One of the most feared and least understood pest species known to mankind is the bed bug (Cimex lectularius). How many of us fell asleep to sleep at night as young ones with the parting rhyme of our parents in our ears “sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite”?
Bed Bugs most probably started to predate on people at around the period we moved into caves, the bat bugs Cimex pilosellus and Cimex pipistrella primarily fed on bats and it is probable that bat feeding species of bug evolved to feed on human beings when our forebears started staying in bat infested caves.
Before the invention of DDT in the early 20th century bed bugs were commonplace unwelcome guests in most poor quality homes.
The later years of the 20th century saw pest control companies having very few bed bug call outs indeed, their presence being generally restricted to cheap holiday camps and student accomadation etc.
Most people mistake dust mites, which cannot be seen by the naked, with bed bugs which very definitely are.
Adult bedbugs are reddish in colour, about a few milemetres in size and very swollen after dining on human blood.
Bed bugs typically feed on our blood every seven to ten days, emerging in the hours before dawn and homing in on their target by sniffing the exhaled carbon dioxide from human breath and when closing in on their target, body heat.
Without a suitable human host to dine on they can lay dormant for periods of up to 18 months.
Signs of a bed bug infestation are spots of blood on sheets and on the corners of mattresses and many people can react badly to their bites.
The early part of the 21st century has seen bed bug reports multiplying all over the planet, the easy availability of world travel and economic migration have both been blamed for the resurgence.
What is sure is that that are now making a real return not only in poor quality housing but top class hotels, schools and even hospitals.
One London borough cited a doubling of bed bug problems every year from 1995 to 2001.
|One night stay in an infested bed is all it requires, they hitch a ride in your suitcases or bags. Pest control companies are also now reporting cases of transport related bed bug infestations on tubes, trains and buses so a simple journey home on an infested tube or train can be all it takes to spread the infestation to your own home.
They are an tricky pest to eradicate as contrary to popular opinion they do not just live in beds. They infest any nook and cranny anywhere close to a sleeping human being, beds, electrical sockets, televisions, bed side telephones etc and dealing with them is both tricky and time consuming.
They have even been revealed found living under the toe-nails of infirm people and in the folds of flesh on very fat people.
They are not a pest that can be tackled by an amateur and a pest control professional will almost certainly be needed.
Telephone Harrier Pest Control on 01772 837727