Bed Bug Facts

 

 

• Bed bugs are flat, wingless, and about one-quarter of an inch long.
• Bed bugs don’t care if a home is neat or messy, only that people–their food source–are near.  There’s no evidence that they transmit disease.
• They have six legs, and are shiny reddish-brown. But after feeding on human blood, they appear dark brown and swollen.
• They can be seen with the human eye, but are known to hide during the day.
• By feeding on infected people, bedbugs can be infected with some blood-borne diseases. However, there is no evidence that bed bugs can transmit these diseases to other people.
• Bed bugs feed on human blood, and prefer to do it in the dark when you’re sleeping.
• Simply using chemical treatments will not remove the infestation.
• Bed bugs are great hiders. Favorite locations are: in the seams of mattresses, sofa seams, cracks in the bad frame and/or head board, under chairs, couches, beds and dust covers, under rugs, edges of carpets, drawers, baseboards and window casings, behind light switches, electrical outlet plates, cracks in plaster, televisions, radio clocks and phones, backpacks, sleeping bags, clothes, behind wallpaper, picture frames, and other dark areas.