9 Things You Should Know About Bed Bugs

For many, bed bugs are quite mysterious. They turn up one day. They bite you. They disappear. Of course, you want to learn more about them, so that is what we want to do on this page.

On this page, you are going to learn more about the following:

Bed bugs don’t just live in the bed.
Bed bugs will lay over 500 eggs in their life.
Bed bugs will be biting you for up to 12 minutes at a time.
You will unlikely feel when a bed bug is biting you. The pain comes much later.
You know that you are dealing with a bed bug infestation if you see red spots on your bed.

Of course, we will be covering nine different points, so let’s jump right in!

Bed Bugs Don’t Just Live On The Bed

We know that the name ‘bed bugs’ implies that they live in bed. However, they don’t. They can do it. Most of them do. However, bed bugs can pretty much be anywhere in your home.

You may have some bed bugs lurking on your sofa. They may be hidden in the cracks of the walls. They may be hiding in your clothes ready to nip you as soon as you put them on.

Honestly, if there is anywhere that a bed bug can hide, but will still provide easy access to a feast (i.e. your blood, or the blood of an animal in your home), then they are going to be there.

This is what can make dealing with bed bug infestations so tricky. You never know where they are lurking, and it takes missing just one rogue bed bug colony during the midst of a bed bug extermination and you are pretty much back to square one.

Of course, you are most likely going to see the biggest signs of bed bugs in your actual bed. This is where they spend the vast majority of their feasting time.

After all, they can bite you when you are asleep. Chances are that you will roll over onto a few of them too, which means that there will be telltale signs of a bed bug infestation in the morning.

Bed Bugs Move Around Quite a Lot

This types somewhat into the previous fact. Bed bugs like to move around a lot. For some reason, people seem to believe that bed bugs will stay in one place for their whole life. This isn’t the case.

While we are sure that some bed bugs are more than happy to set up camp in certain locations, the vast majority of them will move into hiding or go where the food goes. We will talk more about the hitchhiking process in a short while.

Bed bugs can walk around. They will only be able to walk a few feet, but they will travel to the food.

This is why you may end up with bed bug bites, but see no signs that there are any bed bugs in the vicinity. The bed bugs will just ‘dine and dash’.

Again, this is something that can make dealing with bed bug infestations difficult. You could know that you have a bed bug infestation.

You could be looking at the physical bites, but you just don’t know where the bed bugs are. This is because those bed bugs are coming out of hiding and then disappearing again. However, we can assure you that those bed bugs are no more than a few feet away from you.

Bed Bugs Will Hitchhike Into Your Home

Bed bugs don’t fly into your home. They won’t walk into your home. Leaving the windows open isn’t going to be an invitation for bed bugs to waltz right on in. So, how do bed bugs get inside? Well, bed bugs are hitchhikers.

If you have bed bugs in your home, then chances are they have hitchhiked in on one of the following:

A suitcase
Clothing
Furniture that you have bought elsewhere

If bed bugs can stick to something, they probably will. Most people’s bed bug infestations start when they stay at a hotel or motel with a serious bed bug infestation, or if they stay at the home of a relative/friend that also has those issues.

It is rare, but bed bugs may also be able to transition between two pieces of clothing if those pieces of clothing touch.

The reason why this is rare is that bed bugs cannot jump. They will have to walk onto the new material, and most pieces of clothing won’t be touching for too long.

If you want to avoid a bed bug infestation, then you will need to check all clothing, suitcases, etc. before you head home from a stay away.

Bed Bugs Are Tough To Kill…But Not Impossible

Bed bugs are difficult to kill. The main reason is that they do hide. All it takes is missing a couple of bed bugs and all of your extermination efforts will be in vain. This is why most people work with professional exterminators to deal with the problem.

The problem with bed bugs is that they can deal with changes in the environment pretty well. They can lay dormant in the cold, and things need to get pretty hot for bed bugs to start to die off. You could even clean your clothes and you may still have some bed bugs lurking on them (although, this is rare).

If you want to get rid of bed bugs on clothing, fabrics, etc. then you are going to need to clean them at an incredibly high temperature. This is the only way to kill off the bed bugs short of calling in an exterminator to do the job for you.

Bed Bugs Will Bite You For Up To 12 Minutes At a Time

A lot of people seem to assume that a bed bug bite is a quick nibble and they are done. Oh no. it is much worse than that.

Bed bugs like to feast. If they dig themselves into you, then they are going to be sucking on your blood for 3-12 minutes at a time.

Bed bugs are pretty small creatures so they won’t be taking a whopping amount of blood (don’t worry, you are not going to wake up with major blood loss!), but this is a pretty long feasting period.

You Won’t Feel a Bed Bug Bite For a While

Bed bugs are silent. Just before they dig themselves into you, they will put down a small amount of anesthetic. This numbs the area. They can then start to suck your blood without you feeling a thing.

It is only a few hours later that you will start to feel that itching pain. You won’t be waking up in the middle of the night if you have been bitten by a bed bug, but you will certainly know that you have been bitten in the morning.

Remember, you probably won’t just be bitten by a single bed bug. You will be bitten by dozens of them throughout the evening.

This will happen frequently. This is why you need to deal with that problem quickly. Very quickly.

Bed Bugs Lay a Lot Of Eggs

As we have said several times on this page, bed bug infestations can get out of control if you miss even the smallest of colonies. This is due to how much a bed bug can breed.

Each female will be knocking out up to 3 eggs per day. Throughout her life, she could lay up to 500 eggs!

Not only all of them will hatch, but if just a couple of hundred hatches, you have a couple of hundred to bite you. This is on top of all of the offspring that those will produce.

Even if you have hundreds of bed bugs lurking around your home, you won’t be able to tell. Well, you won’t be able to see them. They will be hidden. You certainly will be able to feel the bites, though.

Bed Bug Infestations Should Be Easy To Spot

Well, this is under the assumption that they are biting you in bed. You probably won’t see the bed bugs milling about.

Bed bugs are tiny. This means that they are pretty delicate. You will move around at night. Therefore, there is a pretty good chance that you could roll over and squash a few of them.

Putting aside the fact that you will be covered in small bite marks, you should be able to spot a bed bug infestation.

There will be small, crushed bed bugs in your bed. These will look like reddish dots (this is essentially your blood that has been squashed out of them). The tricky part is knowing where they live.

Bed Bugs Don’t Need To Eat That Often

Bed bugs won’t be eating every single night. Most bed bugs will only need to eat a couple of times per month.

However, if you have a ton of bed bugs in your home, that part probably isn’t going to make that much of a difference. You are still going to end up with regular bed bug bites.

However, bed bugs can last a long time without food. While they probably won’t be happy about it, and they may stop reproducing in that time, a bed bug can have a good meal and be fine not eating anything else for a year.

This means that you can’t even starve those bed bugs to death (we told you that they are going to be hard to kill!).

It also means that bed bugs may be perfectly content hiding in the shadows until they see the ultimate time to strike.

They are not going to be desperate for food. They will just wait until you least suspect it (probably when you are asleep).

Conclusion

Bed bugs are mysterious creatures. Right from the get-go, their name doesn’t tell you the whole truth. They don’t live in bed (but will feast a lot in bed), and they tend to stick around in the shadows.

Bed bugs can be tough to eliminate too. They are notorious breeders, and getting rid of a small number of bed bugs will likely have no impact.

You need to exterminate every bed bug in your home if you want to keep that infestation under control.

Alright, that’s it for this article, here are a few hand-selected articles that you might also find interesting reads:

Are Bed Bugs Common in Apartments – Answered and Actions

What Bug Looks Like a Black Dot?

Bugs That Live In Hair Not Lice – Here’s What They Really Are