Bed bugs are small, oval-shaped brown insects about the size of a small apple seed who feed off human and animal blood. They tend to be found mostly in bedrooms hence their name. Because they feed and operate at night when people sleep, they often go undetected and are additionally very discrete and good at hiding.
The main reason for a bed bug infestation is that they are accidentally brought into the home by humans from an infected surface. Bed bugs can’t fly so they rely on humans to transport them but they crawl quickly and can move around once they’re inside your home.
A bed bug infestation may cost $1,000 – $2,500 to eradicate depending on the size of the problem. We’ll talk more about that below.
What can you do to avoid a bed bug infestation and what should you do when you experience one?
Bed bug causes
Bed bugs are accidentally introduced to your home when they are brought in from other infested areas. While they can’t fly, they do crawl quickly and can move from one room to another once they’re inside your house.
Specifically, they can enter your home on your clothes, luggage, purse, bag, backpack or any other item that is placed on an infected area such as a bed, furniture, floor, etc. They can then hide behind wallpaper, cracks in walls, behind picture frames, baseboards, upholstery and other soft surfaces.
Bed bugs don’t tend to be a seasonal problem and can occur year around. There seems to be evidence that the prevalence of bed bugs goes up in the summer possibly due to people traveling more and thus increasing the chances they visit infected areas.
How to avoid a bed bug infestation
When you stay away from home in a hotel or motel, check the bed, underneath the mattress and bedframe for evidence of bed bugs. Look for bed bugs themselves but also for small red blood stains or evidence of dead bugs or their droppings. Not every hotel or motel is clean.
Inspect the hotel furniture and use your cellphone light to check dark spots. Look underneath the cushions and inside the seams.
Store your luggage and bags off the floor and away from the walls. Bed bugs can crawl and move from one surface to another.
When you return home, wash the clothes you brought with you immediately and dry them in your dryer on the hottest setting to be safe. Check your coats, bags and suitcases for bed bugs before storing them.
If you do notice bed bugs in your hotel room, take pictures with your cellphone camera, immediately send an email to the hotel you’re staying at to document it in writing and then tell them verbally right away to gauge their response. At a minimum your should switch rooms or hotels if necessary.
When you return home, inspect your own bed and bedroom area for evidence that you may have brought a bed bug infestation into your home.
How prevalent are bed bugs?
The overwhelming majority of pest exterminators deal with bed bugs each year. Bed bugs exist in many places that we may not think about, beyond just hotels and motels. In that regard, the term “bed” bugs is actually a misnomer as we’ll see below.
Bed bugs have increased in prevalence since the 1990s and it’s believed that more frequent travel by humans – national and international air travel, travel by car, visits to hotels, etc – has contributed to their movement and growth. Over time they’ve become more resilient and able to build up an immunity to pesticides too.
According to the Bugs Without Borders
survey from Pestworld, bed bug exterminators noted that they find bed bugs in the following places and deal with them at the following rates.
| Location | Infestation level |
| Dwellings (apartments, condos, homes) | 95% |
| Hotels/motels | 74% |
| Nursing homes | 58% |
| Office buildings | 45% |
| Schools and daycare centers | 43% |
| Hospitals | 36% |
| Doctor’s offices/outpatient facilities | 33% |
| Transportation (train/bus/taxi) | 29% |
| Retail stores | 20% |
| Movie theaters | 16% |
So in the case of dwellings, 95% of bed bug exterminators suggested that they had dealt with bed bugs in home residences, 74% had dealt with bed bugs in hotels/motels, etc.
Increased prevalence of bed bugs in more places
In every instance above in the survey, the prevalence levels of bed bugs increased from the last time the survey was conducted three years earlier indicating that bed bug infestations were likely increasing across the board. This matches the widely held believe that bed bug infestations have increased since the 1990s.
The research shows that while bed bugs were most commonly found in apartments and condos and single family homes and hotels/motels, they may also infest other common places we visit and patronize, without us even thinking about it.
Common bed bug signs
One of the reasons it’s good to use white and light-colored mattresses and bed sheets is that white doesn’t hide dirt, blood or insects such as bed bugs. As you can see from the table above though, you might attract bed bugs from a visit to a movie theater or by using a taxi or from shopping.
And bed bugs can also hide in other areas other than the bed like cracks in walls, behind picture frames and in cushions on couches and chairs.
In that regard, be on the lookout for the following which may indicate a bed bug infestation:
- Unexplained bites on your body that appear in the morning. While bed bug bites may be confused for mosquito, tick or flea bites, if you think you have a bed bug problem, this might be the first sign you notice.
- Blood marks on your bed linen. A bed bug(s) may have been crushed by you moving in the night or it could be blood from a bite on your body.
- Bed bug skins or shells. Baby bed bugs are born in 6-10 days and shed their outer shell multiple times as they grow.
- Bug feces. Look for small dark brown or black smudges on bed linens. It won’t be blood red despite what you may think.
- Bad smell. Dead, crushed bed bugs have a bad smell often described as similar to rotten almonds.
What do bed bugs look like?
Other than signs of bed bugs mentioned above, you might actually see them firsthand. While they tend to hide during the day and come out at night when it’s dark and you’re sleeping, you may see them up close and personal.
Bed bugs have the following traits:
- Reddish-brown color.
- Long, oval shape about the size of a small apple seed.
- They look flat when hungry but swell when they’ve eaten.
- They are often mistaken for fleas, ticks, baby cockroaches and carpet beetles.
- They mature in about 35 days and live 7 – 12 months so they can reproduce and be difficult to get rid of on your own.
- Their bite is painless so they are good at eating and running. They may not appear again for weeks, making finding them even more difficult.
- They locate people to bite from a person’s body heat and carbon dioxide from their breath so they’re able to effectively target victims.
Where do bed bugs bite?
Bed bugs tend to like to bite the upper part of the human body so you’ll often find bite marks on your:
- face
- neck
- arms
- hands
- shoulders
Bed bugs tend to operate at night which is why they’re referred to as bed bugs: They bite when people tend to be in bed sleeping and don’t know it’s happening.
Bed bugs bites vs flea bites vs mosquito bites
How can you tell the difference between a bite(s) from a beg bug, flea or mosquito? Here are some characteristics of each.
| Characteristic | Bed Bugs Bites | Flea Bites | Mosquito Bites |
| Bite type | Small, raised, flat, red spots. | Small red bumps that stay small. | Puffy, reddish, itchy bump that appears shortly after the bite. |
| Bite pattern | Typically 3-4 bites in a straight line. | Generally appears as small clusters on the feet, lower legs and ankles. | A mosquito typically bites once and then leaves. Other mosquitos may bite you also. |
| Bite traits | A bed bug can bite you for 3-10 minutes as it feeds. | A bite is quick but it can last on your skin up to 1-2 days or up to 2 weeks if you have a reaction. An allergic reaction may occur 24 hours after the bite. | Mosquitos bite quickly in a matter of seconds and do often prefer some people over another based on genetics and sex. |
| Bite side effects | Most people just get an itch with other side effects like reddened skin or a rash, a warm feeling, numbness or tingling. | Fleas generally bite animals but they can bite humans and can cause swelling and itchy skin. More serious effects include allergic reactions. | Generally a red, itchy bump that disappears after several days. More severe reactions can be bleeding if picked and low-grade fever or hives. |
| Bite treatment | Normally doesn’t require it. A hydrocortisone cream can help to soothe the affected area. | Normally doesn’t require it. A hydrocortisone cream can help to soothe the affected area. | Normally doesn’t require it. An antihistamine or anti-itch cream can help. |
Bed bugs treatment
In some respects bed bug treatment is a mixed bag historically. While the chemical DDT was used for decades to control them, it was banned in the 1970s. Because bed bugs occur predominantly in the bedroom too, people may be hesitant to use strong chemicals to kill bed bugs as a result.
What to do?
Since it’s believed bed bugs began to develop an immunity to DDT and other heavy chemicals used in the past, your best bet is probably to skip the DIY remedies you see online involving rubbing alcohol and call a professional pest exterminator and get it done by a pro who offers experience, good service and a guarantee.
In the meantime as you wait for the exterminator to arrive, you can:
- Clean the bedding, curtains, pillows and any other linens in the affected room(s) and dry them in the clothes dryer on the hottest setting.
- Vacuum the mattress, under the mattress and bed, the bed post and any furniture you have in the affected area(s) especially hidden areas like seat and sofa cushions.
- Vacuum moldings, windows areas, curtains and floors.
- Remove clutter from rooms particularly the bedroom.
- Avoid moving any furniture, etc out of the infected room(s) to another as it could transfer bed bugs to other areas of the house.
- Seal cracks and crevices leading out of the home ie. around pipes, wires.
Bed bugs exterminator methods
What methods do bed bug exterminators typically employ?
Heat treatment
Heat treatment involves heating the environment that bed bugs have infected with a high level of consistent heat to dry out their bodies and kill them. This can be a good option when you consider that some species of bed bugs have become pesticide-resistant and bed bugs don’t have a high heat tolerance.
This non-toxic method involves heating the floors, walls and ceilings of affected rooms to 122°F (50°C) for two-hours or 126F° (52°C) for one-hour using large industrial heaters that are diesel powered. Electric and gas heaters won’t have the ability to heat a room to the necessary temperature.
Be careful when choosing a provider as a cheap price with multiple visits probably means they aren’t good. One visit is typically all that is needed by a quality provider as it will kill at bed bugs regardless of age.
Cost: $1 – $2 per square foot so around $2,000 – $4,00 per home.
Fumigation
Similar to fumigation used for termite removal, this method first involves covering your entire home in a tarp or large tent for large infestations or entire rooms in smaller cases. An inorganic gas (ie. not a poison) called sulfuryl fluoride is then pumped into the area being treated and causes bed bugs and their eggs to suffocate and die.
If you only have select furniture that is infected you may rent a container, put all these items into the container and have the container fumigated with your contents inside. This service is often offered by fumigation companies.
Cost: $4 – $7.50 per square foot. One fumigation company I found online referred to fumigating entire brownstones in the New York City area costing from $5,000 – $50,000 in total and in some cases may have involved entire buildings with multiple units.
Steam
Steam may be used to target bed bugs that are visible but also to access cracks and crevices where other methods may not work. In this instance, a high temperature steam is sprayed directly into infected areas to get bed bugs who are hiding and are not otherwise accessible.
Steam that raises the surface temperature to 160°F – 180°F (71°C – 82°C) is necessary for this method to work.
This method involves use of a professional steamer machine with specific specs and not a clothes steamer or one you’d buy at a hardware store. In that regard it is best done by a pest professional with the right equipment.
Cost: $250 – $1,000 per room to be treated.
Pesticides
The EPA regulates hundreds of products for bed bug eradication. They include pyrethrins, pyrethroids, desiccants, biochemicals, pyrroles, neonicotnoids and insect growth regulators.
The two main types of compounds used to kill bed bugs are pyrethrins which comes from chrysanthemum flowers and pyrethroids which are synthetic chemical insecticides.
As mentioned above, some bed bug types appear to be pesticide resistant which is why other methods like heat and steam were created. When bed bugs become resistant to them, their effectiveness is muted.
Cost: $100 – $500 per room when done by a pest removal company.
Mattress encasements
Mattress and box spring encasements completely cover the mattress and box spring so that bed bugs cannot infest them. Any bed bugs that are already in the mattress or box spring will not be able to escape to bite you and will die. These are not to be confused with simple mattress covers which is a different product.
These will only work for mattresses and box springs and won’t help in the instance where you have bed bugs in other areas of your home.
Cost: $20 – $60 per mattress cover.
Crack and crevice injection
You can either get this work done by a pest professional or buy a commercial product for use at home to spray yourself. You directly spray the product into cracks and crevices into various parts of your home to kill infestations.
As with other home-use products you may have limited success especially if you have infestations in other areas like your mattress, furniture, etc.
Cost: $10 – $15 per can
Bed bugs liability
Are you a landlord? If you rent out a property or own a hotel, etc with tenants and you find evidence you have bed bugs you’re best bet is to get the infestation professionally handled as soon as possible to avoid a problem with your tenant or visitors.
In general terms and depending on where you live, the landlord/property owner is responsible for paying for and correcting a bed bug infestation.
Not only can landlords be held responsible and have problems with their tenant(s) for a bed bug problem especially if lack of cleanliness or maintenance is cited, hotel owners have been held legally responsible by courts for tenant injuries.