Bed Bugs
Exterminator
If you don’t seek out bed bug exterminator treatment, bed bugs can be a growing problem. The reason? These infamous and elusive pests can multiply exponentially once inside your home or office. Left untreated, a single pregnant bed bug can explode into a thousand within a month. Without the trained eye of a bed bug exterminator specialist, they are nearly impossible to spot, and even the cleanest homes are not safeguarded, since any visitor can carry them in unknowingly.
Get Rid of These Nightmare Bugs with a Quest Termite and Pest Treatment. Our bed bug treatment technicians will develop an in-depth plan to eliminate your bed bug problem so you can sleep peacefully at night, and avoid worries. Our Bed Bug Exterminators will conduct a thorough FREE inspection of your home or office and then develop a custom-tailored bed bug treatment plan right-sized for you. After all, no two homes are alike, why should your bed bug treatment plan be?
Parasitic Insects
Characteristics
Bed bugs are small parasitic insects that feed on the blood of warm-blooded animals. Adult bed bugs are oval, wingless, about 1/5 inch long, and rusty red or mahogany. They’re known as bed bugs because they like to nest in beds and feed on the blood of sleeping people. Although bed bugs have not been proven to transmit any disease, their bites can cause itchy welts on the skin.
Bed bugs are widely distributed but most frequently found in the northern temperate climates of North America, Europe, and Central Asia. Their growth and development is optimal when they feeds on humans; however this insect also feeds on other species of mammals and birds found near the home including chickens, mice, rats, and rabbits.
Until recently, bed bug infestations were thought to be associated primarily with crowded and dilapidated housing. However, Bed Bug infestations have undergone a resurgence and can be found even in the finest hotel and living accommodations. The reasons for the resurgence are not totally understood but appear to involve increased human travel, ease of movement of infested luggage and items, and changes in the pesticides available to control this pest.
Bed Bugs
Behavior
Bed bugs feed on humans, usually at night when we’re asleep. They feed by piercing our skin with their elongated mouthparts, which consist of two stylets. One stylet has a groove that carries saliva into the wound, while the other has a groove through which body fluids from the host are taken in.
A single feeding may take up to 10 minutes, and feels like a pin prick, but because feeding usually occurs at night when people are asleep they are not aware they have been bitten until afterwards. However, saliva injected during the feeding can later produce large swellings on the skin that itch and may become irritated and infected when scratched. Swelling may not develop until a day or more after feeding, and some people do not show symptoms. Bed bugs currently are not considered to be disease carriers.
Distinguishing bed bug bites from the bites of other arthropods such as mosquitoes, fleas, and spiders is difficult. People often confuse itching bed bug welts for mosquito bites. The only way you really can confirm bed bugs are the cause is to find the bugs in your bed or bedroom. Often people are bitten when traveling, making diagnosis even more difficult.
In addition to the direct injury to humans, bed bugs have stink glands that leave odors. They also leave unsightly fecal spots on bed sheets and around their hiding places. These spots are darkish red in color, roughly round, and can be very small.
Female bed bugs lay 200 to 500 tiny, white eggs in batches of 10 to 50 on rough surfaces such as wood or paper. Glue-like material covers the eggs, which hatch in about 10 days. After hatching occurs, the eggshells frequently remain stuck in place.
Bed bugs can go without feeding for 80 to 140 days. Older stages of young can survive longer without feeding than younger ones, and adults have survived without food for as long as 550 days. A bed bug can take six times its weight in blood, and feeding can take 3 to 10 minutes. Adults live about 10 months, and there can be up to 3 to 4 generations of bed bugs per year.
BED BUGS DO NOT DISCRIMINATE – Bed bugs are increasingly showing up in homes, apartments, hotels, dormitories, and vehicles throughout the US. They hitch rides in luggage, boxes, shoes, and other mobile objects. Infestations are not tied to unsanitary living areas. World-class hotels have reported the problem. Since they are mostly nocturnal, you may have no idea they’re present.
Parasitic Insects
Habitat
Bed bugs typically hide in places like seams in mattresses and box springs, cracks in bed frames, under loose wallpaper, behind picture frames, and inside furniture and upholstery. Occasionally people pick up bed bugs in theaters or on buses and trains. They also can bring them into their home on clothing, bedding, luggage, or firewood.
Tips for Pest Control
Managing a bed bug infestation is a difficult task that requires removal or treatment of all infested material and follow-up monitoring to ensure the infestation has been eliminated and does not return. Management will require employing several nonchemical methods such as vacuuming, washing bedding at a high temperature, using steam or heat treatment, sealing up hiding places and insecticide treatment.
Call Quest Termite & Pest Control Services Today if you suspect a Bed Bug infestation and we’ll schedule a FREE inspection with one of our licensed and skilled Bed Bug exterminator serving Lehigh Valley.
