Most people are (blissfully) unaware of just how serious bed bug problems have gotten in just the last decade or decade and a half.
In fact, most homeowners aren’t even aware of the fact that their homes can become infested with bed bugs unless they spend a couple of nights in a three dollar motel room on the wrong side of the tracks.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
A nasty little parasite that will breed a small army of creepy crawlies that will climb all over your body the moment that you lay down to sleep, the last thing you want to have to deal with is a bed bug infestation. This almost always requires calling in the professionals to gas them out, but the first step in the right direction is determining that you have a bed bug infestation in the first place.
Bed bug bites are a dead giveaway to infestation
If you are waking up with giant red patches that itch like crazy all over your body, red patches that didn’t exist before you went to sleep, the odds are pretty good that you’re dealing with a rogue army of bedbugs are that are making you their midnight snack.
Obviously, this is pretty unpleasant to think about, and even more unpleasant to have to go through.
You’re going to want to check your body for what looks like large welts all over your back, chest, arms, and neck, specifically looking for areas that look like bruises with absolutely no explanation for why they are showing up.
Welts will usually begin to present themselves 24 hours after you have been bitten but can take up to one week to show their true colors – if they show them at all. This is why you’re going to want to be on the lookout for other signs of a bedbug infestation as well.
Mattress stains (mixtures of blood and bedbug fecal matter) point to an infestation
It’s unpleasant to think about for sure, but the truth of the matter is that bedbugs are going to make you their all-you-can-eat buffet – and then they are going to have to do something with that food, passing it out of their tiny little bodies.
This almost always means they’re going to use your mattress and your sheets as a tablecloth and toilet paper – all in the same night!
Inspect your sheets and bedclothes, mattresses and box springs, and specifically look at the seams of everything as that’s where bedbugs are going to want to disappear into after they had made their midnight raid.
Crunchy little “exoskeletons” will say that baby bedbugs have matured
Baby bedbugs go through a bit of metamorphosis to become untold bedbugs, at which point they will shed their old crunchy exoskeletons and morph into the little black buggers that we are trying so desperately to get rid of.
If you keep finding collections of what looks to be a pile of dead bugs in your bedroom or on your mattress, but upon further inspection, it’s almost like miniature little snakes have shed their skin, you likely have a small army of bedbugs – recently matured bedbugs, at that – creeping around.
Scurrying little black dots that race around your mattress prove that you have an infestation on your hands
The final dead giveaway that you are dealing with a bedbug infestation is when you actually get to see the nasty little critters up close and personal.
Inspect absolutely everything in, on, and around your mattress and your box spring, and search out all of the dark corners of the room until you find their nesting area. It’s almost always going to be right up close to their food source (that’s you, while you are asleep) so make sure to check in close proximity of the bed in the mattress.
If you do spot bed bugs, call up a professional exterminator just as quickly as humanly possible to flush them out of their hiding places and destroy them before it gets to be a much, much bigger problem.
