Bed bugs are a constant worry, if you suspect that they are in the bed with you. In fact, it is known that when people have been bitten a lot, they can become frightened, stressed and preoccupied. Insomnia soon follows. This situation can quickly lead to tetchiness, domestic arguments and the loss of your job.
This obsession can obviously get out of hand unless you do something about it soon. If you are in a hotel, then you have to tell the manager immediately. If you are in rented accommodation, then your landlord has the responsibility to keep his property pest free, but if it is your own place, you have a problem. Or at least, you can get the issue sorted out, but it will cost you.
The Latin name for the species of bed bug that only drinks human blood is Cimex lectularius and they were first mentioned in literature in Greece in about 400 BC. They did not get to Great Britain in large numbers until about 1670 and by 1726, they were in Jamaica and probably the United States as well.
Bedbugs were wiped out from the developed world by and large by the late 1950's due to the extensive use of pesticides such as DDT to control other household pests like ants and cockroaches.
Unfortunately, this has led to bedbugs being resistant to virtually all modern, domestic pesticides. The resurgence of bed bugs is blamed on increased foreign travel and higher levels of immigration from Asia and Africa.
It is commonly believed that bedbugs only bite people, but that is incorrect. Cimex lectularius only bites humans, but roughly all warm-blooded animals have their own parasites, which could be called bedbugs.
Cats, dogs, deer, horses and birds (together with poultry) have their own bedbugs and these bed bugs will bite humans as well, if their favourite source of a blood meal is not around.
Bedbugs are pretty small, being about a quarter of an inch long and a little narrower. The are very flat and thin, so that they look as if they have been squashed. They are quite agile when empty, but slow and cumbersome when swollen on blood.
They are most often brown in colour, bur they can be almost any shade, even white, until they have fed and then there is always at least a hint of red about them.
Bedbugs need to shed their skin six times before they become adult and can lay dormant for five months without food. They are aroused by body heat and CO2 and can signal their comrades that food is about by the discharge of pheromones.
Bedbugs prefer to live in fine cracks and crevices. They like loose skirtings and architraves, damaged plaster and wall paper, ripped mattresses and slack joints in wooden furniture. They will even hole up, quite literally, in a the sunken-screw hole - the countersink.
Bedbug bites often look like mosquito bites, but there is no red dot and they can take longer to come up and longer to go down and like flea bites, bedbug bites are often in a line of three.
This obsession can obviously get out of hand unless you do something about it soon. If you are in a hotel, then you have to tell the manager immediately. If you are in rented accommodation, then your landlord has the responsibility to keep his property pest free, but if it is your own place, you have a problem. Or at least, you can get the issue sorted out, but it will cost you.
The Latin name for the species of bed bug that only drinks human blood is Cimex lectularius and they were first mentioned in literature in Greece in about 400 BC. They did not get to Great Britain in large numbers until about 1670 and by 1726, they were in Jamaica and probably the United States as well.
Bedbugs were wiped out from the developed world by and large by the late 1950's due to the extensive use of pesticides such as DDT to control other household pests like ants and cockroaches.
Unfortunately, this has led to bedbugs being resistant to virtually all modern, domestic pesticides. The resurgence of bed bugs is blamed on increased foreign travel and higher levels of immigration from Asia and Africa.
It is commonly believed that bedbugs only bite people, but that is incorrect. Cimex lectularius only bites humans, but roughly all warm-blooded animals have their own parasites, which could be called bedbugs.
Cats, dogs, deer, horses and birds (together with poultry) have their own bedbugs and these bed bugs will bite humans as well, if their favourite source of a blood meal is not around.
Bedbugs are pretty small, being about a quarter of an inch long and a little narrower. The are very flat and thin, so that they look as if they have been squashed. They are quite agile when empty, but slow and cumbersome when swollen on blood.
They are most often brown in colour, bur they can be almost any shade, even white, until they have fed and then there is always at least a hint of red about them.
Bedbugs need to shed their skin six times before they become adult and can lay dormant for five months without food. They are aroused by body heat and CO2 and can signal their comrades that food is about by the discharge of pheromones.
Bedbugs prefer to live in fine cracks and crevices. They like loose skirtings and architraves, damaged plaster and wall paper, ripped mattresses and slack joints in wooden furniture. They will even hole up, quite literally, in a the sunken-screw hole - the countersink.
Bedbug bites often look like mosquito bites, but there is no red dot and they can take longer to come up and longer to go down and like flea bites, bedbug bites are often in a line of three.
About the Author:
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently concerned with bed bugs extermination. If you are interested in this, please go over to our website now at Picture Of Bed Bugs for further information.
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