What are the signs of bedbugs?

Answer 1

If you get a bedbug problem in your bed the worse the infestation gets over time, the more perceptible will be the signs of their presence both on you and in and around the place where you sleep at night.

The signs on you will be little red insect bite marks which with some people can swell up. They will usually itch but this is not always the case, as people vary a lot as to how unpleasant the effects of being bitten by bedbugs look and feel. If you do see little red insect bite marks on your skin a way of telling whether they are from bedbugs rather than from fleas or mosquito bites is that with bedbugs you will see usually 3 little bite marks in neat lines very close together, whereas with other insect bites they are usually single marks.

Also bedbug bite marks tend to itch more maddeningly than mosquito bite marks because the skin is pierced more deeply by a very sharp point to get the blood out of you usually for about 10 minutes while you are fast asleep during the night. Also the bedbug injects you with a chemical anaesthetic and coagulant during its meal and with many people this is a painful irritant which may not show up for several days after the bedbug has had the meal, although some people do not suffer that at all.

The signs in and around your bed are various. Firstly if you see lots of blood spots on your sheets or else on walls near your bed, or on mattress and this is accompanied by a musty unpleasant smell this is likely to be deposited from bedbug on its way back from its meal, although do not necessarily assume if there are blood marks on your sheets this is necessarily due to bedbugs. Another sign is little black threadlike looking substances on your sheets or nearby that looks like mascara and only about half a millimeter or less in length which is excreta from bedbugs. A more telling sign is deposits of remains of bedbug skin on your sheet or mattress, as each bedbug nymph moults its skin five times before becoming an adult bedbug and always just after it has had a meal in that bed off whoever is asleep in it and usually do that on your bottom sheet.

Lastly you may actually see live bedbugs moving around in or near the bed during the day if you disturb them from their hiding place, which is most commonly in the folds of the mattress or in cracks and crevices in the bed's structure or nearby. So a good check is to slide a blade along the mattress and see if this results in any little flat looking reddish brown insects coming out and running around. Also try turning your mattress and have a good look underneath where bedbugs often hide in the day. Bedbugs do not like light and that is why they will immediately run away into a new dark place if confronted with light.

You can sometimes see bedbugs in the bed at night or else perhaps on you if you shine a torch by your bed on to the sheet or pillow as here too they will run away from the light rapidly to find a dark crevice to hide in. The best time to try searching with a torch is just before dawn as that is their favourite time to come out for a meal of your blood.