How bedbugs move: reasons for migration, methods of movement

Penetration of bedbugs into the apartment

Bring bedbugs on clothes

Prevention of insects

Many people associate bed bugs with dirt and debris in their home. Therefore, owners who carefully monitor the cleanliness of their home, discovering parasites, are perplexed as to how bedbugs are transferred into the apartment.

Why do bedbugs crawl out of an infested apartment?

In the first case, bedbugs begin to move and invade new premises when their population in the first case increases significantly. Then some individuals begin to look for new sources of food and places to create nests, where they will not have so much competition. As a result, they find cracks in the walls, through which they move to their neighbors. Bedbugs run very quickly, so at night in just a few hours they can easily cover the space of several rooms or a landing.

A bedbug on the clothes on which it was accidentally brought into the apartment

Two reasons can provoke bedbugs to migrate: hunger or some other danger. Most often, they begin to scatter if residents carry out pest control. They can also spread among neighbors if the owners of the apartment where they live have gone on vacation for a month or more. As a result, if bedbugs have even the slightest opportunity to enter your apartment, they will definitely do so.

Penetration with clothes

And after that, you should definitely try to find out how the bedbugs got to you.
If you accidentally brought them yourself, then in the future you need to minimize the risk of a repetition of this situation. And if bedbugs are coming to you from your neighbors, you need to find which specific cracks they will climb through, and seal these cracks or holes - with silicone, putty, polyurethane foam, it doesn’t matter. Some repellent methods or folk remedies do not allow bedbugs to be removed. We have never heard of anyone successfully removing bedbugs with vinegar or turpentine, or repelling them with an electronic repeller. Despite the fact that such methods are certainly no safer than the use of proven insecticides, which have been confirmed to be relatively harmless to people.

And there is another interesting folk method, probably the only truly effective of all folk remedies. It works like this: you somehow completely remove bedbugs only from the bed. For example, you treat it with steam, or take it out for 2-3 days in a frost of -20-25 degrees - this will kill the bedbugs. It is important to be sure that there are no bedbugs in this particular bed (or several beds). You can even buy a new one.

It is this bedbug-free bed that you bring into the apartment, place it so that neither it nor the bed on it comes into contact with the walls or other furniture (including other beds), and the sheet or blanket does not hang to the floor.

Simply put, you need to make sure that there are no bedbugs in the bed, and those that are in the room can only climb onto it along the legs, and nothing else.

After this, all the legs are wrapped with adhesive tape to catch flies in a continuous ring at a height of 5-10 centimeters from the floor. After this, you can safely go to bed on the bed.

How it works? There are no bedbugs in the bed, and those that are in the room confidently run towards you to bite you. They run up to the legs, climb up them and stick to the tape. And they can’t go anywhere else, so they die here.

When there are too many bedbugs on the tape and a bridge is formed from their bodies, the tape must be removed and a new one pasted.

This method is more effective than, for example, placing the legs of the bed in bowls of water - the bedbugs will not climb into the water, and when they cannot climb onto the legs, they will begin to climb the walls to the ceiling and fall from there on you. And someday, such “scavengers” will remain in your bed and reproduce here again. But sticky tape will not give bedbugs such a chance - they will no longer come unstuck from it and will not run away anywhere.

In this way, by the way, you can use the tape to catch even those bugs that will be picked up from your neighbors. But this is, let’s say, a temporary option.

In any case, it is safer to call a pest control service. A good exterminator will disassemble your bed himself, find all the nests of bedbugs in the apartment, treat everything with a powerful agent and definitely kill the bedbugs. And you don’t have to throw out the bed and buy a new one. All you have to do is block the way for bedbugs to enter your apartment. After this, you will no longer find bedbugs either in your bed or on your child’s crib.

Bring bedbugs on clothes

You can bring bedbugs from an infested room. It is enough to spend the night in an infected bed, train, station. A person will not even suspect that he has some kind of living creature in his clothes. After all

We invite you to read: What is the best and most effective home remedy for bed bugs: rating. What reliable, cheap, safe professional remedy should I buy for bedbugs?

small, they cannot be detected instantly. In the same way they bring bedbugs from guests.

Guests can also bring bedbugs into the house if they themselves live in infested housing. There is a high probability that these insects will be on their clothes, which cost nothing to take a fancy to and inhabit new apartments.

Often, owners notice these animals after repairs carried out by a team of workers. Usually she lives in cabins and dormitories, where this living creature lives quite often. A worker may well carry bedbugs on his clothes to another apartment.

Traditional methods

There are folk ways to prevent and expel insects from their homes.

Important! Keep in mind that almost 90% of the “blood-sucking population” lives within a couple of meters of the bedding area.

Bloodsuckers have a keen sense of smell, so you can use fragrant herbs: calamus, chamomile, peppermint, tansy, wormwood and wild rosemary.
Insects die at temperatures below 20 and above 60 °C.
Sometimes it helps to spray with a solution: dilute turpentine, kerosene, liquid soap and warm water in a ratio of 10, 15 and 100 parts, respectively. Be careful, use protective equipment!

Attention! Tansy, wild rosemary and wormwood are poisonous and dangerous for children and animals.

It’s easier, safer and cheaper to turn to the sanitary and epidemiological station for help in exterminating insects: the result will be guaranteed.

How bedbugs are transmitted by people themselves

In other cases, people themselves bring bedbugs into their homes on their clothes, bags and other things. In this way, infection occurs no less often than when insects move from neighbors.

Bed bugs are not stationary parasites, that is, like mosquitoes, they do not live on human bodies. They bite a person, suck blood and run away to their hiding places. Thus, one person cannot become infected with bedbugs from another person. However, these parasites are often carried on clothing.

Most often, such an infestation occurs when a person goes on vacation or a business trip and spends the night in a hotel where bedbugs live. At night they can bite him and then return to their hiding places. In this case, one or two bedbugs may become entangled in clothing and remain in it. In the morning, getting out of bed, a person can take off these things, put them in a suitcase and go home. As a result, insects will also make the journey. If all items are not washed at high temperatures immediately, the parasites will get out of them and crawl somewhere under the baseboards. Also, during a trip, they can get out of things and get into the cracks in the bag, and then at home they can get out of them and run away. As a result, after a few days, the parasites will smell the carbon dioxide exhaled by people and climb into their bed to bite.

A person will be lucky if he brings home one male or nymph in this way, which will die in a couple of weeks, before any of the residents have time to get scared. However, if a fertilized female or several bugs get into the house, then soon there will be a lot of them in the apartment.

Likewise, a bug can come to your home directly on your outerwear or shoes. You can bring him in even by visiting an infected premises.

Should I worry?

You've probably heard rumors that bed bugs are carriers of infection and can infect humans with such terrible diseases as typhoid, hepatitis, tuberculosis, anthrax and even HIV. These rumors are caused by the fact that the causative agents of all the diseases described above are regularly found in the body of most bedbugs, as well as yellow fever, Chagas disease, syphilis and other “delights”.

However, all these viruses and bacteria are located in the digestive tract of the parasite, so they usually do not enter the victim’s body through a bite. This is a natural trait for parasites who have no desire to kill their potential food or make it sick. That is, even if the bug that bit you is infected with HIV, it will not transmit the virus to you. Does this mean that bedbugs cannot infect you with anything? Alas, no.

Although bed parasites cannot transmit viruses through a bite, they heavily pollute the place of residence with their excrement. Bedbug excrement containing viral pathogens can enter the lungs and digestive tract of humans, causing hepatitis and other diseases. And triatomine bugs (aka “kissing”), living in Africa and South America, are carriers of Chagas disease and sleeping sickness. If you happen to travel to regions where these diseases are common, avoid visiting “slum” areas and cheap hotels - there, even without insects, you can become infected with anything.

However, the likelihood of catching anthrax or hepatitis from insects that have infected your home is very small - in order to infect you with anything, the parasite must first find somewhere an already infected person or animal and drink their blood. Therefore, you can only become infected with something from a bedbug in those places where there is a large “turnover” of people - in cheap hotels, tent cities, refugee camps, homeless shelters, etc.

Thus, contracting some dangerous disease from bedbugs is rather pure bad luck. These insects can only infect humans with diseases that are transmitted by airborne droplets or the fecal-oral route.

However, the main danger of bedbugs is not the transmission of diseases, but the bites themselves.

Take care of your protection in advance

A prudent person thinks ahead and worries about how not to bring bedbugs home even before the trip. And here's the first piece of advice: don't take the problem lightly. If anyone thinks there is nothing to worry about, then they probably just haven't encountered bed bugs yet. The sharp increase in the number and spread of bed bugs is by no means an exaggeration, but a disappointing reality.

Look online for reviews of the hotel you are planning to stay at. Although you can't completely rely on reviews, if more than one person writes that there were bedbugs in the hotel, this is an alarm bell.

You can also call the hotel in advance, tell the manager of your concerns about bed bugs, and ask what protective measures the hotel is taking. Most likely, they will assure you that there are no problems with bedbugs in the hotel, but you can’t count on honesty in such a matter.

How did bedbugs end up in your house?

When bedbugs appear in an apartment, it is very important to understand whether they were introduced accidentally or came from neighbors. When understanding this, you need to take into account several nuances.

Firstly, bedbugs are almost never carried by pets. In an apartment where people live, bedbugs bite them first, without touching their pets. It is difficult for parasites to get through the fur to their skin. In addition, cats and dogs have rougher skin than humans, making it difficult for insects to bite through. However, they can still bite animals, but only in severe hunger, when there are no people nearby. This happens extremely rarely, because pets do not live in empty apartments. In cases where bedbugs do attack a cat or dog, they leave the body very quickly after the bite. When the animal begins to move, the bug tries to quickly run away and hide in its shelter. Therefore, the likelihood that an animal will bring bedbugs into the house is almost zero. With people the situation is different. Having bitten a person, the bug also strives to leave his body and return to its place, but along the way it can become entangled in clothing and remain in it. Animals do not have clothing, so they cannot transfer parasites this way. It should be taken into account that bedbugs can live in beds, carriers, scratching posts and other objects. When moving them from one room to another, you can also move the pasazites.

Bedbug eggs and larvae on the back of the carpet

Secondly, bedbugs almost never leave living spaces, even in the warm season. This is unnatural for them. In the wild, they live in animal burrows and caves, but not in the open air. This means that only people carry them from one building to another. Consequently, they can only get into a private house in this way. In rare cases, they can enter the house from the chicken coop if they are very close. In chicken coops, bedbugs reproduce very quickly, parasitizing birds, so their appearance in a nearby house is not uncommon. In general, bedbugs can cover a distance of 10-20 meters, but they will not travel 30-40 meters or more.

Bed bug diseases

Bedbug bites

Insects live in colonies, but are not known for their coordinated actions. They go out to eat in batches when someone gets hungry. With a small number of insects, at the initial stage of infection, bites on the human body appear periodically.

Adults have enough food reserves for 10 days. Therefore, traces of a night meal appear after a week. The larvae are more voracious, but get full faster. They need food to move to the next stage of development. Each larva should eat at least once a week.

A young generation of parasites appears at different intervals. Because females lay eggs every day. Therefore, bites on the body when the apartment is heavily infested appear almost every night.

As a result, a person’s sleep is disturbed and insomnia appears. The fear of being bitten again keeps the nervous system tense. Without a full rest at night, a person feels weak during the day. There is drowsiness, headache, fatigue, and decreased performance.

On a note!
Bed bug diseases disappear on their own when the parasites are eliminated. When a person calms down, sleep improves and well-being improves.

Life with bedbugs

Hi all. A couple of days ago I read a couple of posts about bedbugs. So, this is the situation -

I live in Moscow, I rent an apartment. Somewhere in October, my hands began to itch, then my legs, a rash appeared, and everything went in order. I turned to a dermatologist, they said that maybe the allergy was caused by dairy products (here I also understood one thing: to contact a dermatologist, if you don’t have a residence permit with registration, then you will need to pay a little money, I personally paid 1,200 rubles, in the Solntsevo area). As for dairy products, at that time I was drinking kumys, and I thought that maybe because of this. I stopped drinking it and took a couple of medications. The rash went away, I really thought it was because of the kumiss. In November I saw some kind of insect on the pillow. The dream immediately went away, I got up, lifted the mattress, and saw about 50 of these insects. I bought RAPTOR, sprayed it, but in principle, as I expected, the bedbugs did not disappear. And I decided that I would wash all my things, dry-clean my jackets, and move out. I did just that, and in December I moved to another apartment. Moving is certainly something, I never liked this business. One thing was very surprising: when I came to Moscow for the first time, I had 2 bags. When moving, 4 bags appeared from somewhere, plus a lot of different packages, although I bought absolutely nothing. Well, that's okay, that's not the point.

A different life began for me, in a different district of Moscow. December 30, New Year's bustle. In the evening after work, I happily went into the shower, and at this time I turned off the light in the room. I went out, turned on the light, and again I saw these parasites on the wall. They, as it turned out, “moved” with me. People, guys, tell me how to get rid of bedbugs? It’s impossible to even sleep normally, they make me very angry, irritated, and again I get a rash all over my body, especially in the morning.

What I did to get rid of them:

— I left the window open for 3 days (the bugs did not disappear, but all the water froze, the floors were terribly cold, even the gingerbread cookies were frozen solid)

— I tried to find their place where they live. Have not found

- Yes, and that’s basically it. You will say that you didn’t really do anything, and you will be right. No idea what to do or how to do it. Call a bedbug specialist?

I will be waiting for your comments and advice. Thank you!

Do exterminators tolerate bedbugs?

Another question we are often asked is: can exterminators themselves accidentally or intentionally transfer bedbugs from one room to another? Due to their duty, they have to constantly visit apartments in which huge numbers of these parasites live. Therefore, it can be assumed that they can get into the things and bags of specialists.

In fact, the risk of an exterminator bringing in bedbugs is virtually zero. Firstly, his work uniform, as well as all bags and equipment, are treated with insecticides. Because of this, even if bedbugs accidentally get somewhere, they quickly die and are definitely not transferred to the next clients. Secondly, an exterminator comes to an apartment with bedbugs in order to destroy them. He treats all surfaces in the house with potent drugs that quickly kill bedbugs. In such conditions, they simply do not physically have the opportunity to get into the bag or pockets of a specialist’s clothing.

Sometimes they express to us completely absurd ideas. Some people suggest that exterminators deliberately spread bedbugs into residential buildings so that their residents will then contact the company for help. They say that exterminators catch bedbugs in infested rooms and then plant them under the doors of a randomly selected apartment.

This is theoretically possible and this fact cannot be refuted with one hundred percent certainty. Maybe someone once tried to infect an apartment in this way, and it was not necessarily the exterminators who did it. Regarding the activities of the latter, let's think logically. The main problem of pest control services is high competition, not a lack of clients. The likelihood that after deliberately planting bedbugs in a particular house, its residents will turn to this particular company is extremely low. Therefore, it makes no sense for exterminators to increase the number of infected apartments using this method. There are already a lot of them, much more than all the companies in the city could clean up. In addition, people themselves successfully cope with the spread of bedbugs by constantly transporting them from one room to another.

Due to suspicions that exterminators are spreading bedbugs, when parasites appear in the house, residents first look at the notices posted nearby and refuse to contact these services. They assume that their employees caused the appearance of insects in their home. To get rid of them, residents begin to look for other companies or try to poison the bedbugs themselves. In general, it makes no sense for exterminators to plant parasites on someone, because competition between companies is very strong, and the likelihood that after an apartment is infested with bedbugs, its residents will turn to a specific company is very low. The main task for exterminators is to sell their services and work effectively to get clients, and not to increase their total number.

How to leave further distribution

When bedbugs appear, it is no longer so important which carriers brought the population into the apartment. Uninvited guests should be promptly disposed of to prevent them from multiplying to huge numbers.

The best option is to contact a specialized company that professionally deals with the destruction of parasites in premises.

Their arsenal includes chemicals that are harmless to people and animals and have powerful effects. The company's employees strictly follow all sanitary processing rules. They know all the secret breeding places of these insects. They have chemical protection suits and equipment for the correct spraying of pesticides, which is very important in the process of proper treatment of the room.

After treatment, care must be taken to ensure that the apartment does not become infested again. To do this, take a number of simple preventive actions.

They never bring things directly into the apartment from a long journey. Leave bags with things on the balcony or in the courtyard of a private house. Let them freeze there, and the heat-loving insects will freeze to death.
Unpack the parcels carefully, placing a sheet of white paper under them, shake off the item above it in order to see the saboteurs in time.
Treat all cracks with a special gel against insect penetration. Or use a special Chinese pencil for this. It perfectly helps prevent the invasion of blood-sucking parasites.

Life with bedbugs

Hi all. A couple of days ago I read a couple of posts about bedbugs. So, this is the situation -

What I did to get rid of them:

— I left the window open for 3 days (the bugs did not disappear, but all the water froze, the floors were terribly cold, even the gingerbread cookies were frozen solid)

Which one do they like?

Insects prefer models with numerous seams, in which they can easily hide. They are especially likely to settle in pajamas, home clothes, and underwear, since this is where body odor lingers the most. If you notice small brownish spots on things, it means they live on it.

INTERESTING! We suggest you familiarize yourself with: Spray against moths in the apartment

Can bedbugs bite through clothing? No, their mouthparts are not so powerful for this. Although they

bites

an unpleasant thing, especially for

children

But insects do not like fur products, because their paws cannot catch on the fur and they are not able to move on it. In addition, fur models have insufficient contact with the body, so pests have nothing to do there.

Appearance of bloodsuckers

Bedbugs are small insects 3-8 mm in length. Most often they are brown in color - from light to dark. After the blood is pumped, they acquire a reddish tint or turn black. The lifespan of an individual is one year. The female is capable of laying up to 500 eggs and in 40 days many new specimens hatch from them.

If there is a shortage of food, they can hibernate and emerge from it when favorable conditions arise. When the temperature drops to minus 15, the insect dies. The bug emits a characteristic odor when crushed.

Features of the use of chemical insecticides

The industry produces a variety of products against blood-sucking insects. Fabrics can be treated with aerosols Karbozol, Perfos-P, Raptor, Raid, Clean House, Combat.

When using them you need to follow some rules:

Carry out processing away from food, it is better to do it on the street or balcony.
It is advisable to wear a mask to protect your respiratory tract before spraying clothing.
After the effect of the drug wears off (see instructions), wash the treated item if possible.

The bug is a creature that multiplies quickly and is surprisingly tenacious, so treatment to destroy it must be carried out as carefully as possible and at the first detection. Today we answered the following questions: do bedbugs live in clothes and how to get them out of there?

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Interesting Facts

Residents of apartment buildings should know some signs of the presence of linen bloodsuckers indoors:

The bug has an odor reminiscent of coriander.
An indisputable sign of the presence of insects is complaints from family members about the appearance of numerous bites located on the body.
Peak food intake for parasites is from 0:00 to 05:00 hours.
An insect that feeds on blood can go without food for 2 months.
An adult quickly finds a food source, because senses the warmth of the human body and the presence of carbon dioxide in the exhaled air.
A bug bite causes an allergic reaction in 80% of people.
The insect is often the cause of anemia in young children.
Triatomidae are carriers of the causative agent of Chagas disease or American trypanosomiasis.
An increase in the number of blood-sucking parasites is facilitated by the formation of populations resistant to the effects of insecticides, for example, 25% of cypermethrin, which is part of disinfectants.

There are many ways to combat home bugs, which allow you to destroy all blood-sucking insects living in the room.

BedbugsCan there be bedbugs in clothes?

What is the danger for children and pregnant women

The presence of a large number of insects in the house can lead to the development of various phobias, to which children are especially susceptible. The thought that there is a bedbug somewhere nearby can cause psychological problems and cause insomnia. If the situation does not change for a long time, chronic fatigue and symptoms of severe stress appear.

Danger for children and pregnant women.

The main reasons why bedbugs cause more harm to children than adults:

A child is more likely to become a victim of bites because he has thinner skin, so he is preferable to insects as a victim.
Incompletely developed immunity causes a high risk of contracting an infectious disease.
An adult can drink up to 3 g of blood on average. If there are a lot of parasites, then this amount of blood loss is significant for the child, and symptoms of anemia are noticeable.

Danger for pregnant women:

Decreased immunity due to sleepless nights.
Irritability that occurs due to discomfort caused by bites.
The possibility of becoming infected with a vector-borne disease and subsequently passing it on to a child.

Favorite places for bedbugs

Insects settle in rooms where people live, regardless of sanitary conditions. A favorite place for parasites is apartment buildings, where they easily migrate long distances and multiply rapidly.

The main areas where insects accumulate in the house are:

books;
wardrobes;
cloth;
cracks in the walls;
places under torn wallpaper;
electrical engineering;
sofas and tables;
bird cages.

Bed bugs are nocturnal, being active in the dark. During the day they huddle in crevices and darkened places, but when experiencing severe hunger, they are able to deviate from the rules and go out hunting for human blood.

Things

Bed bugs travel very well on clothing. If you leave your clothes in a room infested with bedbugs, they may crawl into them or simply lay eggs in them. When you come home, you will bring with you a potential colony of insects. If you know that your friends or relatives have bedbugs, it is better to hold off on visiting.

It happens that things cannot be washed in hot water. In this case, they can be frozen. To do this, you need to put the item in a sealed bag and put it in the freezer or freezer. If it’s winter, they can be easily replaced with a regular balcony. Freezing time depends on temperature. Temperatures below -15 degrees are guaranteed to kill all bedbugs and their eggs within 2-3 days. But if the temperature is higher, then the item needs to be frozen for a long time, up to a month.

Ways of insects appearing in the house

Bedbugs move at a rate of 2 to 4 cm per second and move from one room to another. They are driven to a new place by lack of food and pest control. They easily penetrate from neighbors, finding the slightest cracks between the walls. Colonies of parasites migrate through:

ventilation hole;
electrical wiring;
sockets;
holes for network and telephone cables;
sewer risers;
open front door.

To reduce the risk of bedbugs, cover the cracks in the apartment with cement and fill with sealant.

In the warm season, blood-sucking insects crawl along the outer wall of the house onto the balcony and windowsill. But these are not the only ways of entry. In many cases, bedbugs are carried into an apartment due to the negligence of residents.

Gift from vacation

If characteristic black marks of excrement appear on the walls, and an unpleasant sweetish smell is felt in the apartment, it means that there are bedbugs in it. Before looking for the cause of the infection, remember if family members went on a business trip or vacation.

Parasites are common residents of cheap rental apartments, hotels and hotels. Small insects easily penetrate people's travel bags and clothes, and they bring them home, unaware of the dangerous cargo.

If you had to spend the night in a questionable motel, follow the safety rules:

do not hang clothes in the closet;
do not place it in your room;
keep bags tightly closed;
When leaving, shake things out thoroughly.

When you return home, immediately wash your clothes at a temperature above 60 C and steam them with an iron.

In public places that are not regularly sanitized, bedbugs appear. It is enough for a person to stand in line for 15-20 minutes, or watch a movie in a third-rate cinema, for them to get into the folds of their clothes or into their bag.

Visiting guests can transmit bedbugs into the apartment. If their home is infested, they are potential carriers of pests.

Sources of infection are second-hand and flea markets. It cannot be guaranteed that items sold there have been disinfested. They may contain eggs, larvae and adult bedbugs.

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Avoid buying used household appliances, furniture, and clothing. Bedbugs prefer warm, dark places, so they make nests on the back of the refrigerator, in the system processor, under the upholstery of sofas and armchairs. They are able to wait a long time for new owners, hibernating. By penetrating a residential building, the colony is activated and increases the population.

Books in a used bookstore are dangerous. Insects love to leave clutches of eggs and hide between the pages of old publications.

Animals

Among the carriers of bedbugs, pet stores have a leading position. Insects do not parasitize dogs and cats. Dense wool prevents them from reaching the delicate body and digging into the skin. They successfully live on decorative hamsters and birds.

Having bought a long-awaited gift for your child, you can end up with several bedbugs and infect the house.

Be careful when buying an apartment. When purchasing secondary housing, make sure there are no insects in advance. If they are found, request that the owners bring in a professional pest control service.

You can also find bedbugs in a new building. They are brought by renovation workers and the residents themselves, without following safety rules when moving.

Various loads pass through vehicles for transporting things, so the likelihood of the body becoming infected with bedbugs is high. To prevent them from penetrating your furniture, wrap it in film and pack clothes and linens in sealed bags.

It doesn't take a whole colony for bedbugs to spread. One fertilized individual is enough. If the female lays eggs in a new place, hordes of parasites appear in the apartment.

There are several options for the spread of bedbugs; let’s look at the most likely ones.

Adjacent premises

In an apartment located in a multi-storey building, bed bugs most often appear from neighboring rooms. It must be said that bedbugs are extremely prolific, so their number in an infested apartment is steadily increasing. Over time, the parasites become crowded, they lack food, so they begin to migrate in search of new habitats.

It should be noted that bedbugs are not the fastest runners. If we compare these insects with cockroaches, then bedbugs can safely be called slow-moving. But the insect body is adapted to endure considerable difficulties, falling into suspended animation in difficult situations.

But how can insects get into an apartment from neighbors? Like cockroaches, bed bugs actively use communication systems, as well as windows and doors. Here are the main ways that insects can use to appear in an uninfested apartment:

ventilation shafts;
holes in the floor and ceiling through which risers of heating, water supply or sewerage systems pass;
through holes in the walls shared with the neighboring apartment, made for installing an electrical outlet. The fact that the socket is installed in these holes will not stop the insects;
cracks near door frames or near window blocks.

In other words, bed bugs can get into even the smallest cracks; their bodies are flat, so a small gap size is not a problem for them.

When asking yourself the question of where the parasites came from in the house, it is worth remembering whether any of the household members recently went on vacation? The fact is that often harmful insects appear in the apartment due to the fault of the owners themselves. Parasites are often brought in suitcases and bags, not only after a holiday in the countryside, but also from foreign resorts.

You can bring an unplanned “gift” from vacation in a suitcase or bag. Insects often climb into folds and survive the long journey just fine. Moreover, it is not at all necessary to carry a whole colony of parasites; it is enough for one fertilized female to get into the suitcase. Since one individual lays about 500 eggs during its short (about 15 months) life, the parasites spread very quickly.

It is quite possible to bring parasites home on your own clothes if you spend some time in an infected room. For example, visiting people who do not care too much about the hygiene of their home. A similar result can be obtained by hosting guests at home who live in contaminated premises.

Parasites are carried on clothes, and in a new apartment they quickly find shelter and begin to form a new “colony.” You can also bring bedbugs on your own clothes after visiting public places. For example, these parasites may well live in movie theaters, hiding in seats and biting spectators during screenings when the lights are turned off.

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If all the previously listed methods of parasite penetration are excluded and the question of where the parasites came from remains unclear, then it is worth remembering whether some time ago you bought some used furniture or household appliances for your house.

It must be remembered that bedbugs can hide in the smallest crevices, so you can purchase them “to complement” an antique chest of drawers or a used laptop.

Old furniture and household appliances

Bed bugs appear in the house when the owners bring in old pieces of furniture. New things are rarely infected, since there is no food for them in the store. More often they live in old furniture that has been used for many years. When purchasing items secondhand, you must always check them for the presence of these unpleasant representatives of the fauna.

The same applies to household appliances. In it, parasites find secluded places for themselves where there is no bright light. They are often found in system computer units.

Therefore, if you plan to move into a new apartment, you need to carefully check all the furniture and equipment so that you don’t bring bedbugs with you when moving.

Common Myths

Many people feel fear at the mere mention of blood-sucking parasites and willingly believe various stories about bed bugs.

The following are popular among them:

Household parasites carry dangerous diseases. This statement is not true. A person who is constantly bitten by bedbugs develops symptoms: itching at the site of the skin puncture, insomnia, allergic reactions on the skin. Parasite bites negatively affect the state of the nervous system, symptoms of depression often develop, a person feels anxiety, and panic seizes him. Scientists have found that domestic bloodsuckers are not carriers of dangerous diseases.
The small size of insects makes them difficult to detect with the naked eye. This is an incorrect statement, because a person with normal vision can see the parasite. The body of the bug is slightly flattened, but after eating it increases in size, then the insect is easy to notice in the bed or behind the carpet.
Linen specimens live only in beds. An erroneous statement, because Parasites are found not only in the folds of bedding, they live in curtains, the seams of chairs and under the upholstery of the sofa.

Bed bugs fly and jump

Bed parasites only move slowly over short distances, but are unable to fly or jump. A hungry insect covers a distance of 30 cm in 60 seconds. Having eaten, the bug becomes less mobile, because his body increases in size several times.

The size of a well-fed bug increases significantly, it becomes more noticeable and inactive.

The pest crawls a short distance 2.5 times slower.

There is a myth among owners of comfortable apartments and country houses that a blood-sucking insect can jump and fly. The reason for the misconceptions is related to the behavior of other representatives belonging to the order Hemiptera. Among them there are individuals that make jumps and can fly in air currents over long distances.

The house bug has a special body structure. 6 small limbs do not allow the insect to make even short jumps. The wings, which fit tightly to the upper part of the body, are in their infancy. They can only be seen upon closer inspection.

When studying information about bedbugs, it becomes clear that blood-sucking parasites can move around the apartment only by crawling from one place to another.