In many cultures it is normal to share a bed with other people, most often people who are in your direct family. It is less normal to share sleeping space with strangers. That is unless they are newly adopted kittens, dogs, or other adorable pets. Today we will be talking about one pest that loves sharing beds with people. To help you better understand these sleep-wrecking, blood-feeding insects, here are some things to consider, including the best way to get these pests out of your San Francisco Bay Area home.
How Bed Bugs Get Into Homes
If you do not already know how bed bugs get into area homes, take a wild guess as to how they get inside. If you guessed by crawling through cracks, gaps, and other openings, you would be wrong. Bed bugs do not invade in the same way other area pests do. In fact, bed bugs don’t even live outside. They almost exclusively live with people. This requires them to get creative to get from place to place. Most often this involved hitchhiking rides on items people carry. Every time you set your backpack down in public, spend a night in a hotel, or buy a used piece of furniture, you run the risk of picking up these invasive sleep-wrecking pests. In the same way, every time someone comes to visit, there is a chance that they will bring bed bugs into your home.
Where Bed Bugs Hide When Inside
There is a good chance you have never seen a live bed bug. This is mainly due to how good they are at hiding. One way bed bugs make sure you don’t see them is by adapting to your sleep schedule. If you rest during the day and work at night, bed bugs will transition from nocturnal to diurnal. As for where these pests hide, bed bugs do not just hide around beds but will spread out, seeking shelter inside wall voids, beneath floorboards, inside electronics, behind wall sockets, and inside other hard-to-reach areas. Keep this in mind as we talk about how to identify these pests around your living areas.
How To Identify Bed Bugs
Just because bed bugs are hard to spot doesn’t mean they are difficult to identify. With the right knowledge, you should have no difficulty identifying these pests in areas they are infesting. To help you spot these invasive insects inside your San Francisco Bay Area home, here are a few clues to look for.
- Bloodstains: Bed bugs consume blood until they are ready to burst. This often results in blood dribbling from their mouths which leaves staining on bed covers.
- Fecal droppings: After feeding and processing a blood meal, bed bugs excrete specks of reddish-black fecal matter. These specks are found along baseboards, around outlets, in the creases of beds and boxsprings, and smeared into fabrics.
- Live bed bugs: Adult bed bugs are reddish-brown insects that are roughly the size of an apple seed.
- Eggs: Bed bug eggs are tiny, pearly-white, and found inside cracks and crevices around areas of infestation.
How To Eliminate Bed Bugs
There is only one way to eliminate bed bugs effectively, and that is to leave it to the professionals. Smith’s Pest Management serves local property owners by dealing with a wide range of pest problems, including bed bugs. If you are in need of better sleep and suspect these blood-feeding pests are keeping you up at night, do not hesitate to involve our team.
Call now to discuss our bed bug control options and to schedule your San Francisco Bay Area property for a service visit.
