Bed Bugs: How to Protect Yourself and Your Home

When bed bugs are not feeding (typically during the daylight hours) they gather together in groups or aggregations.
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Bed bugs feed only on blood. They may probe your skin several times with their mouthparts before settling in to feed.
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Female bed bugs will begin laying eggs within a day or two of feeding and mating. Eggs will hatch in 6 to 9 days and, with access to regular blood meals, nymphs will continue to develop.

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Adult bed bugs will mate very soon after feeding.

Seeing and identifying live bugs is the most obvious indicator of a bed bug problem.

Each person reacts differently to bed bug bites. Skin reactions are not the best way to identify bed bugs.

Immature bed bugs have to shed their skin in order to grow. Sometimes the shed skins are the only bed bug evidence you will find, not the bugs themselves.

Bed bugs feed on blood and then excrete it as feces (bed bug poop). These black poops are common indicators of bed bug presence.

Storing furniture or bringing used furniture into your home is a common way to get bed bugs. Inspect any used furniture before bringing it inside.

Bed bugs can get into your home by hitchhiking on your belongings.

Friends and family coming to visit may also have hitchhiking bed bugs on their belongings, even without them knowing it.

In some cases, bed bugs can get from your neighbor’s home to your home by climbing through the voids in the walls.

You can also pick up bed bugs on the seams, surfaces or cuffs of shirts and blouses when sitting on infested furniture.

Examine your pants for bed bugs by carefully inspecting seams, surfaces, and cuffs. Inspect the tread of your shoes and the laces for clinging bugs.

Inspect your purses, computer bags, gym bags and other items for bed bugs before bringing them back into your home each day.

Inspect the nightstands and furniture next to the bed using a flashlight to see inside drawers, set-in screw holes, cracks and wood seams.

If you think you may have bed bugs at home, inspect locations where you (the food source) like to rest. Check the bed seams and mattress tags for bed bug evidence.

Make sure to have a flashlight with a strong and bright beam!

Inspect upholstered furniture, like couches. Using a flashlight, carefully look over surfaces, seams, cracks and crevices and cushions for bed bug evidence.

You can see bed bugs and their eggs. Simply inspecting your personal items can protect you from infesting your home.

Bed bug monitors, like these, capture any bed bugs that try to find their way to a blood meal (you). The bugs fall into the trap and cannot escape.

To protect your bed from becoming a home for bed bugs by placing both the mattress, and especially the box springs, in a “bite-proof,” “escape proof” encasement.

The heat from a hot clothes dryer will kill all bed bugs and their eggs. Many types of items can go in the dryer, including clothes, shoes, and bed linens.

Items that may contain bed bugs can be sealed and cooked inside a heat box. The heat will kill all bed bugs and their eggs in furniture and personal items.

A desiccant dust can be applied in wall voids, behind faceplates, and in drop ceilings to prevent bed bugs from moving from one apartment unit to another.

Bed bugs will not walk through piles of dust. If a pile of dust is higher than their eye why would they get in it? This dust is a potential inhalation hazard, a mess, and bed bugs will just avoid it.

Never attempt to control a bed bug infestation yourself with insecticides. If spraying insecticides worked we would have no bed bug problems in the United States. Insecticide exposure is dangerous for you, and will not control bed bugs.

Do not put insecticides or repellents on your skin or bedding to stop bed bugs from biting. These products pose more danger to you than the bed bugs, and do not prevent bed bug bites.

House fires and explosions have been caused by people over-using bug bombs to control bed bugs. Studies have shown that bug bombs do not control infestations.