Noticing red spots on the skin, most people sin on mosquitoes or allergies, and after several sleepless nights they find bed bugs in the room and do not understand where the bugs come from in an apartment with radiant cleanliness and fresh renovation.
To effectively combat these parasites, it is important to determine their presence in the room as quickly as possible so that they do not have time to multiply. In case of suspicion, you need to check if there are signs of bedbugs in the apartment:
- Inflamed, swollen spots on areas of the body exposed at night. Unlike mosquito bites, they are often found in groups or in a row.
- Red spots on sheets from crushed insects and small black spots from their feces.
The parasites themselves can be found if you set the alarm at 3 am and carefully examine the bed immediately after turning on the light. In a room where there are a lot of bugs, they can be detected by smell, there are aromas of almonds and cognac.
Characteristic bites
The life of bloodsuckers completely depends on the person. Human blood is the only food source; they do not parasitize animals. Insects go out to feed in the dark, the most active period is from 3 am to 5 am. At this time, a person is fast asleep and therefore becomes an easy prey.
The proboscis is designed in such a way as to easily pierce the skin. Simultaneously with the puncture, a special substance is injected into the victim through a separate channel, blocking the nerve endings. No one can feel the bite and deprive the insect of food.
In the morning, red spots are visible on the body. Some have no reaction and the bite site is almost invisible. Such insensitive people often start the situation until the colony reaches a grandiose size.
In children, the reaction is much stronger. Red spots can be confused with allergies.
There is a characteristic feature that only bedbug bites have. The bloodsucker makes a puncture and drinks blood, but this is not enough for saturation, he crawls forward and repeats the actions. For one feeding, an adult makes up to 7 bites, but tracks of 2-3 wounds are more common. The paths are the characteristic handwriting of a bed bug.
Another feature is that the bug does not enter the hairline. Nutrition takes place only on smooth areas of the body.
If there is someone to choose from, the bug prefers children and women. It's not about the taste of blood, it's just that men's skin is thicker and it is more difficult to get to the blood vein.
Even if you initially confuse a bite with an allergy, it is easy to spot the error. A hypoallergenic diet and special medications will reduce redness if it really turns out to be an allergy. But new bites will appear daily.
Bites in the form of tracks are a sure sign of bedbugs in the house.
Plastic plates to find out if there are bugs in the house
For another way to see bed bugs, you will need a few plastic plates.
Step 1: Arrange the plates around the entire perimeter of the bedroom, including under the bed, having previously turned upside down.
Step 2: Then apply a layer of graphite grease or lithol around the entire circumference of the plate, and sprinkle a handful of talcum powder inside. Leave the resulting traps overnight.
If bugs are bred in your house, then having fallen into a prepared trap, they will not be able to get out of it, smeared with talcum powder, and you will be able to find them in the morning.
Specific smell
Insects really smell. The specific aroma plays the role of a pheromone, a similar odor in excrement. It has been compared to rotten raspberries or sour cognac.
If you stay in an apartment for a long time, you may not notice the smell, but over time it will become stronger. The owners may not sound the alarm for a long time. The visiting guest will quickly feel that something is not right.
Sometimes this scent is confused with the smell of old furniture and is also not paid attention to.
The change is felt after a weekend away from home. The smell will be stronger near the nest.
The perceptible smell of bedbugs in the apartment appears when the population is already large. In the initial stages, this symptom will only help people with a sensitive nose.
Dwelling with a bug "smell"
All types of bugs from the order of Hemiptera have a certain smell, sometimes quite persistent and unpleasant for the human sense of smell. Domestic insects do not smell as strong as forest insects.
You can understand that bed bugs have started at home by the specific aroma that comes from the individuals and nests of these insects. The more the house is infested with parasites, the more distinctly the smell is felt. Using this property, in the USA and European countries, specially trained dogs are attracted to the detection of places where bedbugs accumulate.
What does the bed "saboteurs" smell like? The smell of house bugs can bring up a lot of aromatic associations. Someone smells the aroma of strawberries and wild berries, someone - nuts and spices, and someone smells cognac. In any case, the specific "stench" of bed bugs resembles the aroma of these products in an exaggerated, "overexposed" form.
The odor glands of bedbugs secrete a special secret, which:
- signals the active stage of insect reproduction;
- indicates a disturbance in the tranquility of adults and larvae (for example, when removing the upholstery from the back wall of the sofa);
- frightens off, and in some cases even kills the enemy who has suddenly appeared.
The release of pheromones also helps bedbugs make their nocturnal transitions in search of a food source. The smell intensifies if you get closer to places where insects accumulate. The stronger the tart, sugary-sweet aroma, the easier it is to spot the parasite rookery.
Footprints on pastels
In this case, colorful pastel linen is not an assistant. For the experiment, it is better to take a light kit. The mosquito injects a blood clotting substance, but bedbugs do not have such a remedy in their arsenal, so the wound bleeds for a while.
Brown spots on the bed are prints of blood that leaked from the wound after feeding. Those who sleep in a nightgown or pajamas will see these marks on their sleepwear.
The parasite has a flat body, it is difficult to accidentally crush it. But while eating, the abdomen swells and invulnerability is lost. At this point, you can crush the bloodsucker. Bedbug marks look larger than a drop of blood from a wound.
Another test to help you with a white sheet. We set the alarm for 3 in the morning and go to bed. Suddenly switched on light will not allow the parasites to quickly crawl. Seeing insects, there will be no more doubts.
Traces of vital activity
Every living organism leaves traces of its vital activity. Bedbug faeces appear all over the place and are different from normal litter.
- Any food is digested and not all is absorbed. Therefore, the process of defecation, natural for living beings, is also characteristic of parasites.
- Initially, the excrement is liquid, brown in color, but it quickly hardens and turns into black balls.
- The process often occurs after eating, so traces appear directly on the bed and near the sleeping place.
Another sign is the presence of shed skin. The nymph, in the process of growing up, goes through several stages of molting. The husk from this process remains mostly in the nest, but you can find it anywhere.
Favorite habitats
Sometimes it is not so easy to identify the presence of bedbugs. Individuals are nocturnal, preferring to hide during the day in secluded, warm and dark corners of the house. But it is much easier to deal with small groups than with an overgrown colony of insects.
Favorite hiding places for bedbugs are:
- carpet tracks;
- back and bottom walls of furniture;
- cracks behind lagging wallpaper;
- spaces behind ceiling and floor skirting boards;
- cracks in the parquet board;
- book spines and covers;
- wall carpets;
- clothes in the closet;
- shoe boxes;
- a variety of electrical appliances;
- animal beds, bird cages;
- legs of the bed, sofa.
When looking for traces of the presence of parasites, it will be useful to check storage places for bath and bedding, upholstered furniture, mattresses, pillows.
Bedbugs do not organize into communities with a clear hierarchy, like ants or bees, but they tend to coexist in groups in safe places, next to the food source. At the same time, the sanitary condition of the dwelling has little effect on their life. The house can shine clean during the day, but it is teeming with house bugs at night. Therefore, at the very first bites detected, pest control measures should be started, without waiting for the bugs to become full-fledged owners of housing.
Appearance
All the described signs are essentially indirect, but the nest found is shocking. The faint-hearted faint from the picture they see.
At night, each bug travels separately, but there are places where they return and where the main life stages take place. It often resembles a garbage heap. In one place, adults, larvae of different stages of development swarm, heaps of old skin, black lumps of feces and small dewdrops - larvae are piled up.
For a person it will seem terrible, in one place all at once, but the parasite has no concept of hygiene and cleanliness.
The insects themselves are oval-shaped. The flat body protects against accidental death. Six small, thin legs seem too small to support the weight of an overgrown bug.
Newborn nymphs after eating look the worst of all. The red contents of the stomach are visible through the transparent film. With age, the insect becomes larger. The presence of individuals of different ages speaks volumes about the fact that the colony is growing and flourishing, and the parasites have long appeared in the house.
What to do after discovery
If bedbugs are found in an apartment or house, the tenants immediately have a question, whether there can be bedbugs in only one room. Often this is exactly what happens, because these parasites settle in the bedroom where people rest, where they arrange their colonies, settling in nearby places on furniture or walls.
Therefore, experts recommend starting sanitizing the house as soon as possible to combat the "bloodsuckers", preventing them from moving to other premises of the apartment or house. To get rid of bedbugs on their own, chemical insecticides are used, which can be in the form of concentrates, sprays, powders.
If, during the examination in the apartment, the owners were convinced that there are parasites in the house, then it will be necessary to carry out disinsection treatment of the premises in the near future. The following methods can be used:
- Mechanical method. If you find a cluster of insects, you can vacuum them up. Of course, such treatment will not be enough, since some of the insects will be able to escape, but the number of parasites will be somewhat reduced;
- Steam or cold treatment.Some items infected with parasites (for example, a mattress) can be treated with a steam generator, and in winter they can be exposed to frost. Bedbugs are sensitive to temperatures, so this treatment will kill them;
- Application of insecticides. This method is the most effective, so you can't do without it. It is advisable to choose drugs created specifically for the destruction of bedbugs, and not universal remedies designed to combat different types of insects.
We suggest that you familiarize yourself with: What to do if bitten by bugs and how to smear the bites?
So, suspecting that parasites have appeared in the house, it will be necessary to examine the apartment for the presence of insects. Having found them, you need to carry out pest control as quickly as possible.
If an annoying nuisance has already occurred, you need to turn to professional exterminators for help, because it is not so easy to exterminate the bloodsucker on your own. You can protect yourself from bites by frightening off parasites with pungent odors. Insects cannot stand the smell of vinegar, wormwood and many essential oils. But it is impossible to completely solve the problem with just herbs and essences.
There are other more effective methods of struggle. Treat the area thoroughly with one of the pest control chemicals on the market. It can be Dichlorvos, Super-fas, Tetrix or Tsifox. But keep in mind that you will have to be away from home for at least two days. Staying at home for the first time after being bullied can negatively affect your health.
Self-expelling parasites from furniture, it is advisable to disassemble and carefully process the latter. It should be noted that bedbugs die both at very high temperatures and at rather low temperatures. If none of the tried means of struggle has brought the desired result, in frosty weather you can try the following - open all the doors and windows of the apartment for at least a day. Insects will not be able to find a cozy place for themselves and will die.
Calling the pest control service is also considered a proven method. Professionals for a very reasonable cost will deprive you of such a headache. like parasites in a private house and apartment. It remains only to carry out preventive measures that will not inflate them to start up again.
As a rule, after a thoroughly carried out disinfestation, the parasites die after eating poison. But this is a rather lengthy process. You can observe their sluggish movement around the apartment from their usual habitats. Again, go on a visit for at least a week, so as not to contemplate their inevitable death.
When you return, be sure to do a wet cleaning and wash all your things in hot water. It may happen that you cannot find dead pests - they just went to the neighbors. Warn them about the event planned in your apartment, they should also be on the lookout so that subsequently the bloodsuckers do not periodically annoy you or them.
Sometimes it is difficult to understand what causes bedbugs to appear again after being hounded. It seems that everything in the house has already been processed, and the insects will be here in a week. The reason for this is the misuse of drugs. For example, many products are capable of removing only larvae and adult bed bugs, while the eggs remain intact. In this case, insects will appear again and again.
For high-quality disinsection, you need to use drugs with a long action or repeat the treatments several times until all the insects that have emerged from the eggs die. The reason why bedbugs start up again after a short period of time may also be the absence of a poisonous barrier on the main pathways for the appearance of insects. Often these drugs are washed off during the next cleaning, or they simply expire.
If professional exterminators were called in to bait bedbugs, you need to carefully study the contract with them, often these companies promise to exclude all possible causes of bedbugs in the apartment for a period of six months or more. This is achieved by a special barrier treatment and the use of microencapsulated preparations, which for a long time protect against all parasites that have entered the room. The case when bed bugs reappear after being bullied is guaranteed and fixed free of charge.
If bugs are found, you need to act immediately. Insects reproduce very quickly, it is very difficult to get rid of them when the colony is huge. There are several ways to deal with them:
- folk remedies (if the population of bedbugs is very small);
- special insecticidal preparations;
- call the sanitary and epidemiological service.
If there are few bugs, then you can try to remove them using folk methods. Usually, vinegar, kerosene, turpentine or essential oils are used for this. The substance is applied to all surfaces in the room, as well as to all hard-to-reach places: cracks, cracks, etc. Kerosene is the most popular folk remedy in the fight against bedbugs, it is used in its pure form, or emulsions are prepared on its basis
For a more serious struggle, you can resort to the help of special drugs, which are presented in large quantities on the modern market. They are available as:
- emulsions;
- aerosols;
Aerosols are very easy to use - powders (dusts);
Dust is the oldest way to fight parasites - sprays, etc.
Each drug has its own rules of use. In most cases, personal protective equipment such as a respirator, rubber gloves and goggles is required.
If you want to get rid of bedbugs with the help of professionals, then you should call the Sanitary and Epidemiological Service. The main thing is to contact trusted companies after reading the reviews, since there are many offices that do not fulfill their promises, and the bugs remain indoors and continue to torment the tenants. Professionals will quickly and efficiently process your apartment
Where to find the bedbug nest?
Colony location options:
- Sleeping places - parasites live where the power source is close, these are mainly beds and sofas.
- A carpet on the floor next to the bed makes a wonderful home, especially if it is rarely cleaned underneath.
- Cracks in the doorframe, skirting boards, cavities where wallpaper leaves.
- If there is a closet next to the bed, insects will settle there too.
- Horizontal or vertical - insects do not care, they easily get along behind paintings on the wall, mirrors, clocks and decorations.
In order for the destruction of bedbugs to be easy, with the least expenditure of labor and time, it is necessary to detect the enemy in time. The first signs of the presence of bedbugs will become an occasion for urgent decisions, this will not allow parasites to take over your home.
A method for determining the presence of bedbugs in an apartment using glasses
Step 1: Take 8 plastic cups, 4 of which should be slightly smaller than the rest.
Step 2: Place smaller glasses in larger glasses.
You are left with 4 plastic cups, each containing 1 glass of smaller diameter.
Step 3: Add a few drops of vegetable oil and a little talcum powder inside.
Step 4: Sand the outside of the large glass. The surface will become rough and it will be convenient for the bug to climb on it.
Step 5: Then substitute the resulting "constructions" under each leg of the sofa or bed and leave this invention overnight.
At night, hungry insects will go down the leg of the sofa for food and fall into the trap you have prepared in the form of butter.If parasites are in your house, then in the morning you will find them floating in a glass.
