When bed bugs infest your home, it can be a shock and cause feelings of panic. You may start asking yourself a variety of questions. Why are there bed bugs in my home? How can I stop a bed bug infestation? Can I get rid of bed bugs on my own? Before jumping to conclusions, it’s best to trust the advice and expertise of bed bug control specialists. Read our guide to bed bug infestations and learn how to handle this stressful situation.
What do bed bugs look like?
Bed bugs are unique critters with a very distinctive look. As adults, bed bugs are as small as an apple seed, with a flat, oval shape and rust coloring. Immature bed bugs (nymphs) are tiny and appear translucent or pale in color. The eggs are pearly white in color and only 1 mm in length, thus they can be very difficult to detect with the naked eye. Many often mistake bed bugs for bat bugs due to their very similar appearance. To learn how to spot the differences between bed bugs and bat bugs, click here.
Pictured Above: Bed bug fecal matter on a box spring
One of the easiest ways to confirm bed bug activity is by analyzing the evidence that they leave behind. As they move about your bed at night, bed bugs poop, which causes staining. Light colored or white bed sheets, pillows, and bed frames can easily reveal what looks like small marks from a pen or sharpie marker. This is fecal matter, which is a dead giveaway that bed bugs are active in your home. If you are unsure or if you suspect that bed bugs are in your home, call professionals for an inspection.
Where do bed bugs come from?
You don’t have to have an uncleanly home to attract bed bugs. These parasitic pests stow away, using humans and objects as a means to travel and spread from location to location. There are several places where bed bugs can come from.
- Brought home from day care programs or from school by children
- Brought home from your place of work
- Picked up during business or leisure travel
- Guests bringing bed bugs into your home in their luggage or personal belongings during their visit
- Cleaning services, baby sitters, nannies or other people who frequent your home on regular basis
- Brought in on used furniture that is already infested with bed bugs
- Brought home on host from a variety of locations including public transportation, offices, movie theaters, hospitals, etc.
- Infested secondhand or antique store items
Unlike most common household pests, bed bugs do not live outdoors and migrate indoors to find resources and/or shelter. They rely on humans to transport them, unknowingly, from one home or business to another. Once they are indoors, which is a climate controlled environment, they seek out a living host. This is how they thrive and continue to progress through their life cycle. Bed bugs are small and elusive, so you may not know that your home is suffering from bed bug activity until it gets out of hand.
What should I do if I find bed bugs in my house?
If you find bed bugs or evidence of bed bug activity in your home, the first thing to do is stay calm. We understand that a bed bug infestation can be very stressful and alarming. Rest assured, it’s not something that professionals can’t handle! Next, call Cooper Pest Solutions to set up an inspection. Do not move your furniture, fling bed sheets, or throw out your mattress. By disturbing bed bugs, they’ll scatter throughout your home, only to infest new items like fabric couches and living room furniture. Also, Cooper Pest Solutions can get rid of the bed bugs in your home with our No-Prep Philosophy. In short, our approach to bed bug elimination starts with making things as easy as possible for you. This means that you don’t need to stand your mattress up against the wall, empty dresser drawers, and other physically arduous tasks. Just leave everything as-is and we’ll take care of the rest.
Our specialized technicians are the best trained in the industry. Not only does Copper provide 8x the industry average for our technician training, but our technicians are also required to pass a series of written and field exams before they can treat for bed bugs (and throughout their career). We know bed bugs are sneaky and can be hard to find which is why we train our technicians to easily pinpoint where they live and breed!
How can Cooper get rid of the bed bugs in my house?
The Cooper technicians will utilize the following treatment methods to eliminate bed bug infestations in your home.
- Encasement of all mattresses and box springs.
- Following a visual inspection to determine where fecal matter from bed bugs is found, we will steam two feet around the affected area to ensure that they are eliminated.
- Application of environmentally conscious pesticides. Our technicians will use pesticide dust to eliminate pests behind beds, switch plates, carpet tack strips, etc. Liquid pesticides are also applied to baseboards to exterminate any bed bugs that may be hiding there.
Since every infestation is different, we tailor our bed bug solutions to quickly eliminate your problem. To learn more about our bed bug control services, click here.
Call us or fill out the contact form on this page to schedule a bed bug inspection!
