Bedbugs are blood-sucking insects. During a bite, parasites can infect the victim with various infectious diseases. It is difficult to notice bloodsuckers, but knowing what traces bedbugs leave, you can easily determine their presence in the house.
Traces of blood may be visible on the bed after a bite; in addition, the parasites leave behind waste products and a specific odor. They reproduce quickly, so if detected early, it is easier to remove the pests.
Traces on the bed
On the bed, traces of bedbugs are visualized in the form of bloody spots formed after a parasite bite when blood oozes from the wound. Usually they are minor. But if you crush the bloodsucker, the stain can be large.
On the bed you can find chitinous membranes after molting nymphs and feces of parasites . These are clear signs of bedbugs in the apartment. If they are found, you should carefully inspect the apartment.
Important. During baiting, bloodsucker eggs do not die, since the protective layer protects the insect’s body. To completely get rid of pests, repeat disinfection is carried out after 1-2 weeks.
It is very difficult to remove bedbugs from your home, since adult bedbugs live for about a year, and during this time they can lay up to 500 eggs. Under unfavorable conditions, the parasite can go into suspended animation, which then extends its lifespan.
The most effective method of control is heat treatment of the room.
What other traces do they leave?
Any traces of bedbugs should alert the owners. If you do not get rid of parasites in a timely manner, then within a few months a whole colony of bloodsuckers will form.
Characteristic signs of presence include:
- Bites on the body in the form of a track.
- Sweetish smell in the apartment.
- Black dots on the bed, wallpaper, furniture.
- Chitin shells.
- Clutches with eggs.
- Bloody traces of bedbugs on the sheet.
To ensure the presence of parasites, you need to carefully inspect the mattresses and sleeping areas. Sometimes bloodsuckers hide in baseboards or old furniture; if you turn on the lights at night around 2-4 o'clock in the morning, you can see adult individuals going out hunting.
Insects have a flattened body, about 1 cm in length, antennae, and three pairs of legs. Nymphs are smaller in size and lighter in color.
When they are full, their body takes on a characteristic bloody color. Adult insects are dark in color regardless of food intake.
Processing methods
There are several types of treatment for bedbugs and clothes.
Use of chemicals
Use of chemicals
Chemicals are what you can use to treat things and clothes against bedbugs at home. Insecticidal preparations such as Dichlorvos, Clean House, Raptor, Kombat, Dobrokhim FOS, Reid or Eslanadez have a good effect. There is no white or sticky residue or odor left on clothes after Medilis. The safest ones include Lambda Zona, Delia Zona and Get.
On a note!
Bed bugs on clothing will not be a nuisance if the chemically treated item is placed in a plastic bag and kept in it for 24 hours.
After this, thorough cleaning of the seams and folds where insects lived is required. After several days, items that have been infected with bedbugs are treated with a soda solution and washed.
Main traces of life
Traces of bedbug activity are found on bedding and next to the bed. They are dense to the touch and resemble black dots in appearance. This is parasite feces. When a bug becomes saturated, its digestion is activated and defecation occurs.
The excrement is initially liquid, but upon contact with air masses it hardens . The smell is reminiscent of low-quality cognac. The same excrement is found in nests where pests go to digest food and reproduce.
Specific smell
You can detect bed bugs in an apartment by the sweetish almond aroma in the room. It feels especially bright after the street. Bloodsuckers have special glands that are activated at the moment of danger.
They create a specific smell. Thanks to these glands, pests find their clan after moving a long distance. Bedbug feces also have a similar aroma.
Chitin shells
Chitinous shells also indicate the presence of parasites. The larva has an exoskeleton in the form of a shell. When the nymph is older, it gradually grows after each meal. This shell becomes too small for her, she throws it off.
The first skin is light and thin; the larger the insect, the darker and denser its chitinous shell . During the process of growth to adulthood, several stages of molting are observed. The skins help to distinguish bedbugs from other living creatures in the apartment that can harm people.
Since bloodsuckers love to settle in old things, the shell can be found in these places. If the room is heavily infested, skins can be found on the sofa, bed, and furniture.
What do adults look like?
Bed bugs are not just one type of insect. There are many varieties in it. But from a visual point of view there are no significant differences. The house bug is not an ordinary beetle. It differs from such insects in the absence of wings. This feature distinguishes it from one of its natural enemies - cockroaches, as well as from other types of bugs (water striders and soldier bugs). Since it does not have wings, the boundaries between the abdominal segments are clearly visible. It may seem that his entire body is covered with thin stripes.
An adult bed bug is dark brown in color. Unlike the toy soldiers, there are no patterns on its back. There is one more feature in which it differs from ordinary, non-bloodsucking insects. For example, an ordinary beetle always has the same body parameters. But for a bug, this indicator depends on whether it is hungry or not. This is all because the tissues of his body are elastic. The size of a bedbug when it is hungry is only 5-6 mm. And after the insect is full, its abdomen stretches greatly, and its body length increases almost 2 times. Moreover, this insect has an excellent appetite. In one meal, a bug can drink almost 2 times its own weight in blood.
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Interestingly, the color of an insect also depends on whether it is hungry or not. Usually only well-fed bugs are dark brown, while hungry ones have a light red tint.
Bed bugs are not just one type of insect.
House bugs belong to the order Hemiptera. Therefore, they have a number of common characteristics with the same “soldiers”. It is a small flat triangular head. Below it there is a long proboscis, which represents fused jaws. The proboscis of bedbugs is hard and durable, since it is needed to pierce the skin. True, they only bite humans, since dogs and cats have thicker skin, and the insect cannot cope with it.
The bug has 2 channels in its proboscis that ensure survival. Through one channel, the bug sucks out blood, and through another channel, a substance with analgesic properties enters the human blood. This is what masks the bug bite. A person may not feel any pain or itching for several hours, so he will not crush the troublemaker.
NOTE! To quickly get rid of bedbugs and other insects, there are only three effective options:
- Calling a pest control service (expensive);
- Buying an inexpensive one (1390 rubles);
- Chemicals (doubtful effect).
Interestingly, only the bites of adult individuals have such properties. Young larvae, called nymphs, cannot introduce such a component into the blood. Therefore, their bites are more noticeable. Allergy sufferers and people with thin skin are especially affected. Because of this, they may notice the bug while it is still feeding. But this does not always happen. The proboscis of the larvae is not yet so dense and sharp, it is smaller in size than that of an adult, and people with less sensitive skin may indeed not notice anything.
By the way, outside of feeding, the proboscis is difficult to notice even in adult insects; it is pressed to the lower part of the cephalothorax.
Considering the structure of the insect, one should note its flattening. It is because of this that the body length is short, and crushing the bug is quite problematic. Those brown spots that remain on bed linen from crushed insects are traces of well-fed and therefore clumsy individuals, which, moreover, increasing in size, become denser and more voluminous.
Clutches of eggs
Adults, after receiving the next portion of blood, begin to reproduce. Their eggs resemble small translucent grains of rice.
Bed bugs nests are located close to the food source - near beds, sofas . Sometimes females protect their offspring from possible detection and hide eggs in old things, behind baseboards.
If masonry is discovered, it must be destroyed using boiling water or mechanically. If this is not done, new bloodsuckers will hatch from the eggs and continue their population.
On average, one egg takes 2 weeks to mature, so in a month entire armies of bloodsuckers will be traveling around the house.
Preparation before removing insects
Before you begin the process of eliminating bloodsuckers in the sofa, you need to prepare the entire living space for this. Its competent processing will contribute to the effectiveness of the procedure.
Preparation includes the following steps:
- Carrying out wet cleaning of surfaces to remove dust, eliminating all deposits of things.
- Preventing curtains and curtains from insect eggs by washing.
- Wash bed linen at temperatures from 60 C° to 90 C°.
- Processing of all decorative items located on the walls (paintings, carpets, etc.).
- Moving the location of furniture so that it is not pushed close to the wall.
- Emptying cabinets of items followed by heat treatment.
- Packing dishes in polyethylene.
- Place all food products in the refrigerator, including salt and cereals.
- Providing protection for household appliances using polyethylene film.
- Removal of all people and pets from the premises.
- De-energization of electrical wiring due to processing of sockets.
- Separating skirting boards from walls.
- Hermetically sealing doors and windows.
- Complete removal of the sofa from all textiles that are on it. These are covers, pillows, blankets.
It is important to note the need to ensure free access to water supply. It is possible that during the treatment of the premises from parasites, toxic substances will get into the eyes or onto human skin.
Traces on the human body
So what traces do bedbugs leave on the human body? According to doctors, after an insect bite, a red bump remains at the site of penetration. It is very itchy, swollen, and painful.
Therefore, a large red spot makes people think that mosquitoes have settled in the house. Residents begin to actively fight flying bloodsuckers, while bedbugs continue to increase their population.
In some people, bedbug bites cause an allergic reaction, then it is difficult to correctly differentiate a harmless wound . After insects, red spots resemble bumps, but not pimples.
The swellings are very painful, itchy, and inflamed. If you scratch the penetration site, there is a risk of infection, which complicates treatment.
When pests settle, the number of bites gradually increases, being located chaotically on the body in places accessible to penetration. The allergy covers areas of the skin completely, it is smaller and is localized not only in open areas of the body.
Bites
To understand that it is a bug that bites and not another insect, it is worth examining the wound. Bloodsuckers leave a kind of trail. They produce 2-5 bites about 5-10mm apart. After drinking a sufficient amount of blood, the insects retreat to their nest.
Bedbugs attack in colonies, so in the morning there may be several grooves, but all of them are located only on open areas of the skin, since the pest is not able to bite through clothing. It also does not touch skin that is heavily covered with hair.
Parasites attack only at night, although if there is a large infestation, bloodsuckers can come out during the day. Adult bedbugs have a proboscis with two sections, through one they suck in blood, and through the other they inject a secretion that blocks nerve endings, which causes an analgesic effect. Thus, a person does not feel pain and notices the appearance of bite marks only in the morning.
Bloodsuckers love to attack children because they have delicate, thin skin that has no specific odors. The duration of the meal can be 15-20 minutes, during which time the bloodsucker receives 0.5-7 ml of blood.
Bedbugs do not attack every night; the dose of food they receive lasts for 5-7 days, after which they return to the victim. The female requires more frequent feeding to lay eggs.
Bedbugs drink human blood; parasites do not harm animals except for the lack of food.
Treatment of house bug bites
Before treating bedbug bites, you need to make sure that they are the culprits of the skin lesions. You should not scratch wounds to avoid infection and cause suppuration. If there is no pain, then there is no need to treat the affected areas. Signs of bites will go away in a couple of days, and the wound will completely heal in about 7 days.
