How To Test For Bed Bugs

It can be very difficult to know whether you have bed bugs or not, so it is a good idea to know how to test for bed bugs. There are several things you can try since some tests may fail because bed bugs are quite secretive. Please read on to learn how to test for bed bugs in your home and how to check a hotel room for bed bugs too.

How To Test For Bed Bugs

The first thing to learn is that having bedbugs does not mean that your house is dirty. The notion that only dirty houses get bedbugs is a fallacy, because they do not have jaws so they cannot eat food left lying around.

They can only drink blood, so, scrubbing your house until your hands are raw will not help one iota. They are not a health hazard in the way that mosquitoes are either.

When learning how to test for bed bugs, you have to learn the feeding habits of bed bugs.

The first indication your might be infested is a row of bite marks. Bed bug bites are often five or six bites in a line, but not necessarily a straight one. The marks will be red-to-pink and may itch. They are usually a circle about a quarter of an inch in diameter.

A bit like the rubber on the end of a pencil. There may be red bumps. However, this test is not conclusive because not everyone reacts to the bites.

If you want to go looking for these pests, you will be on the look out for a fast beetle about the size and colour of an apple pip, although it might be redder if it has just fed. You might mistake one for a baby cockroach, but they are not similar if you see them together.

One of the best ways how to test for bed bugs is to look in the bed. First off, make the bed loosely and put a bar of soap in a saucer of water. Lie on the bed and read for thirty minutes. Then jump up, grab the soap and snatch the bedding back. Dab any insects with the sticky soap. This is good proof in a hotel.

if there are no insects there it does not mean that the room is not infested. Strip the bed and inspect the sheets and the mattress. You are looking for red or brown streaks.

The red streaks are blood and the brown ones are faeces. Look out for old skins too, because they shed their skin in order to grow. The streaks or skins are definite signs.

Look in the seams of the mattress, you may see a few sleeping. If not, pull the bed away from the wall and be on the look out for bed bugs. They may scurry away, or if they are full, they may just lie there. Look for loose skirting boards. Pull one off and see what is behind it.

Bed bugs are nocturnal but they sleep a lot. In fact they sleep all day and most of the night, but they are most active an hour before dawn, just as it is starting to get light. This is the best time of day to look out for them.

Set your alarm, lie still and watch the floor at the base of the skirting boards. Sit on a chair with your feet off the floor if it makes you feel safer.

You may see them advancing on you, because they will follow your breath like mosquitoes. If you move when they are close, they will back off, but hunger will force them to advance again.

If you keep moving towards then slowly, they will retreat back to their hiding places and this is how you can find out where they live. They do not have a nest like ants, but they have a favourite hidey-hole. When you get there, take a deep sniff. Can you smell their characteristic sweet, musty odour?

They say that when you know this smell you will never forget it, which will make you a good dowser for bed bugs in the future. Once you know that you have them you will need to initiate pest control with some form of bed bug treatment.

if you learn how to test for bed bugs, you should be able to stop a few bed bugs turning into an infestation.