Bed Bug Treatments in Sandhurst

Recognising Bed Bugs Correctly

An adult bed bug is four to five millimetres long, oval, flat from top to bottom, reddish-brown and wingless. Flat is the distinguishing feature: seen from the side an unfed adult is almost a wafer, which is what lets it sit in a seam.

After feeding it is a different shape entirely — swollen, rounder and darker — and people who find one of each are sometimes convinced they have two different insects. They have one, before and after.

• Nymphs are the same shape and smaller, from about a millimetre. Newly hatched ones are pale and nearly translucent
• Eggs are around a millimetre, pearly white, and cemented into a seam or joint rather than loose
• Cast skins are the shape of the insect but empty, pale and papery. Each bug leaves several
• No wings at any stage. A small flying insect in a bedroom is something else

What It Is Usually Mistaken For

• Carpet beetle larvae. Elongated, obviously bristly, and found in carpet, wardrobes and under furniture rather than in bed seams. They damage fabric; they do not bite
• Fleas. Narrow from side to side rather than flattened top to bottom, and they jump. Bites are typically around ankles and lower legs. Usually there is a pet
• Woodworm beetles and other small brown beetles. Hard-shelled, usually more elongated, and often found dead on a windowsill
• Spider beetles. Shiny, rounded, long-legged. Frequently reported as bed bugs and entirely harmless to people
• Booklice. Very small, pale and fast, associated with damp. Nothing to do with beds

Why Bites Are the Worst Evidence

It is the thing everybody starts from and it is the thing that proves least. Reaction to a bed bug bite varies enormously between people: some react strongly within hours, some take days, and a significant proportion of people show no visible reaction at all.

So two people can sleep in the same bed with the same infestation and only one of them has anything to show for it — which regularly leads a household to conclude the problem is something in the laundry, or in one person's imagination.

It runs the other way too. Bites in a line or a cluster are often described as diagnostic, and they are not: plenty of things bite in the night, and skin reactions to things that are not bites can look similar. A doctor or pharmacist can advise on the skin. Only an inspection of the room can tell you what caused it.

The Evidence That Does Settle It

1. Dark spotting along a mattress seam or in a joint — digested blood, which smears when wiped with a damp cloth rather than brushing off dry
2. Cast skins collecting in the same place, which show a population that has been developing rather than a single insect carried in
3. Eggs cemented into a seam, which are laid where the insects live rather than where they feed
4. A live insect found in a harbourage rather than wandering on the floor

Any one of the first three found in the right place is worth more than a month of bites.