Just one of the most reviled and misunderstood pests known to man stands out as the bedbug (Cimex lectularius). How many of us dropped off to sleep at bedtime as young ones with the parting words of our dads and moms in our ears “sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite”?
Bed Bugs probably started to feed on people at about the time we moved into caves, the bat bugs Cimex pilosellus and C pipistrella mainly fed on bats and it is a fair chance that bat feeding species of bug evolved to feed on human beings when our forebears started sleeping in bat infested caves.
Up to the arrival of DDT during the early 20th century bed bugs were common unwelcome guests in most slum quality homes.
The later part of the 20th century saw pest controllers dealing with very few bed bug problems indeed, their presence being mostly restricted to low quality holiday camps and student lodgings etc.
A lot of people mistake dust mites, which aren’t visible to the unaided eye, with bed bugs which most certainly.
Adult bedbugs are reddy-brown, about a quarter of an inch in size and very swollen after a feed of the blood of humans.
Bed bugs typically nourish themselves on our blood every seven to ten days, emerging in the hours before dawn and homing in on their target by sniffing the exhaled CO2 from human breath and once close in on their target, they sense infra red heat.
Without an appropriate human meal to dine on they’ll stay in a period of dormancy for periods as much as a year or more.
The first signs of a bedbug problem are spots of blood on sheets and on the corners of mattresses and many people can react badly to bed bug bites.
The first part of the 21st century has seen bed bug infestations explode across our world, the easy use of world travel and economic migration have both been blamed for the resurgence.
What is known is that they are now making a real fightback not just in slum quality property but high class hotels, schools and even hospitals.
One London borough reports a doubling of bed bug bites reports on a yearly basis from 1995 to 2001.
One evening stay in an infested premises is all it requires, they catch a ride in your suitcases or bags.
Pest management companies are also now reporting cases of transport related bed bug infestations on all kinds of transport so a simple ride home on an infested tube or train may be enough to bring the infestation to your house.
They are an difficult pest to eradicate as as opposed to popular belief they don’t just live in beds. They infest any nook and cranny suitably close to a sleeping human, beds, electrical sockets, televisions, bed side telephones etc and dealing with them is both difficult and time consuming. They have even been revealed found living under the toe-nails of infirm people and in the creases of flesh on very overweight people.
They are not a pest that can be successfully tackled by a novice and a pest control professional will, without doubt be necessary.