Bed Bug infestations in Liverpool, Wirral and Merseyside in 2010
One of the most hated and least known pests known to science is the bed bug Cimex lectularius. Many of us dozed off to sleep at night as infants with the words of our guardians in our ears “sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite”
Bed Bugs probably started to feed on man at around the time we started living in, the bat bugs Cimex pilosellus and Cimex pipistrella predominantly feed on bats and it is likely that bat feeding species of bug evolved to dine on the blood of human beings when our ancestors started dwelling in bat infested caves.
Before the arrival of DDT in the early part of the 20th century bed bugs were common pests in most poor quality homes.
The later part of the 20th century saw pest control companies dealing with very few bed bug problems indeed, their presence being largely confined to cheap holiday lodgings and student lodgings etc.
A lot of people mistake dust mites, which aren’t visible to the naked eye, with bed bugs which certainly are.
Adult bedbugs are red-brown, about a a few milemetres in size and very swollen after dining on human blood.
Lacking a suitable human host to feed on they can lay dormant for lengthy periods of up to 18 months.
The first signs of a bed bug problems are oftenspots of blood on bedding and on the base of mattresses and some people can react extremely badly to bed bug bites.
The early 21st century saw bed bug reports expand across the whole planet, the cheap availability of international travel and economic migration have both been cited as reasons for the resurgence.
What is positive is that that are now making a real comeback not only in poor quality housing but high class hotels, schools and even hospitals.
A single stay in an infested bed is all it requires, they secret themselves in your suitcases or bags. Pest control professionals are also now seeing cases of transport related bed bug infestations on tubes, trains and buses so a simple trip to work on an infested tube or train can be sufficient to spread the these insects into your own home.
They are an tricky pest to eradicate as contrary to popular opinion they do not just hide in beds. They infest any nook and cranny conveniently close to a sleeping human, beds, electrical sockets, televisions, bed-side telephones etc and dealing with them is both expensive and time consuming. They have even been revealed found living under the toe-nails of infirm people and in the creases of flesh on grossly over-weight people.
Bed bugs are not a pest that can be eradicated by an amateur and a pest control professional will almost certainly be required.
Telephone Manchester Pest Control now on 0161 930 8814
This entry was posted on Friday, December 31st, 2010 at 5:53 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.