Now that summer has unofficially started, it’s time for our favorite Florida season: vacation time! Even though we have the beaches and the summer sun practically year-round, with school out and stress running high, we want to get away from it all too. There’s only one problem with vacation time. We often come back with more than we left with. That’s great when it comes to memories and even small souvenirs. Less so when it's bedbugs.
Most people’s image of bedbugs is waking up in a strange hotel room, itching, with red bites all over our arms and legs. That does happen, especially in some more affordable accommodations. But bedbugs can pop up almost anywhere – and if you’re not careful, you can actually bring them home with you.
Love Bites
Bedbugs are small, flat, reddish-brown oval-shaped insects about the size of an apple seed. They feed on the blood of people and warm-blooded animals, birds and rodents. Their eggs are small and white and their bodies, unless they’ve fed recently, are translucent. Their size and coloring makes them hard to see, but they will start chomping down on anyone that's sleeping or even just sedentary for long.
Usually, if you’re not waking up with bites, the first sign is reddish residue under or on the seams of sheets. Don’t let the name fool you. They aren’t restricted to beds. Bedbugs hang out in upholstered furniture, curtains, and hitchhike on clothes. They can climb into your purse, backpack or suitcase. And they lay two to five tiny eggs at a time.
Smells Like Dirty Clothes
While adult bedbugs prefer to eat every 5 to 7 days, they can go for months to over a year without a meal, hibernating until the right person comes along to munch on. The redness and itching come from the natural anesthetic they inject into us before they suck our blood. While it’s rarer, some people have been known to have severe allergic reactions to bedbug bites.
One of the dangers of an unnoticed bedbug infestation is bringing the bedbugs home. The odor of dirty clothes has been found to be an attractor of bed bugs. So even if you’re not waking up with bites one day, bedbugs may be camping in your dirty laundry until later.
Beds Are Burning
Bedbugs can be found all across North America, but are especially prevalent in areas with large populations, even if they’re not transient. Once you’ve discovered you have bedbugs, run, don’t walk, to your phone (or dig it out of your back pocket) and call a professional.
Over the counter treatments are unreliable at best, and more recently, studies have found bedbugs continue to develop resistance to insecticides.
Treating for bedbugs is a multi-step process and involves approved deterrents that are not available to non-professionals. While we can use those treatments, the customer must also do their part to ensure the bugs are gone. Vacuuming, washing bedding and clothes at the hottest water temperature possible and using steam or heat treatment all help.
If you suspect you have bedbugs – or any insect infestation, Good News Pest Solutions is here to help. Our Green Perimeter Plus solution handles the most common creepy crawlies we see on the Gulf Coast of Florida. But we also have programs and treatments for rodents, termites, mosquitoes and, of course, bedbugs. For more information or to schedule your first visit, please give us a call!