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Bed bugs are everywhere. They can be found in businesses and homes. Bed bugs will set up their little hiding spots in restaurants and hotels, or your bedroom or living room. As long as these tiny blood-sucking insects can get easy access to a ready supply of blood meals, they don't really care one way or another what kind of place they're in. This is true of Raleigh as much as any other city.
The difficult thing about getting rid of bed bugs is that they are hard to see and hard to find. They are very small, and very good at hiding. When bed bugs infest a property, they may have laid eggs in multiple places and may be hidden in many areas throughout a room or rooms. This means you could spend time going through an entire room, but miss just a few bed bugs and end up with an infestation all over again.
If you have bed bugs in Raleigh, whether at your place of business or throughout your home, contact your local Ehrlich Pest Control office and get a free property inspection right away.
Bed bug bites usually appear in clusters around the torso, arms and legs of a person who has been bitten. They may appear a lot like a rash or as red bumps on the skin. If a person has an allergic reaction to bug bites, there may be some swelling. For some people, there is an adverse reaction to the bed bug's saliva and the bites may itch, but this may not be the case for all people.
Bed bugs have been around for a long time and are found in every corner of the earth. There was a time when they were nearly eradicated in North America, but they have made a strong comeback in recent years. As global travel becomes more readily available, bed bugs can more easily be transferred across borders and between countries and communities. With Raleigh growing into one of the U.S.’s major cities, bed bugs have become a more common issue for property owners in past few decades.
Bed bugs are part of the genus known as Cimex and the Cimicidae family. They are parasitic insects that require a blood meal in order to reproduce. They feed on the blood of mammals, and humans in particular, using specially designed mouthparts that allow them to pierce the skin, inject anticoagulants, and feed until they are satiated.
Bed bugs are very small even as adults. They are dark in color, usually brownish and shaped like apple seeds when they have not had a blood meal. As young bed bugs, they look very similar to their adult counterparts, just much smaller. Smaller bed bugs might only be about the size of a grain of pepper.
Bed bugs often leave behind shed skins as they grow. They also leave spots of blood on the bedsheets and fecal matter, too, as they feed. These will appear as small brown spots on sheets and pillows.
Bed bug eggs are small and whitish to translucent. They are very small and hard to see, but eggs about to hatch will have a tiny red spot at one end, indicating the larvae about to hatch.
Bed bugs who have fed will appear bloated and reddish in color from the blood they have consumed.
Bed bugs hide for a long time and can wait quite a bit between feedings. However, when they do come out, they prefer their prey to be asleep so that they can feed undisturbed. This is why bed bugs prefer to hide in areas where people are more likely to sleep or stay relatively still for long periods of time.
The bed bugs who need to feed can use their senses to detect the body heat and breath of their intended prey. They also can detect the best places in which to feed. Their mouthparts pierce the skin and their saliva contains both an anesthetic and an anticoagulant. This allows the bed bugs to pierce the skin into a blood vessel without being felt and without the blood clotting.
The blood will pour into the bed bug's body and cause them to appear bloated and reddish in color. When they have fed enough, the bed bugs will detach and return to their hiding place to digest.
Although bed bugs feed on blood much the same way mosquitoes do, they are not known as a disease vector. The only real damage bed bugs do to people is psychological since most people do not appreciate being bitten while they sleep. Thus, a bed bug infestation may cause loss of sleep or general unpleasant feelings, but they do not pose a serious health risk.
At Ehrlich, we have trained bed bug specialists who know where these insects like to hide. We will do a complete property inspection and find all of the bed bug hiding places around your Raleigh home or business. We then offer state of the art treatment options to get rid of the bed bug infestation and offer solutions to prevent bed bugs from returning.
If you have found the signs of bed bugs in your Raleigh home or anywhere on your property, contact your local Ehrlich Pest Control office today.
Which do-it-yourself methods can you trust?