Bedbugs are one of the few insects immortalized in both proverbs and fiction. Folk art draws attention to the modest size of the insect and the rather pungent smell emanating from them: the bug is small, but stinky. And Chekhov’s characters in “The Defendant’s Tale” discuss at night why bedbugs stink.
A special aroma is inherent in almost all types of bedbugs; it is quite persistent and difficult to ventilate. It is possible to say with confidence that the room is densely populated with bed bugs immediately after entering it precisely because of this stench.
What do bedbugs smell like?
What bedbugs smell like has its own associations for different people. Some people claim that bedbugs smell like raspberries/other berries, cognac, almonds, spices, or overripe bananas.
Outdoor insects of this family are endowed with a particularly strong odor . But household pests also have their own specific scents.
Bed sheets
Many vigilant owners, especially those who live in rented housing, know the signs of bedbugs in an apartment. They clearly understand what bed bugs smell like. Many people associate this aroma with over-aged cognac.
With a large population of parasites, the smell will be more concentrated . It is especially pronounced near sleeping places (bed, sofa).
Homemade
To protect your home from uninvited guests, you need to know what house bugs smell like. Such insects have their own specific smell. It is actively secreted by mature females with a secretion with which they attach the eggs to various surfaces.
To people, this aroma resembles fermented berries or over-aged cognac. If such a smell in a living space is quite persistent, then this is a clear sign of a strong infestation of parasites.
When trying to understand what bedbugs smell like in an apartment, you should keep in mind that this smell is relative. It is stronger than that of cockroaches or ants, but weaker than that of outdoor species of hemipterans.
Is the stink of bedbugs dangerous?
If even a neighbor with a chronic runny nose can smell the aroma of parasites, this is a serious cause for alarm. There are several reasons for this:
- At the beginning of infection, a person does not feel the stench of insects because there are too few of them. If you smell it, it means your house is filled to capacity with bedbugs. Severe infection is fraught with a large number of bites, and therefore more acute allergic reactions, which occur in 80% of people. Allergies are especially dangerous for young children, who are most sensitive to the accumulation of allergens.
Even harmless symptoms of allergies such as scabies and red spots can cause extreme stress and deprive you of sleep. In some cases, bedbug bites cause a more severe reaction that can result in anaphylactic shock.
- As mentioned above, bedbug secretion is a toxin designed to repel the enemy. Of course, it cannot cause serious harm to a person, but regular and prolonged inhalation of any toxin is fraught with the same allergy and will definitely not benefit health.
- Having discovered bed bugs in an apartment, people first try to find out whether any diseases are transmitted through their bites. We hasten to reassure you - the infectious danger lies not in bedbug bites, but in their excrement. Of course, the likelihood of contracting tuberculosis from inhaling bedbug excrement is extremely low, but as long as it exists, you cannot be safe.
- Discomfort from the stench is likely to affect your health and quality of life. Many people are so annoyed by the unpleasant odor that they cannot sleep or do household chores normally.
Do bedbugs smell?
Some people argue about whether house bugs smell and give their own description of the smell. Whether these pests smell or not largely depends on their concentration in the living room.
When there are a lot of blood-sucking parasites and a strong infection, their smell cannot be confused with anything else . If the infestation of the apartment is still insignificant, then the bloodsuckers do not make themselves noticeable by smell. The owners may not even be able to distinguish this aroma.
The smell of bedbugs is described in different ways: fermented raspberries or other berries, sweet almonds, cognac. For this reason, some people also claim that cognac smells like parasites to them. At the same time, bed pests do not smell as pronounced as compared to outdoor stink bugs.
What to do?
First of all, you need to take care of removing bedbugs. There are two effective ways to control these parasites - treatment with chemical insecticides and burning.
- Insecticides are the gold standard for bed bug control. They effectively kill insects and create a protective effect on treated surfaces, preventing new infestations. There is an opinion that insecticides are dangerous and stink, but this is not true. Rare cases of insecticide poisoning are associated with violations of safety precautions and rules specified in the instructions for the drugs. As for the smell, only outdated insecticides like Karbofos stink. Modern means do not have this drawback.
- Burning is a modern method of killing bedbugs based on exposure to high temperatures. Special heaters are installed in the contaminated room, warming the air to 60-70 degrees. Burning is 100% effective and safe, but costs several times more than chemical disinfestation.
All other methods of fighting bedbugs are either ineffective or are outright quackery and deception.
If the bug smell remains after baiting, it must be removed by regular wet cleaning and ventilation. To mask unpleasant odors, use air fresheners.
Smell in the apartment
Those who know well how bedbugs smell in an apartment can take timely measures to eliminate the parasites. In some countries, in order to identify bed bugs, they use specially trained dogs that are familiar with the smell of bed bugs.
Insecticide service specialists even note that the effectiveness of such dogs is higher than those that search for narcotic drugs.
If you accidentally crush a bloodsucker, the smell of bedbugs in the apartment becomes concentrated. During times of increased threat to its vital functions, the parasite’s sense of fear increases.
The endocrine glands begin to actively produce a protective fluid, which should repel enemies. The pest, if crushed, releases an excessively fragrant secretion upon death.
Why do bedbugs smell?
The insect's body is endowed with exocrine glands that secrete a specific secretion responsible for an unpleasant, repulsive aroma (tart, sickly sweet).
The exocrine glands of the bed pest open on the peritoneum and smoothly pass to the metathoracic region. In larvae they are found on the peritoneal segments. Through them the parasites secrete fluid.
What smell the parasite will emit depends on the chemical composition of the substances in the bad-smelling secretion. It contains a composition of bioactive compounds that are toxic to other insects.
Tree scale insects contain cymycin acid in their secretions. In bed blood-sucking parasites, the secretion includes substances from the class of unsaturated aldehydes combined with acyclic saturated hydrocarbons.
The bedbug smells for the following main reasons::
- During increased procreation, the work of the exocrine glands is stimulated. If the colony consists of a huge number of sexually mature individuals, then the aromas will be more intense.
- When a person discovers a place where pests are concentrated, he greatly disturbs them, so the aromas become more pronounced.
Insects of this family have multifunctional glands. It is often used for communication within and outside the species.
These insects need strong aromas for the following reasons::
- With their help, they signal impending danger from the approach of enemy individuals. The exocrine glands in these parasites respond to fear in a similar way to adrenaline. An insect secreting a secretion not only indicates that it is very frightened, but also at the same time scares away enemy individuals from its natural habitat.
- The fragrant secretion contains fragments of poison and is used to protect against enemies if they have already entered the population territory. When an enemy appears, a lot of secretion is released and it becomes a deadly poison.
- I help to select and attract females and males with fragrant compositions for the purpose of procreation.
- They come in handy when you need to drive away other mature males when fighting for food or a female.
- The secretions of aromatic compositions in moderate quantities help insects not to lose spatial orientation, find representatives of their species, and carry out long migrations.
If the parasite's sense of smell is impaired, it will not be able to find food for itself. And the presence of his own pheromones helps him in this matter.
Having their own specific aroma, bloodsuckers differentiate many other similar odors. And they also find what they need, produced by people.
The smell of other representatives
The smell of a bedbug depends on its type:
- Green. They are most often found on raspberries. If you pick and immediately try to eat a berry that a bug has previously chosen, the unpleasant aftertaste will remain in the mouth for a long time.
- Turtle. Foul pheromones are also characteristic of this pest. This parasite especially strives to penetrate living spaces with the arrival of the cold season. It harms agricultural supplies. When it is caught, it is often crushed, so the aroma becomes even more pronounced.
- Tree shield. He lives mainly in the forest. It is characterized by a bright combat color, which effectively repels pests. And with minor anxiety, it immediately releases a substance with a persistent aroma containing poisons. It is capable of paralyzing the victim. If the enemy is a bird, it opens its beak and releases the insect.
They all emit aromas ranging from unpleasantly cloying sweet to bitterly rotten.
Getting rid of odor
You can quickly get rid of pests using various chemicals. If it is still not possible to get rid of bed bugs, then an insecticidal service is invited. In this case, bloodsuckers and their smell are guaranteed to be eliminated. But for some time the apartment will smell of chemicals.
Also, the smell from bedbugs will persist for a long time if many blackheads (insect feces) are not eliminated. To solve this problem, it is necessary to carry out thorough cleaning and well ventilate the room.
When the apartment smells unpleasant due to bedbugs, this is not the worst thing. These are bloodsuckers that can cause harm to humans and pets, so the fight against them should be started without delay.
And after successfully eliminating the insect population, their smell in the living space will also disappear.
Benefits and harms
The main harm from the bug is the destruction of plants. The stink bug has a piercing-sucking type of mouthparts. He pierces the stems with a special rim and sucks out all the nutritious juices from them. The cause of the death of crops is the poison that the bug releases at the time of sucking.
The stink bug is capable of leaving marks on fruits and berries even if it does not spoil them. Fruits should not be eaten after this. Representatives of some species go unnoticed on plants: the green color allows them to skillfully camouflage themselves on the leaves. To calculate them, you need to know the intricacies of the body structure of bedbugs.
The beneficial properties of stink bugs are used to prepare a remedy for alcoholism. Insects are added to vodka and infused for 10 days. After taking the medicine, there is an aversion to all strong drinks. However, the method does not have precise scientific evidence.
In rare cases, stink bugs destroy the larvae of harmful animals, caterpillars and aphids. For example, the species of two-toothed bugs is considered exclusively predatory, so there is no need to exterminate it.
