Habits

Bed bugs like to travel and are good hitchhikers. They will hide in suitcases, boxes and shoes to be near a food supply. They are elusive, nocturnal creatures. They can hide behind baseboards and in cracks, crevices, and folded areas of beds, bedding and adjacent furniture, especially mattresses and box springs. Bed bugs can also hide in electrical switchplates, picture frames, wallpaper and nearly anywhere inside a home, car, bus, or other shelter, making bed bugs control difficult.

Bed bugs usually come out at night for a blood meal. However, they are opportunistic insects and can take a blood meal during the day, especially in heavily-infested areas. After feeding, they move to secluded places and hide for 5-10 days. During this time, they do not feed but instead digest their meal, mate, and lay eggs.

Habitat

Bed bugs like to hide in small cracks and crevices close to a human environment. They can be found behind baseboards, wallpaper, upholstery, and in furniture crevices. Beg bugs are also known to survive in temporary or alternative habitats, such as backpacks and under the seats in cars, busses and trains.

Threats

Although bed bugs can dine on any warm-blooded animal, they primarily dine on humans. Bed bugs do not transmit diseases, but their bites can become red, itchy welts.

(Source: National Pest Management Association, Inc. January 2010.)

Truth About Bed Bugs

Bed Bugs are the fastest-growing pest problem – everywhere! Ten years ago, Bug & Weed Mart advised one or two customers PER YEAR about how to get rid of bed bugs. Now, we advise two-to-three customers PER WEEK, per store! Bed bugs spread mostly through travel (motels, planes, trains, buses), and are found in homes regardless of class.

Treatment will take two or more hours per room. Pest control companies who know what they’re doing will charge from $400 for one room, to more than $2500 to do the job.

Bed bugs do not as yet carry disease, but their bites can become red, itchy welts. Bed Bugs feed on human and pet blood, and can go quickly across floors, traveling 100 feet to find a blood meal. Their eggs are about the size of a speck of dust. Adult bed bugs can live one year without a blood meal.

We have been extremely successful in showing people how to eradicate bed bugs. It’s time-consuming, but not difficult to do. If you are not sure that you have them, we have an inexpensive ($7.99) test for bed bugs. We carry bed bug mattress protectors!