- Anyone can get bedbugs.
- Bedbugs are blood-feeding parasites that prefer to feed on the blood of humans.
- However, if they cannot find a human host, bedbugs will prey on animals like small rodents, birds and house pets.
- They are wingless, rust-colored insects about the size of a tick as adults.
- They are attracted to heat and carbon dioxide from our breath.
- Bedbugs don’t care if your rich or poor or clean or dirty.
- Bedbugs are spread by hitching rides on people's clothing, bags and in furniture when they move it traveling from place to place.
- Bedbugs are cryptic in nature and like to stay hidden when not feeding.
- Bedbugs fit in tiny cracks and crevices.
- Once fertilized, the female will lay 3 - 10 eggs every few days. (200-500 lifetime).
- At room temperature, eggs (1/32 of an inch long) hatch into nymphs in 7 to 10 days.
- Under ideal temperatures and feedings, it takes approximately 6 to 8 weeks on average from egg to adult stage.
- In their juvenile or nymph stage, bedbugs are clear (or bright red, if they have recently fed) and are barely visible to the naked eye.
- As they grow through each stage, they molt (shed their skin) before reaching maturity.
- A blood meal is needed between each successive molt.
- On average, adults live ten months to one year.
- They don't fly or jump, but they do move very quickly and congregate in hiding places.
- Bedbugs are most active pre-dawn but will adjust their feeding times to our sleeping times (even in the day).
- Bites are hardly ever felt because they inject a mild anesthetic before feeding.
- Some people are not affected by the bites.
- Others will experience welts, bumps and red splotches on the skin the next morning.
- Bedbugs feed for about five to ten minutes while the host sleeps and will return to their hiding places after feeding.
- You are most likely to first notice the tell-tale signs of bedbugs rather than see an actual bedbug.
- You can’t distinguish bedbug bites from other types of bug bites.
- They may "bite" multiple times at a feeding resulting in typical multiple bites in a line or a cluster.
- Bedbugs do not stay on humans normally but return to their hiding places after feeding.
- The anxiety about being bitten can lead to sleeplessness, and psychological distress in some people.
- They’re known for causing nightmares and insomnia.
- Bedbugs are known for carrying different pathogens such as Hepatitis B and HIV.
- Transmission of these pathogens to humans is rare but possible.
- Repeated scratching of bites creates a high risk for infections.
- Bedbug bites are more than a nuisance, and can cause anemia in extreme cases.
- They spread by hitching rides on people's clothing, bags and in furniture moving from place to place.
- They are resistant to most chemicals and throwing away infested furniture won't remedy the situation.
