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Bed bugs are small pests that populate the bedrooms above all and that need human blood to survive.
Belonging to the Cimex lectularius species, bed bugs are not very active during the day, during which they remain hidden in their burrows;
The punctures, through which the bugs extract the blood, cause small red spots and itching, but beyond the discomfort they cause they are not particularly dangerous.
A house infested with bedbugs must be cleaned up by an expert in disinfestation, otherwise there is the danger that the problem will not be resolved definitively.
What are bed bugs?
Bed bugs, also known as bed bugs or bed bugs, are small blood-sucking insects (bloodsuckers), which tend to live in bedrooms and sting people over the night.
Bedbug stings are not dangerous and do not transmit any disease, but still cause a very annoying sensation, because they can cause skin rashes and itching.
Origin of the term hematophagus
The adjective hematophagus literally means "that feeds on blood". The term derives from the union of two words of Greek origin: ema (αἷμα), which means blood, and pheasant (ϕαγία), which means eating.
INFESTANT INSECTS
Bed bugs are pests, able to spread very quickly in all the rooms of a building, as long as they find a welcoming environment. These insects have a predilection for homes, apartments, hotels and hospitals, as they love warm places, especially during the night.
What species do bed bugs belong to?
Bed bugs belong to the Cimex lectularius species , from the Cimicidae family.
To this same family belong other similar species, such as Cimex Hemipterus, Cimex pipistrelli or Cimex Pilosellus .
WHERE THEY ARE HIDDEN DAY
By day, a house infested with bedbugs appears quite normal; insects, in fact, are hidden in their burrows, usually represented by: small cracks in the walls, narrow slots in the framework of the wooden beds, stitching of the mattresses, lacerations in the upholstery, electrical sockets and, finally, smoke alarms.
WHAT LEAVES YOU AT THE NIGHT?
Bed bugs are attracted by the heat that is created in the bedrooms during the night and by the carbon dioxide exhaled by those who stay there. This is why it is easier to find them in these places in the house and why they are called that way.
However, this does not mean that they are purely nocturnal insects; they prefer the night, it is true, but they also move with the light, although it is a very rare event and it is difficult to assist.
MAIN FEATURES OF BED BEDS
Adult bed bugs are the size of a lentil or an apple seed, so they are also visible to the naked eye. They are oval and flat, have a red-brown color and measure approximately 5 millimeters in length and 1.5-3 millimeters in width.
The females are also able to lay down, in the course of their lives, even 500 eggs, which are about a millimeter large and are covered with a sticky substance of whitish color.
When the eggs hatch, the small bugs become adult in 6-8 weeks and after 5 stages they become nymphal. If they fail to feed themselves with a certain continuity, to complete this evolution, they could take a few more weeks.
The food of bed bugs is obviously represented by human blood, which is sucked through a pointed anatomical organ, similar to a stiletto.
Insects have an average life of about 9 months; during this period, they are able to remain without nutrition even for a long time (more than 100 days), showing a remarkable resistance to food shortages. On the other hand, this should not surprise you too much, since, after each "meal", they are satiated for at least 4 or 5 days.
Effects of temperature on bed bugs.
| temperatures | Effects |
| 20-30 ° C | It is the ideal temperature range for their survival. |
| 35-40 ° C | It is a temperature that bed bugs can still withstand |
| 45 ° C | It is a lethal temperature for adult bed bugs. |
| 46 ° C | It is a lethal temperature for all the nymphal stages of bedbugs. For death, it takes 7 minutes of exposure. |
| 50 ° C | It is the safety temperature, to exterminate any form of bed bugs, including eggs. |
| <16 ° C | At these temperatures, bedbugs enter a state of semi-hibernation, in which they can remain without needing food. |
| -10 ° C | It is a critical temperature, which brings bedbugs to death within 5 days. |
| -12 ° C | It is a temperature that kills bedbugs in about 3 days. |
| -32 ° C | It is a lethal temperature, which kills bedbugs within 15 minutes. |
ARE A SIGN OF LITTLE CLEANING?
Bedbugs are not attracted to dirt and are not a sign of poor hygiene, such as beetles, for example.
Therefore, both places that are cleaned regularly and meticulously, and places that are not properly sanitized can be infested.
How did they spread?
At the time when the insecticide DDT (or dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane ) was still in use, the bed bugs had been almost completely eradicated, so much so that for years (from the 1930s to the 1990s) it was no longer heard of. . Since, however, DDT was banned due to its extreme toxicity (late 1970s), I have slowly reappeared and now represent a fairly common category of insects again.
Furthermore, according to some researchers, three other factors contributed to the repopulation:
- The development of a resistance (by the insects themselves) to the insecticides in use today.
- The acquired ability to spread even in the most industrialized countries of the world. In fact, before using DDT, bed bugs were typical of developing countries, while they were a rarity in the most advanced countries of the time.
- The increase in international tourism, as bed bugs love to hole up, as well as in the places mentioned above, even in travel clothes and suitcases.
HOW DO YOU MOVE?
Bed bugs do not fly and do not jump, but they spread very quickly, however, by rubbing.
Signs and symptoms
The sting of a bedbug generally causes the appearance of a red spot on the skin (the so-called skin rash ), associated with local itching . These effects can be more or less immediate: in some cases, in fact, they appear after a few hours; in others, after one or more days.
In reality, it is rare to observe a single sting, while it is much more frequent to identify a series; this is because the bed bug sucks blood in different places.
The most affected anatomical parts are the areas that are usually discovered when you go to sleep: that is, the face, hands, arms and neck.
COMPLICATIONS: it is possible that some people, once they point from a bed bug, develop an allergic reaction . This reaction is characterized by the appearance of very intense itching, blisters or hives.
STAMPS AND STAINS HAVE SOME CHARACTERISTIC SIGN?
Figure: bites of multiple bed bugs. From the site: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed_bug
The bites of a bedbug are very similar to the bites of a mosquito, with the difference that the first ones are generally very close to each other. A bed bug, in fact, moving exclusively by rubbing, does not make long journeys and limits itself to sucking blood in a very limited area. Therefore, it is very common to observe punctures placed in a row (as if the insect had moved in a straight line) or piled together (as if the insect had moved inside a small rectangle of skin) .
Coming to the spots, these generally have a central area colored in intense red.
HOW MUCH DO THEY USE TO BLAST THE BLOOD?
Bed bugs take 3 to 5 minutes to perform a puncture. Generally, they are satisfied after 10 minutes of sucking, after a maximum of 3 bites.
The period of stay on the body of a human being does not exceed 20 minutes; this is, in fact, the time needed for bed bugs to reach the areas to be punctured and return to their hiding places.
HAS THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH ANY INFECTIOUS ILLNESS STUDIED?
In the past, it was feared that bedbugs could act as a transmission vehicle for AIDS, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, MRSA (acronym for methicillin- resistant Staphylococcus aureus infection) and 'Hepatitis E. However, several scientific studies have denied any possible connection with these serious infectious diseases.
Diagnosis
If you suspect that some red spots appeared on the skin are connected to bed bugs, you need to check the condition of your bedroom. In particular:
- Observe with a torch if there are bed bugs between the cracks in the bed frame or in the cracks in the walls or floor.
- Look if there are small black spots between the sheets. These can represent the excrement of bed bugs.
- Analyze whether, around the bed, there are white or mute spots. The white patches could be the eggs opened, while the mutes could be the exoskeleton of the various nymphal stages (NB: in the insects, the exoskeleton is the external skeleton. The bed bugs change it during the various nymphal stages and release it around).
- Find out if there is any blood between the sheets or the pillow. These could be due to accidental crushing, by those who sleep, of a bug that has just finished sucking blood.
If these investigations reveal the presence of bed bugs in the room, it is very likely that the spots appearing on the skin are due to these insects.
WHEN TO REFER TO THE DOCTOR?
Generally speaking, it is not strictly necessary to consult a doctor for bedbug bites. However, a visit may become necessary if:
- The patient shows some allergic reaction to the bites.
- The patient, due to scratching, injured his skin and contracted a bacterial infection.
- The patient finds the spots and the itching annoying, and wants to heal faster.
Treatment
The itching and spots generally disappear within a week or two, without any special treatment.
However, if the patient wants to speed up healing, he can use a hydrocortisone- based skin cream and take an oral antihistamine (such as definidramine ).
Hydrocortisone is a corticosteroid; corticosteroids are powerful anti - inflammatory drugs, which should be used with caution because excessive doses, or prolonged beyond what is due, can cause serious side effects (diabetes, hypertension, obesity, overweight, osteoporosis, glaucoma, etc.).
Oral antihistamines, on the other hand, are medicines that act against a nitrogen compound, called histamine, released in large quantities during inflammatory processes and allergies.
Warning: what to do in case of bacterial infections?
Bacterial infections are potentially very dangerous consequences of intense itching. Therefore, if they should occur, it is necessary to intervene immediately with an appropriate cure, based on antibiotics.
For any information regarding the doses and methods of administration of antibiotics, contact your doctor and / or your pharmacist.
Pest Control Treatments
To eliminate bed bugs radically from your home and avoid other annoying bites, it is necessary to contact a disinfestation company . This has experienced staff, who know how to operate effectively without exposing the inhabitants of haunted premises to toxic substances.
Pest control techniques are generally based on the use of non-toxic insecticides for humans and a particular portable instrument, capable of raising the temperature of a room to an unbearable level (50 ° C) for bed bugs and their eggs.
"Do it yourself" pest control treatments
The operators of the pest control companies recommend, to the owners of haunted houses, to:- Vacuum the entire bed frame so that, if some bed bug is hidden in a slot, it can be sucked up.
- Wash all potentially contaminated clothes at a temperature of almost 50 ° C, in such a way as to kill any bed bug and any eggs.
- Use electric clothes dryers at high temperatures for at least 20 minutes. Also in this case, the intervention aims to kill the bugs and any eggs.
These remedies are very useful, because they are effective and completely harmless for those who live in the house to be disinfested.
Prevention
There are very interesting strategies to prevent both bites and infestations.
Figure: signs of a bed infested with bed bugs.
To prevent bites
When waiting for pest control, it is advisable to sleep with pajamas that cover the whole body, as bed bugs usually cannot suck blood through clothing.
Furthermore, some scientific studies have shown that applying the permethrin insecticide (generally used against lice, scabies, cockroaches, woodworms and ants) on the bed frame also keeps bed bugs away.
To prevent infestations
If your home has already been infested with bed bugs in the past, it is good practice to inspect the bedrooms regularly and thoroughly, so as to act immediately at the slightest suspicion. Furthermore, it is advisable not to buy second-hand beds and mattresses, but only new and safe products.
Finally, since one night in a haunted hotel might be enough, to bring bed bugs home, it is a good idea to carefully analyze the bed of the hotel where you stay.
