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EPA Home Bed Bugs Top Ten Tips to Prevent or Control Bed Bugs

You can compare your insect to the pictures on our Identifying bed bugs Web page or show it to your local extension agent. (Extension agents are trained in pest control issues and know your local area.)

It can be difficult to eliminate bed bugs, but its not impossible. Dont throw out all of your things because most of them can be treated and saved. Throwing stuff out is expensive, may spread the bed bugs to other people's homes and could cause more stress.

Be comprehensive in your approach. Try other things first. Integrated pest management (IPM) techniques may reduce the number of bed bugs and limit your contact with pesticides. If pesticides are needed, always follow label directions or hire a professional. There is help available to learn about treatment options.(4 pp, 480 K, About PDF)Exit

A cluttered home provides more places for bed bugs to hide and makes locating and treating them harder. If bed bugs are in your mattress, using special bed bug covers (encasements) on your mattress and box springs makes it harder for bed bugs to get to you while you sleep. Leave the encasements on for a year. Be sure to buy a product that has been tested for bed bugs and is strong enough to last for the full year without tearing.

This reduces the number of bed bugs. Bed bugs and their eggs can hide in laundry containers/hampers Remember to clean them when you do the laundry.

While freezing can kill bed bugs, temperatures must remain very low for a long time. Home freezers may not be cold enough to kill bed bugs; always use a thermometer to accurately check the temperature. Putting things outside in freezing temperatures could kill bed bugs, but there are many factors that can affect the success of this method.

Raising the indoor temperature with the thermostat or space heaters wont do the job. Special equipment and very high temperatures are necessary for successful heat treatment. Black plastic bags in the sun might work to kill bed bugs in luggage or small items, if the contents become hot enough.Bed bugs die when their body temperatures reaches 45C (113F).To kill bed bugs with heat, the room or container must be even hotter to ensure sustained heat reaches the bugs no matter where they are hiding

Bed bugs are good hitchhikers. If you throw out a mattress or furniture that has bed bugs in it, you should slash or in some way destroy it so that no one else takes it and gets bed bugs.

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Top Ten Tips to Prevent or Control Bed Bugs | Bed Bugs ...

Photos showing bed bugs and evidence of their presence: eggs, fecal stains, and cast skins

You can click many of the photos and you will be taken to the flickr page. Click all sizes and then large to get the best view.

If you think you are suffering from bed bug bites, or if you have seen a strange bug or other signs, the photos below will help you determine if you have them. (Remember also that other problems can look like bed bug bites, so be sure and rule those out. See this FAQ if you need help detecting bed bugs.)

Obviously, you might find the bugs themselves! They can look vastly different based on life stage (there are 5 nymph stages and one adult stage) and whether theyve fed recently or not. For reference, see the following bed bug life cycle image:

This bed bug life cycle photo from Stephen L. Doggett, posted with his permission, also shows the difference between the just-fed adult (top, elongated), and the not-just-fed adult next to it on the right:

Here are some amazing photos of bedbugs feeding, including adults and nymphs (from L. Sorkin and R. Mercurio.)

Unfed first instar nymph (approx. 1 mm or 1/32 long; taken by Sorkin and Mercurio, American Museum of Natural History):

After the bed bug bites someone and feeds for the first time, it turns red. This is the same first instar once it has fully fed (it will be larger now; taken by Sorkin and Mercurio, American Museum of Natural History):

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bed bugs photos, eggs, cast skins, stains; bed bug bites ...

Herbal Treatment for Bed Bugs

Bed bugs are hard to eradicate once they're established, and when you travel, you don't always know if you'll be staying in an infested location. Apparently the problem is so widespread that even hotels you'd think are immune to pest infestations are experiencing embarrassing bed bug activity.

Here are a few bed bug facts and tips. I don't like pesticides, especially around my family and pets, so these approaches are herbal or just common sense. They'll help you identify and treat a minor incursion in your home without using costly and potentially hazardous chemicals.

How to Identify Bed Bugs

Bed bugs can be hard to spot. They're small, brown and flat, and they come out to bite when you're sleeping. If you think you may have a problem, look in the seams in your mattress, on the headboard (don't forget to check the back) and along the bed frame. If you've been bitten by one, it will look like a small, red welt.

If you can't find an actual bug, they leave signs of their presence you can check for too. Bed bug droppings look like small brown spots, and their eggs and larvae look like white spots. They can appear on bedding, headboards, mattresses, walls, floors, and just about anywhere else, with the possible exception of the ceiling.

Detecting Bed Bugs

You don't necessarily need expensive exterminators to detect bedbugs in your home. If you haven't found any telltale signs but still think you have bed bugs, a DIY setup using dry ice will get the job done for under $20.00. You can find a tutorial at Wired.com: Bed Bug Detector.

Get Rid of Bed Bugs

If you want to try an herbal solution in your home, or are staying in a location where bed bugs might be present, there is a spray you can make that will discourage them. It will keep bed bugs away from both you and your bedding. I recommend using essential oils because they are very concentrated. Essential oils are created through distillation, like spirits, and even when they're diluted, they have a strong scent.

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The Herb Gardener: Natural Bed Bug Control

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LODI (CBS13) The Lodi Stadium 12 Cinemas closed Monday while pest control trucks investigated moviegoers complaints bed bugs bit them while they sat in the theater.

The movie theater released a statement saying the theater would be closed until Thursday after limited evidence of insect activity was found inside some auditoriums.

Clark Pest Control technical director Darren Van Steenwyk cant confirm if his crews found any evidence of bed bugs, but said hes seeing more cases of bed bugs in the valley.

Hotels, dorms, office buildings, coffee houses, buses, airplanes, and airports, Van Steenwyk listed, adding that a movie theaters cool temperature would not deter the bugs from sticking around.

They hide in things, in crevices, said Van Steenwyk, who said the temperature where the bed bug is hiding most likely is warmer than the atmosphere.

Van Steenwyk said bed bugs have been with us for a long time.

People started living in caves and thats when they essentially started hanging out with us, said Van Steenwyk, who says bed bugs primarily feed on human blood.

A local Lodi dermatologist said the bed bugs victim doesnt feel the bite, but will get the irritation the next morning. Dr. Abdallah Khourdaji said hes seen several bed bug victims in recent years. He says for any one person, all of the patients bites could come from the same bug.

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After Bed Bug Complaints, Lodi Theater Closed Until Thursday To Eliminate Insect Problem

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The Culprit

Most people find bed bugs (Cimex lectularius) a most disagreeable houseguest. These parasites are usually no more than inch in length in their adult state and can engorge themselves with human blood in less than 15 minutes causing their bodies to fill to as much as three times its usual size. Fully engorged bed bugs bear little resemblance to their original state and are often thought to be a different insect altogether.

Bed bugs can lay between one and five eggs per day with an incubation period of 10 days in warm weather (slightly longer when cool). These newly hatched bed bugs will require five significant blood feedings to reach adult size. They will molt in between feedings by shedding their exoskeleton. One mature they will begin the process of laying new eggs.

Adult female bedbugs can lay more than 200 eggs during their lifetime and the new generation of bed bugs will immediately seek a blood meal and they might be looking at you through hungry compound eyes. When they are finished eating they leave tiny sores to remind you of their midnight binge.

There are other types of bed bugs including the bat bug, the chimney swift bug and the swallow bug. All of these relatives survive on blood feeding, however these secondary parasites thrive on either bats or birds as their primary victims.

Bed bugs feed on the blood of human beings but can suck blood from other animals as well. Birds and mice are the most common animals. Bed bugs most often feed at nightime when people are asleep. When they feed, they inject a salivary secretion into the wound to prevent coagulation. The fluid can cause a persons skin to itch and even become swollen. Scratching can cause sores which often become infected. Bed bugs are not known to transmit any human blood-borne pathogens.

An adult bed bug is about 1/5-inch long, oval in shape and flat. Theyre generally brown except after sucking blood. Their body then becomes swollen and the color changes to a dark red.

Bed bugs like to hide in the cracks and electical outlets in walls, behind wallpaper, base boards and picture frames, between beds and around the creases of mattresses and in bedding materials. They have a rather pungent odor which is caused by an oil-like liquid they emit. Bed bugs are often carried into houses by clothes, luggage, furniture, and bedding. Or sometimes even by humans.

Bed bugs seek harborage in cracks and crevices. Common harborages in hotel rooms and cruise ship cabins include: folds & creases in bed linens, seams, tufts & under buttons on mattresses, in drapery pleats & hems, beneath loose wallpaper, in headboards, desks, entertainment centers and nightstands, behind base molding in wall-mounted artwork, etc.

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