Bed Bugs

The first thing to say about bed bugs is that if you do have them it has little to do with personal or domestic hygiene. They would as quickly infest a royal palace as a pig sty. They do not fly and have to be transported from host to host. For example, if you go and stay in a hotel that is infested, one or two bugs may make it into your luggage.

You inadvertently transport them home, unpack them in your bedroom, and they’re off! The first sign that they are present will probably be one or two bites on your body but these will rapidly increase until you are covered. You may start to see spots of blood on your bed sheets and bugs crawling around. If you look under the mattress and into the frame of the bed, you will see more blood spots and clusters of bed bugs, especially around the joints of the bed frame. They will also infest electrical items like your alarm clock, or try to get behind wallpaper and under the carpet. The longer they are present, the more places they will get into.

The treatment consists of spraying insecticide into every area around the bed and treating the bed frame if possible. Where the infestation is heavy it is advisable to dispose of the bed completely but not to buy a new one until the bed bugs have been treated successfully.

Bed bugs go through five nymphal stages and will vary in size depending on how many stages they have been through. They can be from 1.3mm to 3.7mm long and can easily be seen with the naked eye. They will live for between 9 and 18 months and appear flat, brown and disc shaped.