The insects that have settled in your home are unlikely to delight anyone. And the habit of “sleeping” in your bed can completely terrify many. And no wonder! After all, such parasites can cause a lot of trouble with their bites and subsequent itching. And probably not everyone knows that these “comrades” are also carriers of very unpleasant and serious diseases. In particular, plague, encephalitis, typhoid and anthrax are transmitted by blood-sucking parasites. And this is a compelling reason to immediately launch a war against domestic insects.
Even if you live in a large metropolis, this does not provide any guarantee that bloodthirsty monsters will not crawl into your bed. External living conditions do not bother them at all. All that harmful parasites are interested in is human blood. And on the way to their goal they are ready to overcome a lot.
Interesting to know
The most unpleasant thing in your beds is house bugs. It would seem that large cities with developed infrastructure should be least susceptible to their attack. However, no, Amsterdam, Stockholm and London are literally suffering from the invasion of these parasites. According to statistics, even pest control services in large European cities can barely cope with infestations in apartments. The parasite population is constantly growing and adapting to antiparasitic drugs. In the United States, more than half of residential buildings have been infested with bedbugs at least once.
To understand who bothers us at night, it is better to catch the parasite “red-handed” and carefully examine it.
Not every one of them can be caught, but you can try. Below are photos of the most common bed bloodsuckers.
- House bugs. Length up to 8 mm. This is how he transforms from the moment when he is hungry until the moment he is completely full.
- Fleas have excellent jumping ability. Usually they are overcome by bites in the morning. If it is difficult to catch a representative, most likely it is a flea. Here she is during the bite.
- Linen lice. Despite the name, their attachment to the body is much stronger than to clothing. They bite both during the day and at night, but at night they are much more active. Below is a photo of an adult.
- Well, how can we not mention mosquitoes! We have known these bloodsuckers since childhood, so it is not difficult for us to distinguish them from other parasites.
Some species can be identified by just one specific bite, but it’s still better to look at the bloodsucker in person.
In truth, our lovers of waste and crumbs, cockroaches, can also crawl into bed, but this is rare. With a lack of moisture, red-haired and mustachioed animals can gnaw the epithelium in the lip area on a person.
Thus, after you have seen your “problem” in person, you need to begin methods of getting rid of it. This is not so difficult to do, because currently there are many ways to destroy parasites.
Bedbugs and their way of life
These are the largest bloodsuckers in our beds. Below you can see the bedbugs. This is roughly the picture they will imagine if they suddenly turn on the light at night and look into their bed.
Bedbugs also locate their nests closer to humans. Below in the photo is a cluster of eggs and adults right in the sofa.
Review
We are a clean family and have never encountered bedbugs. And then in the morning, like a bolt from the blue, bites began to be discovered. And this is in winter!!! One night we woke up on purpose and found a bug right in our bed. Horrible, such a creature! Nasty, greasy and smelly! You may not believe it, but I even moved in with my mother for a while while my husband dealt with this. He called some specialists and processed it. Now I still check it every day.
Lilia, Ekaterinburg
Any bug, be it a larva or an adult, must drink blood at least once. Small ones need it for development, big ones need it to increase their numbers. The only thing they can feed on is human blood. They pierce the skin with their trunk and make their way to the blood vessel. Sometimes in the morning you can find bloody marks on the sheets. This is a sign that a person, tossing and turning in his sleep, crushed a bug with his body.
This is interesting
A long time ago, when humans were just taking on their distinctive characteristics, bedbugs fed on the blood of bats. As humans colonized the caves, these parasites moved on to new victims. Even now on Wed. In Asia, there are bed bugs in caves that feed on the blood of bats.
Bedbugs are characterized by nocturnal activity. During the day, you will not find them casually walking around the apartment; they carefully hide behind carpets, under mattress upholstery, in cabinet furniture, behind paintings, baseboards, etc. Their hunt for humans begins late at night, at about two or three o'clock.
If you completely disassemble a bed or sofa, you can find nests that have no structure. These are disgusting aggregations of eggs, larvae and adults.
Blood-sucking bed insects: methods of control
To effectively combat blood-sucking bed insects, you need to know their weak points. For example, flea larvae dry out at low humidity and a temperature of +34°C. They try to avoid lit areas and always look for dark corners.
A hungry louse dies:
- after 2 days at a temperature above +27°C;
- after 7 days at a temperature of +10оС+20оС;
- after 10 days at a temperature of 0°C+10°C;
- after 35 minutes at a temperature of +54°C and low humidity.
Preventive measures, including pest control, are an effective way to prevent the appearance of fleas, bedbugs and lice in the house.
If blood-sucking bed insects do enter the house, mechanical, physical and chemical control methods are used to destroy them. You can clean the room from single ectoparasites yourself. If the insects living in the beds have managed to multiply and cause serious discomfort at night, it is better to immediately seek help from a professional pest control service.
Basic methods of controlling bed insects:
- Mechanical.
This group of methods includes the destruction of insects using traps, special devices, crushing individual individuals, and in the case of lice, combing and washing the hair. - Physical.
This is a group of methods based on the use of high and low temperatures, steam, and radiation. Examples of physical methods for destroying ectoparasites: washing clothes at high temperatures, treating upholstered furniture with a steamer, ironing things with a hot iron, boiling, treating items in a disinfection chamber. - Chemical.
The most common group of methods is based on the use of insecticides. There are household and professional chemicals. The effectiveness of this method of control largely depends on the correct choice of insecticide and method of its application. It is important to ensure the destruction of not only adult individuals, but also larvae and eggs of ectoparasites.
When fighting bed bugs on your own, a person faces many difficulties. In most cases, after treatment, ectoparasites disappear for only a few days, but soon begin to annoy household members again. Fighting bed bugs on your own involves two main obstacles:
- It is difficult for an inexperienced person to find all the nesting sites of insects.
- Household insecticides are not able to destroy the eggs and larvae of bed bugs, which are highly resistant to external negative factors.
It is better to entrust the fight against bed bugs to experienced specialists. SES “Des Group” offers professional treatment of premises from ectoparasites. The company’s experts guarantee high-quality disinfestation using modern methods:
- The main method of treating residential premises is cold fog.
- To destroy bed parasitic insects, specialists use professional insecticides that are safe for humans and pets.
- The chemicals included in the working solution have a prolonged effect. They continue to protect the house from ectoparasites for several weeks after treatment.
- The official guarantee is enshrined in the contract. If necessary, specialists will carry out repeated disinfestation.
- To treat the premises, modern equipment is used - fog generators.
- Experts from Dez Group will tell you how to prevent the reappearance of insects and organize a protective barrier.
The cold fog method is an effective way to combat blood-sucking parasites. High quality processing is achieved thanks to the small size of chemical particles that fly out of the fog generator under high pressure. The insecticide penetrates into all hard-to-reach far corners, cracks and holes - places where bed bugs most often hide.
What are the consequences of a bug bite
Like most bites, bug bites are simply reddish spots on the skin with a mark from the inserted proboscis. Most often, the bug leaves a peculiar series of such bites (3-7 pieces each). If you spot such a path on your body, you know that bedbugs are biting you!
If there is a large infection or a person is sensitive to its bites, an allergy may develop. This puts children at risk of developing anemia. The rashes from the bites are too profuse, and in some cases they can fester. This causes a lot of discomfort.
Bed bugs are clear carriers of many infectious diseases through their bites, but there are no recorded cases of transmission of hepatitis and HIV infection.
Kinds
The first thing that should alert you is bites on the body. Of course, many associate them with the manifestation of an allergic reaction to some irritant. Furniture or linen pests that live in the house are presented in the following varieties:
- bedbugs,
- ticks,
- fleas,
- lice.
To detect them in a timely manner, you need to know the basic characteristics and characteristics of insects. It is also important where the parasite can bite a person.
How to defeat bedbugs
There are only two ways for a person to get rid of bedbugs:
- Poisoning from aerosols and other insecticides. For example, in the form of a spray “Lambda Zone”, Get, Executioner, Sinuzan, Karbofos. Aerosols include Dichlorvos, Combat, Raptor, etc. Sprays are more effective than aerosols, especially when there are a lot of parasites.
- The second option is to call a professional team to protect yourself from poisoning and transfer the care of bedbugs to the shoulders of pest control specialists. In this case, it is important to choose well-established companies, or ask for advice from friends or acquaintances who have encountered a similar problem.
Those who want to save money can try to withdraw them on their own, but do not forget that this does not save your time and effort. And if you contact companies, it is important not to run into scammers, carefully study the documents and first read reviews about it.
If you notice bed bugs in your sofa, keep in mind that they can be frozen out. But you will need a temperature below -20 degrees. You will take out the furniture and freeze it outside. But, unfortunately, the method is not always effective, since bedbugs often hide in other places in the room.
Just like frost, you can kill insects with heat. This requires a temperature of plus 50 and above. This can be achieved using industrial heat fans, observing safety measures.
Description of black flea beetles
Fleas are the collective name for many species of arthropod insects. A human black flea usually lives in the house. Despite its small size (only up to 3 cm), it has enviable jumping ability, covering a distance of up to 50 cm in one jump and reaching a height of 30 cm.
Fleas are extremely hardy and can easily withstand extreme cold and warm temperatures. But the optimal temperature for fleas is between 18 and 26 degrees. Black fleas are much more sensitive to air humidity: if it drops below 70%, then larvae will not hatch from the eggs.
How to fight fleas
Fleas are incredibly jumping, mobile parasitic insects. They look for prey almost only when it is light. It is fleas that carry the most severe and dangerous diseases, but few people think about it.
This is interesting
Fleas and their hosts, rats, caused the spread of plague in the Middle Ages, as a result of which almost a third of Europe died out.
Their bites are incredibly similar to bedbug bites and can also be in the form of a chain. It is not difficult to notice fleas on light-colored underwear, but catching them is not so easy. They jump quickly, and not every person can react.
They should be destroyed in two steps: first from the spreading animal, then throughout the entire premises.
To poison fleas indoors, you need to use the same means as for bedbugs, but a veterinarian will recommend a remedy for your pet.
Lice
Lice in your bed are rare. They spend their entire lives in the hairy part of the head. They are quite clumsy and slow, so any fall from their hair can be fatal for them. They constantly need blood, and once they fall down, it is no longer possible for them to climb to a food source.
As we have already said, they spend their entire lives on the head or pubic area of a person. There are also types of linen, but they are not so common now. They mainly affect homeless people and tramps who do not change or wash their clothes for a long time.
Lice bites are not as painful as those of fleas or bedbugs. But they can also cause a lot of discomfort with their itching.
These parasitic insects are removed with lice shampoos and sprays. At the same time, it is important to constantly comb them with a special fine-toothed comb.
Review
My daughter has very long thick hair. When she went to second grade, she accidentally caught lice from someone. When I remember how many times I took these parasites out of my head, it becomes scary. I probably bought different products five times, but in the end the lice shampoo helped. But I still had to part with my long hair. It's a pity, but what will you do? After that, apparently out of habit, I check her head almost every evening.
Elena, Arzamas
Preventative measures to prevent insects from infesting the sofa
Any bugs can be kept out of your sofa if you follow the following preventative instructions:
- Regularly carry out wet cleaning with ventilation.
- Beetles do not like light, so you can always open the curtains during the daytime.
- In the sofa, let there be bunches of wormwood, lavender, sachets with caustic herbs, or other remedies for moths or skin beetles.
- It is better to have mosquito nets on the windows to prevent bugs from flying in if they are winged.
- Clean your shoes or pants when you come home from the street and vacuum and wash the hallway more often so as not to bring pests into the house.
- Less storage of junk in the sofa means fewer bugs.
- In a dry and warm “climate”, individuals develop very quickly.
Some sofa “dwellers” are large in size, others are small, some have light-colored bodies, and some show off a dark brown “caftan” in front of you, some can even fly, and there are those who only crawl, and only at night . All these and other phenomena are considered an excellent guide to determine which insect has begun to live in your favorite sofa. Indeed, in addition to their unpleasant appearance, these insects can also bite; some of them are even blood-sucking creatures that can introduce an infection or some other contagion into a person’s blood.
Can a cockroach bite at night?
It is unlikely that a cockroach will attack a person. For him, it is much more interesting how many crumbs and leftovers of other food are in the kitchen. Only in some cases, when their population has increased incredibly or there is not enough water, they can crawl into bed and gnaw the surface of the skin of the lips or near the nose. By the way, in dormitories such cases occur more often. For some reason, cockroaches are especially attracted to children. Apparently because the skin is more delicate.
As you can see, these insects do not suck our blood and their bites are not at all like flea or bedbug bites.
Be that as it may, the bite site of any of the above-mentioned insects should be treated. To reduce your itching risk of contracting a disease:
- Wash the bite area with soap
- Treat with alcohol, propolis or calendula tincture
- Apply gel like Fenistil.
But only if after a bite a person experiences an undesirable reaction (headache, fever, strange rashes), you should not hesitate and consult a doctor. Allergies to bites can be different for everyone. And even if the symptoms are not too severe now, things may become more serious in the future.
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