic to find them on a balcony that is not heated or in the gaps of a window frame (during the cold season).

In a home where it is warm all year round, insects can breed everywhere. When it is relatively cool in winter, they hide in warm places: near heating radiators, in a computer system unit and other equipment, sofas. What bedbugs don't like by clicking on the link.

What do bedbug nests look like?

To know how to find a bedbug nest in an apartment yourself , you need to understand what it looks like. In fact, nests are secluded places in which the main life activity of these vile parasites takes place. They can be detected by special traces. The very first thing that may catch your eye is clusters of black dots, which are often mistaken for bedbug eggs. In reality, it is nothing more than excrement. The longer the insects explore the place they like, the more of these black dots appear. By the way, they can be easily washed using regular wet cleaning.

Another feature of bedbug nests is their eggs. They are quite small, but with good vision they are quite visible to the human eye. White in color, the size of a sugar crystal, elongated in shape, similar to rice grains, but many times smaller. As a rule, there are several eggs in a clutch, but in advanced cases, entire scatterings can be found.

In addition, when passing through certain stages of development, the larvae leave behind dry skins, which are also clearly visible. And finally, clusters of bedbugs of various ages, from larvae to adults, are the main element of a bedbug nest.

Visual signs of parasite nests:

High concentration of blackheads.
Dry skins that remain from the larvae.
Clusters of bedbugs.
Clutches of eggs.

Bedbugs nest

The nest contains many individuals of different sizes and ages. Eggs lie in rows, both ripening and empty. Nearby there are small insect excrements similar to poppy seeds. Fast-growing larvae often molt, shedding their chitinous cover. A dirty, untidy place gives the unpleasant impression of a continuous, chaotically moving mass.

When choosing chemical means to combat bedbug nests, you should take into account not only their effectiveness, but also the degree of toxicity, the smell of the drug, and its cost-effectiveness

You can read the article about bed bugs.

Signs of parasites

To find out how to find bedbugs in a room , you first need to consider the signs of the presence of these insects:

Itchy red bites appear on the skin, which run three to four bumps in a straight line. Only bedbugs are characterized by such an arrangement - first, with their upper jaw, they release special saliva under the skin, which acts as an anesthetic, and then pierce with their lower jaw and drink blood. This process is repeated several times, the pest only moves away 3-4 cm until it is completely saturated. At first, their bites can be confused with mosquito bites, but bedbug bites are more defined and are located close to each other. Flea bites are also located in different places, but they prefer the legs up to the knee. Midge wounds are much more painful, and at the top of the swelling there is a small drop of dried blood.
You can easily find drops of blood on your bed linen. They appear due to the fact that people, tossing and turning in their sleep, accidentally crush bedbugs, because they have eaten enough, which is why they are not able to quickly escape.
Residents of an infected apartment have difficulty sleeping at night. Due to the itching and pain of the wounds, a person constantly wakes up, there is a feeling that something is crawling on the body. Due to lack of sleep and fatigue, depression can occur and immunity decreases. Severe irritability appears. By doing this, the parasites carry out a psychological attack on their victim.
Small black dots, very similar to maws, on furniture, wallpaper or baseboards are bedbug droppings. If you do not clean for a long time, then there is small rubbish in the corners of the room; if you look closely, these will be dried shells of bedbugs after molting.
Pests have a specific smell. It is difficult to confuse it with any other scent. It appeared in insects in order to scare away various enemies. Some people think it smells like some kind of spoiled berries, while others think it smells like cognac or almonds.

What to do if bedbugs are found during inspection

If during the inspection of the apartment at least one individual of a parasitic insect was discovered, then the only thing that needs to be done is to take measures to destroy them. Bloodsuckers multiply at a rapid speed and the sooner you start fighting bedbugs, the less labor-intensive and costly the process will be. Bloodsuckers will not leave their “habitated” places of their own free will. To exterminate bedbugs, you need to contact the SES or make independent attempts and purchase the appropriate insect extermination drugs that are commercially available.

How to find a bedbug hotspot in an apartment

The very last question remains: how to find a bedbug nest ? There can be a lot of options. Here it should be said that the search results are influenced by one extremely important factor - the level of clutter in the housing. The more varied furniture, boxes, all sorts of bags with old clothes, rolled up carpets in the corner and other things in the apartment, the easier it is for insects to hide from you. When parasites appear in such a house, it is very difficult to remove them.

The favorite hiding places of pests are hidden folds, cracks and joints in sofas, so you must begin your inspection from the sleeping places.

How to find bedbugs in a sofa

A favorite place for bedbugs to live is fabric sofas left over from Soviet times. Such sofas will need to be completely disinfected or simply thrown away.

To detect parasites in a sofa, it will be enough, armed with the above-mentioned magnifying glass, to look into the joints, folds of material and even the power elements in the sofa. The slightest defects in the fabric that provide access to the lining, cracks, will become an excellent habitat for bedbugs. Black dots on areas of the sofa also indicate the presence of insects in it.

How to find bedbugs

How to find bedbugs in bed ? When the mattress is completely finished, you can begin checking the bed frame, you need to inspect the joints, power components, springs, as well as the fastening points where bedbugs hide most often. If adult parasites or eggs are found on the bed, you should try not to be close to it before starting treatment. In addition, you need to understand that insects in the bed are a signal to check the entire home, since bedbugs multiply very quickly. Need I say that all bedding must be removed from the bed before a “search”? The next step should be a thorough inspection of the bed mattress. If it is a very old mattress, it can be processed immediately or simply thrown away. But if this is a new mattress, then you will need to check all the seams for the presence of bedbugs and eggs, and then make sure that there are no holes in the mattress through which parasites could get into their interior. So, now you know how to find bedbugs .

How to find bedbugs in an apartment yourself in other places

In addition to the above-mentioned places (bed and sofa), parasites can settle in the bathroom, in particular on bathrobes or slippers. If there are pets in the apartment, then a couple of bedbugs will certainly settle in their fur. This is especially true for cats. They often sleep in their own bed with their owner and love to be near warm places. In order to remove insects from a pet, it will be enough to bathe it in anti-flea shampoo and put on a collar that protects against various parasites.

One of the most favorite places for all bed bugs is the parquet board. You need to look not in the middle of the room, where the board endures constant vibrations, but in the darkest corners of the room, where no light falls and where almost no one walks. Slightly less often, parasites can be found on window sills and windows, especially if there is too little light in the premises. Therefore, these places cannot be excluded either.

Remember, even if you were unable to detect bedbugs yourself, but there are still suspicions that these insects have settled in the apartment (new bites appear on the body of household members), you will need to call professional disinfection specialists who will inspect the apartment, and then, if pests are found, they will set a time for disinfection .

Preventing the appearance of new bedbug nests

You will have to remember for a long time that the room is infested with bedbugs, so check the bed, mattresses, and linens. For preventive purposes, treat corners in the house, furniture, and places behind baseboards every two weeks to prevent new nests from appearing there.

Specifically do the following:

Place bunches of fresh wormwood behind the baseboard. Hang in closets, hang from the ceiling in rooms. Coat the cracks with antiparasitic agents, turpentine, and kerosene. Seal them with carbolic acid.
Treat furniture and books with special anti-bedbug products.
Steam upholstered furniture. Take carpets and mattresses out into the cold in winter. At a temperature of minus 25 degrees, insects, if there are any, will freeze to death. They will also die in the summer at temperatures above plus 30-35 degrees.
Inspect bed linen, clothes, wash in hot water, fry with an iron
Wash the floors in the house with hot water with the addition of solutions of turpentine, wormwood, and pyrethrum.
Chemical treatment of all premises with insecticides is mandatory.

After such a massive attack, new nests of house bugs are unlikely to appear in your home.

Some general information

In order to choose the most effective methods of fighting bloodsuckers, you need to know them, as they say, “in person”

So, here are the main points that are especially important to know about bed bugs, or as they are also called, house bugs:

Bed bugs run pretty fast. In a minute, a hungry insect can cover a distance of 125 cm, which is quite a lot for such a baby. Bloodsuckers search for their prey by the smell of sweat, so the use of antiperspirant deodorants can significantly complicate their life and disorient them in their search for food.
They are able to go without food for a long time. How long do bedbugs live without food? This question is quite difficult to answer. It all depends on external conditions and the development cycle of the insect. The younger the bloodsucker, the easier it tolerates hunger strike. According to some data, the larvae are able to remain in a certain state of suspended animation for years.
The average lifespan of a bedbug is 11-12 months. However, the lower the temperature, the longer its development. In cold rooms, their lifespan increases by an average of 3-4 months. How long do bedbugs live at room temperature of 30 C? Their development accelerates significantly and insects complete their life course at the age of 7-8 months. However, this means a higher reproduction rate, which means that in a hotly heated apartment the population of bloodsuckers will grow faster than in an unheated one.
The female lays up to 500 eggs throughout her life. She tries to put all her “children” in different places. So it is unlikely that you will be able to find a large clutch of eggs in one place.
It takes an average of 1-2 months for the larva to develop to the mature stage. The rest of their lifespan, which is neither more nor less than 8-10 months, they actively reproduce.
Bedbugs cannot tolerate temperatures below 22 C and above 55 C. This circumstance is used in the fight against bloodsuckers. For example, they are frozen by exposing furniture and things to winter frosts, fried in ovens, and scalded with hot steam.

You can learn interesting information about the life of bedbugs from this video:

Bedbugs will turn you into an itchy paranoid

Each bug comes out to eat regularly once a week. It leaves a trail of bites on a person - from three to eight, but depending on your luck. If you are completely unlucky and you are allergic to bedbugs, each bite will swell like a healthy pie, like after a Mantoux test. Most often, their bites are similar to mosquito bites, but they itch many times more. In addition to the itching, there is also a burning sensation, as if you fell from a bicycle into nettles. And the main bonus is that bedbugs love to bite fingers and hands, the most unpleasant places for bites in principle.

A newly hatched bug immediately goes for blood, otherwise it will not be able to grow

Each bite lasts about two weeks. At the beginning of a relationship with bedbugs, there will be only a few of them - not a tragedy. But at the peak of the war I had more than a hundred of them. Arms, legs, feet, back and even neck were bitten. All this burned, itched and aesthetically looked rather creepy. It is almost impossible not to scratch the affected areas. I had to get a soft hair brush to comb it neatly. Well, spend some money on soothing ointments, but these are minor things.

At some point, bedbugs become so overwhelming that you start looking for them everywhere. You check your legs and arms every minute to see if a bug is running? Every breath of summer breeze that tickles your skin becomes a signal: it’s a bug! It’s difficult to get rid of this paranoia - I feel like it will stay with me for a long time.