The bedbug invasion is causing problems of epidemic proportion because bedbugs spread so quickly and are hitchhiking everywhere. We now have reports that they are even found in library books. Cities like New York are especially hard hit due to population density and a flourishing tourist trade. These brownish-red bugs are wingless and usually come out in the dark to feed on your blood. Bed bugs use their host as a taxi, by latching onto your clothes and travelling on your person or in your suitcase. Once they arrive the bugs will feed and reproduce. An interesting fact is that bed bugs cannot reproduce without a blood meal. Adult bed bugs are flat, brown colored, wingless insects. The off-white colored youngsters (nymphs) can actually detect the breath of people up to 160 feet away and go to to the new food source...you! After the nymph reaches its dinner it will spend a few minutes feeding and then scurry away to a safe dark hiding place. Your new parasite needs four more blood meals to complete a 5-stage growth cycle so it will be back again and again over the next few weeks. So will all the other bed bugs! Now here is the incredible information about how fast these bugs can multiply. A single adult female lays around 70 eggs\/week. Assuming all nymphs can get blood meals as needed here is what results. Two tiny eggs that find their way into your home can produce over 10,000 bed bugs in 3-1\/2 months, with hundreds of thousands eggs ready to hatch. That is just plain scary! <\/p>\n
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