Eliminating Bed Bugs Strategies For Effective Bed Bug Control For Your Home In Long Island

Bed Bug Detection: How To Spot And Confirm An Infestation

Knowing how to catch bed bug signs early is useful, not only at home but also when you're away. These are hitchhiking pests. If you catch them while away, you can prevent them from coming home with you. If you catch them in your home early, dealing with them will cost you less. Why? Because bed bugs grow their population and spread. When they spread, your technician must track down their locations and apply a treatment to each area. Sometimes, this is tricky—and costly. Here are a few ways you can locate and confirm an infestation.

Identifying The Bugs: The first way to detect bed bugs is to see them. Unfortunately, they are incredibly good at hiding from view, particularly the adult bugs. Here are some of their physical characteristics:

• Baby bed bugs are white. They are oval, have six legs, and measure approximately 1/26 of an inch long.
• After a bed bug has had a meal, its abdomen becomes red. If you see a tiny red bug attached to your skin in the evening, look at it closely, as it may be a bed bug. Keep in mind that seed ticks are often confused for bed bugs because they also have six legs in their larval stage. However, ticks are brown, like adult bed bugs, not white and red, like baby bed bugs.
• As they develop, bed bugs turn tan. These tan bed bugs may have an abdomen that contains black excrement or red blood.
• Adult bed bugs resemble apple seeds and grow to about 1/5 of an inch in length. They are reddish-brown with crease lines on the body. After eating, they appear reddish, whereas, before a meal, they appear more black.

Locating The Bugs: If you're in a dark space, you could see a bed bug crawling on you or find one attached to your skin, but it is more likely that you'll have to search for these bugs. Here are some common places bed bugs hide:

• In mattress and box spring seams
• Between mattress and box springs and under couch cushions
• Under labels
• Inside pockets
• Underneath the feet of furniture frames
• Within the gaps in furniture frames
• Along baseboards or carpet edges
• With the gaps found in painting and photo frames.
• In book bindings
• In luggage, book bags, duffel bags, and pocketbooks

Warning Signs: Even if you don't see live bed bugs, you can still detect them. Bed bugs leave behind fecal droppings, shed skins, and white eggs. Look for these in the locations listed above. For the droppings, you can also inspect pillowcases, sheets, bedding, curtains, carpets, surfaces, and clothing. Here's a brief list of what to look for:

• Bed bug droppings are black. When a bed bug leaves droppings, it may also leave blood. Therefore, the stains may appear black, black, or brown.
• Bed bug skins look like tiny, hollow bed bugs. A bed bug sheds its entire skin as it passes between its five instars.
• Bed bug eggs are white, like the nymphs inside. They're also about the same size as a newly hatched nymph, about 1/26 of an inch.   

Now that you know how to find bed bugs, we hope you never do. But, if you do, remember that you're never alone when dealing with these unpalatable pests. At the first sign of trouble in your Long Island home, contact Parkway Pest Services for bed bug removal. It will not only save you money, but it will also guard you from bed bug bites. How bad are those bites? It depends on a few factors. Mostly, bed bug bites are another warning sign you can use to detect bed bugs. Let's take a look.