There is a whole generation in the developed Western world that is coming in contact with bed bugs for the first time in their lives. The Baby Boomers of the Fifties and Sixties and their offspring have never seen bed bugs in their native countries, because bed bugs were practically exterminated in the West in the 1940's and 1950's due to the extensive use of DDT to kill insects in general when the inner city slums were being cleared up after the Second World War. A comparable process went on in the United States.
This slum clearance and the killing of insects bolstered the conviction put about by rich people for decades that bed bugs went hand in glove with squalour and dirt. However, it is not true and in fact the opposite could be the case. Cockroaches and ants will feed off dropped pieces of food, but bed bugs do not. Bed bugs only eat blood. If they see a piece of cheese on the floor, they do not think 'yum, yum, I wonder if it is Cheddar?', as a cockroach might, they walk around it and make for the nearest shapely ankle instead.
The recovery in the number of bedbugs in the West since 1995 can almost definitely be attributed to the number of people making long-distance flights to Asia and Africa and increased immigration from those continents. These people are not the poorest and dirtiest in the world. Immigrants tend to be middle class to wealthy and long-distance flights are not made by the poor either.
So, how do you know if you have bed bugs? Well, the answer to that is, it depends on your immune system. You may have them and never know it, if you are not allergic to bedbug saliva. People say that bedbugs come out at night, but in fact, they are most lively about an hour before sunrise.
Therefore, if you want to look for them, this is the time to do it. Set your alarm for an hour before daybreak and switch the light on immediately. They are very fast movers if they have not eaten, otherwise they are quite sluggish and ponderous.
They usually live near the bed. Either in the mattress if it is ripped or behind the skirtings or wall paper. Bedbugs come in various colours, but the ones that only feed off humans, Cimex lectularius, are small (4-5 by 3.5 millimetres), brown, flat, but slightly rounded on top. They often look banded like a well-manicured lawn, because they have short hairs on their back. They are also wingless.
People think that bed bugs bite them in bed and this is true, but not only in bed. If you like to watch TV in your favourite armchair in the dark, they can get you there as well, which means that you are also at risk in the cinema. In fact you are at risk anywhere that people congregate: pubs, restaurants, buses, taxis, cinemas, hotels, motels, airplanes, nightclubs et cetera.
If you have bedbugs you may notice red or brown flecks on your sheets, this is either your blood or their excrement. you may also find bedbug skins lying around. Bedbugs have to shed their skins six times in order to become fully mature. These skins look just like bedbugs but with nothing in them.
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is at present concerned with how you get bed bugs. If you are interested in this, please go over to our website now at Picture Of Bed Bugs for further details.
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