Return of the BED BUG!

Bed bugs are increasingly becoming a problem within residences of all kinds, including houses, apartments, hotels, cruise ships, prisons, dormitories and shelters.

Bed bugs and their relatives occur nearly worldwide. They became relatively scarce during the latter part of the 20 th century, but their populations have resurged in recent years, particularly throughout parts of North America, Europe, and Australia. International travel and commerce are facilitating the spread because bed bugs are readily transported in luggage, clothing, bedding, and furniture.

Allergex is responding to this dramatic rise in the number of reported cases by offering domestic and business customers a flexible service aimed at preventing and removing infestations quickly and discretely. Unlike our dust mite treatment, bed bugs require the use of insecticide to remove infestations as part of a carefully planned programme.

  
  

What are bed bugs?

Bed bugs are small wingless insects that feed solely on the blood of warm-blooded animals. Bed bugs and their relatives have evolved as nest parasites. Certain kinds inhabit bird nests and bat roosts and await the return of their hosts; others have adapted well to living in the homes of people.

  

Common Bed bugs (pictured above) , that feed on humans, are oval wingless insects, visible at approximately 5mm long, with six legs and two antennae. Hatchling bed bugs are about the size of a poppy seed. When grown, they are red-brown in colour and flat in shape. Their colour turns to red/purple after a blood meal and they become more rounded in shape.

 

Their color ranges from nearly white (just after molting) or a light tan to a deep brown or burnt orange. The host's blood may appear as a dark red or black mass within the bug's body. Because they never develop wings, bed bugs cannot fly. When disturbed, bed bugs actively seek shelter in dark cracks and crevices. Cast skins of bed bugs are sometimes discovered. Although such a finding confirms that bed bugs had been present previously, it does not confirm that any continue to infest the residence. Thus, inspect carefully for live crawling bed bugs. Because many other kinds of small brown bugs may be discovered, it is critical to ensure that the bugs are correctly identified.  

How do bed bugs invade a home?

One of the first signs of a bed bug is when it bites the occupant of a room. The bed bug needs to feed before moving onto the next stage of development and only feeds on blood. The swellings from the bites are fairly large and would normally be concentrated around the head, shoulders, upper back, backs of knees hands and feet. They also tend to prefer women and children so if there is a choice in the room this may be an identifying factor.

 

Because bed bugs readily hide in small crevices, they may accompany (as stowaways) luggage, furniture, clothing, pillows, boxes, and other such objects when these are moved between apartments, homes and hotels. Used furniture, particularly bed frames and mattresses, are of greatest risk of harbour bed bugs and their eggs. Thus, one should carefully scrutinize and consider the history of any used furniture, particularly 'street' items so plentiful at the beginning and end of each academic year.

As they readily survive for many months without feeding, bed bugs may already be present in apparently 'vacant' and 'clean' apartments. Bed bugs can wander between adjoining apartments through voids in walls and holes though which wires and pipes pass. In a few cases, bats and/or birds may introduce and maintain bed bugs and their close relatives (bat bugs and bird bugs). Pest control personnel should be mindful of the presence of blood feeding insects and mites that may be left behind after removing nests or roosts of birds and bats in and on the home.

Where do they live?

Bed bugs hide themselves in mattresses, within bed frames, under bed bases, within bed headboards, behind loose wallpaper, within paintings, wall sockets, and telephones. Also behind wall partitioning, suspended ceilings, skirting boards, curtains, on clothing or furnishings, and anywhere with a dark crack/crevice/seam providing safe harbourage.

They like to stay close together. With frequent feeding, adults can live for up to 18 months. They breed by laying eggs that usually hatch after about 10 to 20 days. The bugs then grow through a series of stages. At each stage they need to feed on blood, until they become adults after about nine to 18 weeks. A female can lay between 150 and 345 eggs in her life.

How can you tell if the residence is infested?

Bed bugs infest only a small proportion of residences, but they should be suspected if residents complain of bites that occurred while sleeping. The bedroom and other sleeping areas should be carefully examined for bed bugs and signs of bed bug activity. Folds and creases in the bed linens, and seams and tufts of mattresses and box springs, in particular, may harbour bed bugs or their eggs. They may also be found within pleats of curtains, beneath loose areas of wallpaper near the bed, in corners of desks and dressers, within spaces of wicker furniture, behind cove molding, and in laundry or other items on the floor or around the room. Sometimes, characteristic dark brown or reddish fecal spots of bed bugs are apparent on the bed linens, mattress or walls near the bed. A sweetish almond odor may be detected in some heavily infested residences.

So, the presence of bedbugs in a room can be detected by the following:

• blood spotting on bedding
• brown excrement spots close to where they live and on bedding
• whitish/opaque un-hatched and hatched eggs
• in heavy infestations, a sweet almond smell is common
• bed bugs are not normally seen out during daylight
• faecal spots, eggshells, and shed skins may be found in the vicinity of their hiding places

Bed bugs will not travel too far from their host, but can move into adjacent rooms via interconnecting ducting/spaces. They are most likely to be transferred from place to place via infested linen, clothing, furniture and other articles. In hotels and hostels, housekeeping staff can unknowingly transfer bed bugs around the premises on all of the items mentioned above and guests can take bed bugs with them from hotel to hotel and eventually to their own home.

Are they a health hazard?

Bed bugs are not known to carry disease. However, they feed on human blood, usually at night whilst people are asleep in their beds.

While feeding, they inject a tiny amount of their saliva into the skin. Repeated exposures to bed bug bites during a period of several weeks or more causes people to become sensitized to the saliva of these bugs; additional bites may then result in mild to intense allergic responses. The skin lesion produced by the bite of a bed bug resembles those caused by many other kinds of blood feeding insects, such as mosquitoes and fleas. The offending insect, therefore, can rarely be identified by the appearance of the bites alone.

What should you do if you find bed bugs?

Because several different kinds of insects resemble bed bugs, specimens should be carefully compared with good reference images (such as those shown here) to confirm their identity. If any questions remain regarding the identity of your samples, then submit them to a competent pest controller or entomologist for evaluation.

Once their identity is confirmed, a careful plan should be devised to eliminate the bed bugs in a manner that promotes success while limiting unnecessary costs and exposure to insecticides. Control of bed bugs is best achieved by following an integrated pest management (IPM) approach that involves multiple tactics, such as preventive measures, sanitation, and chemicals applied to targeted sites. Severe infestations should be handled by a specialist pest management professional like Allergex.

The Allergex solution

Allergex are able to offer Bed Bug Pest Control. We have been trained by one of the leading pest control training companies the Harvard Pest Control Consultancy and are supplied with the latest insecticides by LODI. Our service is thorough, discreet and effective. The insecticides provided by LODI have one of the lowest toxicities to humans yet are faster at killing the bed bug than most of the more common sprays on the market. Our methods for treating bed bugs will not prevent you using your rooms the same day.

We believe we offer a service which is sensitive to the needs of both homes and hotels and can be tailored to individual needs. Features include:

• 24 hour service
• New insecticide with low toxicity but fast knock down rates and no resistance yet encountered
• Discrete service
• Free consultation and risk assessment
• Room available same day in most cases, but definitely within 24 hours
• Very competitive rates
• Combined dust mite allergen removal and bed bug prevention programme

oval and bed bug prevention programme

Call us now to discuss your requirements on 01753 890502 or email to info@allergex.co.uk