Bed bugs in your furniture

View any old furniture with suspicion if you are bringing it into your home and check it for bed bugs. Make inspections of all luggage brought into it by the intrepid travelers in your home. It is only constant vigilance that will make sure that you are not subjected to a bed bug infestation. Bed bugs can be guessed at from the dark spots that they leave on furniture or from blood spots on your bed linen and mattresses. You may also find old skin about a quarter inch long and whitish colored eggs of the same size.

Bed Bug Infestation

Small cracks or crevices in a house or even in furniture can prove very convenient places for bed bugs to hide in and breed. The shape of their body is quite flat and this greatly helps them to get into some very small cracks. Used furniture or bedding that is transported from one place to the other can be a good source for the bed bugs to spread to other areas. You would even find them in empty apartments, where they can wait for the time when the apartment is peopled again and their source of food, human blood, is again nearby.

Bed bugs are also found in chickens and turkey, while bats and cats are also known to host them.

Where Bed Bugs Live - Not Just Your Bed

Bed bugs have been vastly facilitated in their spread, by the large amount of travel and commerce that now takes part in today’s world. They attach themselves to furniture, luggage, clothes or other items that are quite often transported by us humans during our travels. So even if you have a very clean home, you could get infested with bed bugs from the luggage that one of your family members has carried with him or her during travels. Adults as well as eggs can travel in this fashion and help to breed a new colony of bed bugs.

What are bed bug

Bed bugs are nocturnal insects that are wingless. They have an oval body, are reddish brown in color and are quite often dismissed as ticks or small roaches. They have a life span of about a year and a half and can survive for long periods, even up to a year without feeding. It is this ability to survive long periods without feeding that has enabled bedbugs to travel and remain hidden till they reach a place where they can feed. They normally feed on the warm blood of humans and animals and are known to be active just before dawn. Bed bugs prefer to infest humans rather than animals.

What Causes Bed Bugs

One of the main causes for bedbugs and their survival is unclean and cluttered rooms. Poor hygiene and sanitary conditions also allow bed bugs to flourish and once they do so, they can spread quite easily to other areas through ducts and openings. Bed bugs are also quite common where there are nests of birds or even mammals like rats. And if these nests are close to human habitation it does not take too long before the bed bugs transfer themselves to this more hospitable environment and cause sleepless nights to its inhabitants.