Where do bedbugs come from in an apartment? How to get rid of them?

Why are bedbugs needed in nature?

Bedbugs are the name given to a large taxonomic division of insects - a suborder, uniting into it all representatives with a similar feeding method. Representatives of the suborder have a piercing-sucking mouthparts, with which they pierce the integument of the victim and feed on the liquid components of the body (blood, plant sap, etc.).

Appearance of a bug

Human parasites include the only type of insect – the bed bug. In addition to it, there are about 100 more species of blood-sucking representatives that parasitize animals, but pronounced synanthropy is characteristic only of Cimex lectularius. It is believed that bed bugs have accompanied humans since the times when people lived in caves.

Until the 19th century Bedbugs were credited with medicinal properties (for example, against hysteria), but now they are recognized as harmful parasites adjacent to humans.

The first signs of bedbugs in upholstered furniture

The following signs indicate that there are bedbugs in the sofa:

Black spots on furniture and bedding. These are waste products of blood-sucking parasites.
Pinpoint bites on the skin in the form of a track, which appear 1-2 times a week: bedbugs do not feed on blood every day. A person can receive about 500 bites in one night. The bite site is a swelling with a bright red dot in the center.
The appearance of an unpleasant odor. Bedbugs give off a specific smell, which has been compared to the aroma of nutmeg, rotten raspberries or cheap cognac. Furniture in which these blood-sucking insects parasitize acquires a stale, musty smell.
Traces of blood on the skin and bed linen. They remain after insect bites, and also if a person, changing body position in a dream, crushes them. Traces of bedbug excrement are observed not only on the piece of furniture that they occupied: black dots appear within a radius of 3-5 m from it, on the walls, in the area of the baseboards. Bedbug bites not only cause discomfort: they can cause allergic reactions, the formation of ulcers with the addition of a secondary infection, and in severe cases, iron deficiency anemia.

Where do bedbugs come from in an apartment?

Bed bugs are sedentary insects that, unlike cockroaches, are unable to come and go through cracks or ventilation systems on a daily basis. They can crawl out of a neighboring apartment only if it is overcrowded. But in these situations, even the most careless owners begin to poison them.

Domestic bloodsuckers appear unexpectedly, live secretly, have the ability to hide in the smallest crevices and go without food for several weeks. When moving into an apartment where people have already lived, new owners often encounter insects that have already lived in it, rather than those that were introduced.

Bed bugs are dangerous to humans, as their bites can lead to allergic reactions and a number of diseases.

Sometimes bed bugs spread in new buildings.

They get there in many ways:

are transferred with things from the old apartment;
with clothes and bedding when traveling frequently;
from public places or from work;
with used furniture, books, clothes, etc. purchased somewhere.

Its small size and flat body allow the bug to penetrate a suitcase or bag, hide in the folds of clothing and thus move to a new place. Similarly, bed bugs accompanied humans throughout the entire period of coexistence with them.

Bed bugs: what to do

When bedbugs are found in your bed, your ability to think rationally about what to do about it may be disabled for a while, so the first thing you need to do is stop panicking. After this, you can begin to take specific actions.

Inspect the entire room in which the bed is located, and not just the sleeping place itself - nests of parasites can be in the cabinets, under the windowsill, in closets with things.
Do not take things that may seem clean to you into other rooms - you may not notice the pests and thus spread them throughout the apartment.
If possible, do not sleep in an infested room for the next few days and pay special attention to personal hygiene so as not to accidentally spread bedbugs around the house on yourself.

All these recommendations fall under the category of first aid. To get rid of bedbugs completely, you will have to poison them using special means.

Appearance of bed bugs

The size of a bedbug does not exceed 5-8 mm. A hungry insect has a flattened round body with a large abdominal part, a medium-sized cephalothorax and relatively short legs located in the front of the body. The color of the parasite is brown. It is quite difficult to crush a hungry bug, either accidentally or intentionally: its chitinous cover is durable, and the shape of its body allows it to withstand pressure without much damage.

Bed insects do not have wings. Nymph larvae differ from adults only in size. The young resemble small bugs, about 2 mm in size, white and then light brown in color, with short legs and antennae.

Stages of bed bug development

A saturated bug swells and becomes more vulnerable; it can be crushed even by accident. In this case, the contents of the intestines (blood sucked from a person) leaves a characteristic mark on sheets and other textiles.

The appearance of bloody spots on the bed may be a sign of the presence of parasites.

What are the signs of bedbugs in the house?

How to find the place where bedbugs live in an apartment? What traces do they leave in their habitats? There is a lot of evidence of the presence of a population of these bloodsuckers in the house.

You can find bedbugs in your home by their characteristic smell, reminiscent of low-quality cognac or fermented raspberries. It can be felt well when the bedbug population has reached alarming levels. But with careful searching, it can be detected in the early stages of insect emergence. It will come from a place where insects accumulate or from a nest.

Bedbugs can be easily found by traces of blood on bedding: duvet covers, sheets and pillowcases. A person in the middle of the night, worried about being bitten, mechanically wipes the wound, as a result of which small spots of dried blood are found on the bed linen in the morning. Another reason for the appearance of blood is crushed insects that drink in one meal an amount of blood that is three times its own weight.

If bedbugs live in the house, they can be detected at an early stage of their appearance (3-4 days) by following the traces of their existence.

Under favorable conditions (dry and warm), the parasites hatch from the egg after 3-4 days, leaving a shell that reveals their appearance.
The presence of parasites will be revealed by feces scattered in heaps in corners, crevices, and nests. They look like small black dots, reminiscent of ground pepper.
The presence of bedbugs will be indicated by the remains of chitinous coverings that appear after the insects molt.
They can be easily found by the presence of dead parasite bodies around the nest.
According to the nest, where you can find adult insects, larvae, eggs at the same time and traces of their existence. The photo shows an insect nest.

If all this is found in the apartment, then the population of parasites has exceeded such a quantity that a person cannot live in an infected house.

How to detect furniture bugs?

The main sign of bedbugs appearing in the house is a sheet stained with small blood spots and the presence of itchy bites on the body. It is difficult to detect an insect during the day; bedbugs most often come out of their hiding places at night, when the victim is lying in bed. But individuals living in furniture can bite a calmly lying or sitting person even during the day.

The main signs of the presence of bedbugs in an apartment.

The bite is not too sensitive, but the itching often interrupts a person's night's sleep. In the morning, characteristic bite marks can be found on the body: a chain of several bloody puncture points. Sometimes you can find a crushed dead insect on the bed.

An indirect sign of the presence of bedbugs is an unpleasant odor reminiscent of almonds (or cognac aroma). In the folds of the mattress and on the light upholstery of the sofa, one can also see dark dots left by several individuals hiding there before the cleaning began. If there is at least one similar sign, it is worth looking for the habitats of parasites and starting to destroy them.

Where are they hiding?

Particular attention should be paid to the furniture on which home owners sleep or often sit: sofas, armchairs, beds, etc. Bedbugs do not move long distances in search of victims, and you need to look for them near those places where bite marks or blood are most often found spots.

Need to inspect:

seams and decorative folds on upholstered furniture;
joints of backrests and seats;
gaps between the seat and armrest;
the underside of the mattress on the bed, seats and pillows on the sofa and similar places;
removable covers on furniture cushions;
in a sofa bed with drawers for linen - slots in the lower compartment, a soft base and a wooden frame for the pull-out part (bugs rarely live in metal parts);
on a wooden bed - all the joints of its frame.

Favorite habitats of bed bugs in the apartment.
Dark spots on fabric or wood - traces of excrement - can help in detecting bedbugs. They are located in large numbers around the crack where insects hide. You can also see larvae in the seams of upholstered furniture - small light grains about 2 mm long. During growth, the larvae change their shell several times, shedding the old cover. The presence of dry shells will also help to detect a bedbug colony - they resemble dead bugs.

Popular causes of bedbugs

The appearance of blood-sucking parasites can be caused by a number of reasons. Let's look at the most common ones.

Unclean neighbors

If your neighbors have bedbugs and they don’t do anything about them, expect evil spirits at your place! The uncontrolled growth of the colony forces insects to look for new sources of food and conquer new territories. In this case, you need to poison them not only at home, but also in the neighboring apartment. This is the only way you can destroy the main source of infection.

Disinsection in other apartments

Baiting them in a completely different place can lead to the appearance of bedbugs. In this case, the insects go in search of another place of residence, fleeing from imminent death.

Important! To establish a new population, one surviving and already fertilized female is enough. She will cope with the task in literally 1 month! If you become aware that your home is being disinfested, be sure to take preventive measures. Special traps or folk remedies (fragrant herbs, essential oils, strong-smelling mixtures) can help you with this.

Basements and attics

Poor condition of attics, as well as basements and basements is another common cause of pests in the home. Bedbugs simply love dampness, warmth, and twilight, and the abundance of rodents, whose blood they feed on, creates ideal conditions for their reproduction.

Trips and business trips

Wanting to save money on vacation, or purely by chance finding ourselves in an untidy hotel or sanatorium room, we only complain about the communal inconveniences and do not think at all about what unpleasant surprise we might pick up there. Meanwhile, bedbugs crawl into suitcases, bags and folds of clothing, calmly continue their journey and, in the end, end up in our apartment.

Advice! To avoid bringing back these nasty blood-sucking insects from your vacation or business trip, make it a habit to regularly inspect your personal belongings. Remember, only timely identification will save you from a long and difficult struggle. Having identified bedbugs, wash the items in the hottest possible water, iron them, treat them with a steam generator, or take them to the dry cleaner. As a last resort, just throw it away.

Untidy guests and visitors

Domestic bedbugs can be brought in by persons, upon contact with whom there is a high probability of infection not only with these, but also with other parasites. However, representatives of disadvantaged sections of the population do not necessarily have to visit your home! You can pick up a larva or an adult anywhere - in transport, at a bus stop, in line at a store. Those who, due to duty, are forced to visit places that are far from ideal cleanliness, also fall into the risk zone.

In crowded places there is a danger of catching and bringing home a larva or adult bedbug

Purchases

Any purchase can introduce bedbugs into an apartment – from soft toys to household appliances and furniture. It all depends on the conditions in which the product was kept before you purchased it. This is especially true for second-hand stores, flea markets, spontaneous and flea markets and other similar places. However, if warehouses are in a state of disrepair, unsanitary conditions can also arise in large stores.

Advice! Carefully inspect all items (both new and used) for the presence of black spots. This is what traces of bedbugs look like.

Be sure to look: how do bedbugs get in and where do they settle?

Repair

One of the most common reasons for the appearance of bedbugs in an apartment is its renovation. If it passes among your neighbors, insects may move to your place in search of more favorable conditions. If you just bought a home, do not hesitate to ask the previous owners if they were tormented by parasites. The fact is that bedbugs can go into suspended animation. They will hide while finishing work is being carried out, and as soon as you move into a renovated and sparkling clean room, they will immediately wake up and intensify their activity.

Pets

Unfortunately, our pets are common carriers of blood-sucking parasites. If you have a cat, dog, or any other warm-blooded animal in your home that needs to be taken out regularly, be prepared to see bedbugs. Having clung to the skin and fur of the animal, the insect enters the home and begins to bite a person.

Open area

This factor applies more to owners of private houses and country houses. Bed bugs have good jumping ability, so they can easily enter a room through a window or door.

Advice! To protect windows from insects, it is necessary to use mosquito nets. Also, do not forget about regular wet cleaning - it allows you to notice and neutralize parasites in time.

The house should have mosquito nets on the windows and doors to make sure that bedbugs cannot enter the room from the street

A trip to nature

You can pick up insects during your next picnic or walk. Under the bark of trees and in the ground there are a huge number of warm-blooded creatures, including bedbugs. The downside is that it is almost impossible to notice them right away - bedbugs quietly crawl into the folds of outer clothing and bags and do not make themselves known for some time. Only after finding a secluded corner in the apartment, they begin to actively reproduce and make night forays. It can take a couple of weeks from the moment you relax in the lap of nature until the first bites appear!

Danger to humans

The greatest danger to humans is an allergic reaction. It occurs due to enzymes injected into the wound, and microparticles of chitin and excrement rising into the air with dust. Often an allergic reaction occurs even in people who are not prone to it.

Allergic reaction to a bedbug bite in a child.

Like all bloodsuckers, house bugs are capable of carrying serious diseases:

typhus;
tuberculosis;
yellow fever;
pseudotuberculosis;
tularemia, etc.

Infection of an insect can occur from a previous owner, and, moving to a new one, the bug is capable of infecting it during its life.

If a private home is inhabited by rodents, with which bed parasites sometimes also come into contact, then the list of diseases will be even wider.

How to avoid bringing bedbugs from an infested apartment?

If you often travel and go on business trips, living for several days in rented apartments or hotels, then when you move in, you should immediately bring your things into the bathroom. Blood-sucking parasites do not live there and will not be able to get into the suitcase. It is advisable to inspect the rest of the room for traces of bedbugs.

If they are found, treat everything with any insect repellent (Raid, Raptor, etc.).

In a dangerous apartment, it is advisable to leave bags with things locked. If you use your own bed linen, it is advisable to wash it at high temperature before leaving or pack it separately in a sealed bag so that it can be processed at home.

If you have doubts about the cleanliness of a room where you have to enter for a short time, you should refrain from sitting on upholstered furniture.

How to destroy?

If bedbugs do come from somewhere, or at least there are suspicions of their presence in the apartment, then the fight can be carried out in different ways. The most common and accessible means are industrial aerosols. But sometimes their use is impossible for some reason and you have to use ancient folk methods or resort to the services of professionals.

Folk methods of struggle

Traditional methods of getting rid of bedbugs include not only the use of repellents. Help to destroy bedbugs:

Thermal impact. Bedbugs die at high and low temperatures, so in hard-to-reach places (on furniture and mattresses) they are destroyed in 2 ways. In the first case, you will need a steam generator, which is used to clean upholstery. The steam will kill the insects that inhabit textile items. Linen and clothes can be washed or boiled. Cold is considered an alternative to steam: to prevent the introduction of bedbugs with used furniture, the purchase can be left in the cold (-10°C and below) for 24 hours in winter. This is enough to kill larvae, eggs and adults.
Scaring away. The smells of strong-smelling plants will prevent bedbugs from settling in your bed or sofa. You can use lavender, wormwood, tansy and other aromatic herbs. They will have to be updated frequently, and this method is not very effective.
Destruction by volatile substances. Traditionally, kerosene and turpentine are used to bait bedbugs. The vapors of these substances can quickly destroy larvae and adult bloodsuckers, but are ineffective against their eggs. The bugs will appear again, and the treatment will have to be repeated several times.
Mechanical method. It involves manually collecting detected insects. But in hard-to-reach crevices, bedbugs cannot be killed using this method.

Household products

Household chemicals include preparations with cypermethrin and related substances, karbofos, and other pesticides intended for treating residential premises. When choosing, you need to pay attention to what species the drug is recommended for: it is better to poison bedbugs with means for crawling parasites.

Among the available household chemicals, the most effective are:

Aerosols. Preparations such as Raptor, Raid, Combat Dichlorvos and the like are specially designed to combat various insects. The peculiarity of the application - spraying - allows microdroplets to penetrate even the narrowest cracks, overtaking bloodsuckers even in their shelters. After treatment, parasites sometimes begin to crawl out in large numbers into open areas.
Solid drugs. Used in 2 varieties: chalk and powder for dusting. Chalk (Mashenka, Brownie, etc.) allows you to create a toxic barrier, upon crossing which the insect will already be poisoned. Returning to the colony, the bug will bring poison to the shelter, contributing to the death of the larvae. The chalk will not affect the eggs, but the bugs will stop appearing, because they will die at the first contact with the chalk strip. Powders are used to pollinate any surfaces inside and outside furniture.
Solutions. Chemical solutions are prepared strictly according to the instructions. You can use garden preparations (FAS, Karbofos, Fufanon, etc.) and special household products (Executioner, Bedbug beetle, etc.). Spray with solutions and moisten the places where traces of bedbugs are found. The drugs exhibit toxicity within several days or weeks, and treatment is repeated if necessary.
Gels. The thick form contributes to the long-term preservation of the toxic mark on wooden surfaces. But household gels (Foxide, Get, etc.) stain textile surfaces and have a limited range of applications.

Professional preparations

Among the professional preparations intended for disinfestation are highly concentrated solutions based on the same toxic substances as household chemicals. You can use them yourself, using only the dosages recommended by the manufacturer for preparing the working solution.

Treatment is carried out using spray bottles or garden sprayers, observing safety precautions (protecting the mouth and nose from inhaling the spray).

Products such as Cifox, Sinuzan, Forsyth, etc. should not be purchased in large packages. For 1 liter of solution, 2-5 mg of emulsion is enough, so for home needs it is enough to purchase a package of 50-100 ml. During disinsection, remove everyone who is not involved in the work from the premises for 5-6 hours. After treatment, the apartment must be ventilated to remove odors and toxic fumes.

Prevention measures

In order not to bring dangerous parasites into your home and not to wonder where they come from in a clean apartment, you should take into account both the reasons for their appearance and the possibility of existence in the room where you plan to move. By treating furniture after purchasing it in person or by taking measures while you are away from your home, you can protect your home from the entry of unwanted tenants.

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