Bed bugs

Bed bugs are reddish brown in colour and are wingless. They are roughly oval in shape and become swollen after a blood meal. Bed bugs are dorsoventrally flattened (thin), and this means that they can hide in narrow cracks and crevices. They are also fast runners.

Approximately 3/16-inch long.

Bed bugs feed on blood and have mouthparts that are especially adapted for piercing skin. Like most blood sucking arthropods, they inject saliva during feeding, which has anticoagulant properties. Bed bugs respond to the warmth and carbon dioxide of a host and quickly locate a suitable feeding site. Most feeding occurs at night, and they generally seek shelter during the day. However, bed bugs are opportunistic and will bite in the day especially if starved for some time. They can survive for long periods without feeding. While their preferred host is human, they will feed on wide variety of other warm-blooded animals including rodents, rabbits, bats, and even birds.

Being a cryptic species, bed bugs shelter in a variety of dark locations; mostly close to where people sleep. These include cracks and crevices such as mattress seams, sheets, floorboards, behind paintings, in carpets, behind skirting, within bed frames and other furniture, and behind loose wallpaper. Bed bugs are often found in hotels and may move from room to room on people’s luggage. Blood spotting on mattresses and nearby furnishings is often a tell tale sign of an infestation.
An adult bed bug is about 1/5 inch long and 1/8 inch wide. Its reddish brown to mahogany in colour, body is greatly flattened and oval shaped.
After feeding, the bug’s body enlarges considerably, becoming longer and much less flattened. Although the body is covered with tiny hairs, these hairs are so small that they are almost invisible to the eye, so the general body appearance is shiny. Bed bugs have piercing-sucking mouthparts that enable them to pierce the skin and suck blood from their hosts.

Bed bug eggs are elongated and usually attached to an available surface when laid. Eggs are not known to be placed directly on the host’s body but are typically found on surfaces near where the host sleeps or nests. Each female bed bug lays about 2 eggs per day until she has laid approximately 200. At normal room temperatures these eggs will hatch in 6 to 17 days, producing small almost colourless nymphs that have the general body appearance of the adult.

Bed bugs are hardy insects. Both adults and nymphs can survive prolonged periods without food or under adverse temperature conditions. Adults can live for a year or longer without feeding and can survive over winter in an unheated building. Humans are the preferred host for the common bed bug, but it will feed readily on other animals.

Bed bugs generally hide in cracks and crevices during normal daylight hours. They enter such areas easily because of their extremely flattened bodies. Typical hiding places are in the folds and tufts of mattresses coils of springs, cracks and hollow posts of bedsteads, and upholstery of chairs and sofas. In heavy infestations, bed bugs are frequently found in places such as behind loose wallpaper, behind pictures on the wall, under door and window casings, behind baseboards, and even in light fixtures or medicine cabinets.

Bed bugs can be located by looking for the spots of fecal material they often leave in easily visible places. Fecal spots and the bloody spots left on sheets and pillowcases when engorged bugs are crushed serve as sure signs of infestation.

Bed bugs are small, cryptic and agile, escaping detection after crawling into suitcases, boxes, and belongings. The eggs are almost impossible to see when laid on most surfaces. Purchase or rental of second-hand mattresses, box springs, and furniture is another way that the bugs are transported into previously non-infested dwellings.

Once bed bugs are introduced, they often spread room to room throughout a building. Unlike cockroaches that feed on filth, the level of cleanliness has little to do with most bed bug infestations. Pristine homes, hotels, and apartments have plenty of hiding places and an abundance of warm-blooded hosts.

• Large wheals which reduce to a red mark unlike the random pattern by mosquitos and could become itchy then gradually fade over a few days
• Made in orderly rows
• Reddening of the skin
• Localised swelling
• Formation of blisters
• Small loss of skin tissue in some cases

Suggestions to treat bedbug bites include:

• Resist the urge to scratch.
• Use calamine lotion or anaesthetic creams to treat the itching.
• Wash the bites with antiseptic soap to reduce the risk of infection.
• Apply an icepack frequently to help relieve swelling.

Bed bugs have been implicated in the transmission of a wide variety of infectious agents, although their status as vectors is uncertain. It has been suggested that they might play a role in the spread of Hepatitis B; however experimental evidence does not support this. Bed bug bites become itchy welts on the skin that can cause allergic reactions.

Insecticides are important for bed bug treatment and elimination. We use different treatment methods to eradicate bed bugs from your home or business. Application entails treating all cracks and crevices where the bugs are discovered.

Be very careful and wary from companies offering cheap bed bugs one off treatment, it is highly unlikely to solve your bed bug or bed bugs problem with out a follow up treatment in 7-10 days.

Highly toxic not approved for indoors or to be applied on mattress pesticide are still being used by pest control companies and operators to cut down on cost which can results in long term health issues.

Be smart and remember you get what you pay for.

PrimeClean uses Safe Bed Bugs Control using Special Green Safe natural pyrethroid in all bed bug and bed bugs treatment Sydney Wide.

insecticide, which is produced by the flowers of pyrethrums. We use ONLY approved indoor and safe to be used on mattress solutions.

Expect to pay for a professional eco-friendly service from $350.

Commercial premises: call for pricing.