1. Prepare Your Tools
The best way to make sure you find the bed bugs in your home is to use the right tools.
High tech or expensive tools are not necessary to find bed bugs.
Tools that make bed bugs easier to see and get into crevices will make your life easier.
Below is the list of tools necessary before inspecting for bed bugs:
- Gloves
For safety reasons, always wear gloves when inspecting for bed bugs.
During your search, you may come in contact with droppings, blood, and live bed bugs.
Wearing gloves will prevent you from coming in direct contact with any bacteria caused by bed bugs.
- Flashlight
A flashlight will make it easier for you to spot bed bugs in seams, small crevices, and folds.
- Magnifying Glass
A magnifying glass will help you spot baby bed bugs and bed bug eggs.
Bed bug eggs and baby bed bugs are around 1mm in length, making them hard to spot with the naked eye, especially if it’s your first time doing so.
- Collection Containers
Collection containers will help store the bed bugs in a safe location for easy identification.
Proper identification of the insect in your home is essential to proper treatment.
The common bed bug is often the bed bug that infests homes. 5 other species could potentially get into your home as well.
Many other insects look like bed bugs, which can sometimes make it hard to identify bed bugs accurately.
- Forceps or Tweezers
Forceps or tweezers will allow you to catch bed bugs and place them inside your collection containers.
- Metal Probe or Credit Card
This will help you drive bed bugs out of small crevices, folds, and seams.
You can use Probes and old credit cards to slide into bed bug hiding spots.
This will disturb the bed bugs and encourage them to crawl out or they will fall out and you either kill them or capture them.
2. Inspect Common Bed Bug Hiding Spots
Bed bugs tend to hide in groups or near each other.
This is typically in undisturbed areas around your bedroom or other parts of your home.
They tend to hide near their host to make feeding as easy as possible.
This is why they tend to hide in seams, crevices, and folds in the fabric, furniture ,and drapery.
The most common locations bed bugs hide are in bedrooms or where humans tend to spend a lot of time.
During the day look for bed bugs in the following locations:
- Mattresses seams and folds
- Underneath mattresses
- Under box spring
- On box spring seams and fold as well as inside boxsprings, especially on the wood.
- On wood crevices on box spring
- Bed covers
- Pillow covers
- Drapery and curtains
- Small crevices or gaps on the bed frame
- Dressers and nightstands
- Other furniture near beds or couches
- Lamps
- Walls
- Behind hanging pictures and other hanging items.
- Holes or crevices on walls or floorboards.
- Inside couches
- On carpet
- On chairs and other furniture
- Window sills
3. Look For Signs Of Bed Bugs
Bed bugs are small and sometimes you may not see them in their hiding spots.
If this does happen you can look for other signs of bed bugs.
Some of the most common signs of bed bug infestation are:
- Live Bed bugs – Bed bugs are about the size of a grain of rice, oval, flat, and light brown to reddish-brown.
- Bed Bug Eggs – Bed bugs are smaller than a grain of rice, white and are oval.
- Dried Blood – Small specs of fresh blood will look like dark red dots around your couch.
- Skin Casings – Bed bugs shed their skin to grow. The presence of these skin cases is a good sign of bed bug infestation.
- Bed Bug Bites – Bed bug bites look like welts and do not have a red spot at the center, unlike other insect bites such as spiders and fleas.
4. Draw Out Bed Bugs
Since bed bugs are typically not active during the day, you can draw out bed bugs to make it easier to find them.
There are certain things that you can use to draw out bed bugs.
Some of the most natural and easiest ways to draw out bed bugs is using:
- Heat
- Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
- Chemical Lure
- Combination of Heat, Carbon Dioxide (CO2), and Chemical Lure.
Bed bugs use these as host signals.
When they sense any of the signs above, they will come out and feed on their host.
If you can create these signs artificially, you can draw out bed bugs.
Heat
You can draw out bed bugs using heat pads or hand warmers.
Place these in places where bed bugs tend to hide, such as on top of your mattress, on your couch, on top of furniture such as dressers and nightstands.
CO2
CO2 may sound like a hard thing to artificially create, but don’t worry, it’s not.
One of the easiest ways to generate CO2 is by using dry ice.
In most, places it’s not difficult to get access to dry ice.
Break off a dry ice piece and place it in a bowl near common bed bug hiding places.
You can also use CO2 packets, but these are harder to find.
Chemical Lure
Chemical lures are another great way to get bed bugs out of their hiding spots at night.
These are specially developed packets that release attractive pheromones and signals to bed bugs.
One of the most common chemical lures is Sensi Active.
Bed Bug Treatments
Another way you can draw out bed bugs during the day is by treating for them using heat or insecticidal sprays.
When you use high temperatures around be bugs they will come out of their hiding spots to get away from the heat.
You can do this using localized high heat or full structure high heat.
Localized high heat can be done using a blow dryer while whole structure treatment requires professional help.
You can also draw them one by using an insecticidal spray.
When bed bugs start coming in contact with the insecticide spray they will leave their hiding spots.
What Do You Do When you Find Bed Bugs?
Once you found bed bugs in your home the big questions become what do I do next.
Don’t panic and grab a bottle of raid and spray your entire room.
This will not eliminate your infestation.
Once you found bed bugs you need to determine how sever the infestation is.
Sever infestations require professional assistance.
Signs of sever infestations include:
- Finding many bed bugs.
- Finding large black stains where bed bugs are hiding.
- Bed bugs in multiple locations around your home.
- Many different sizes and stages of bed bugs.
- Blood stains on your bed and other parts of your home.
For minor infestations you can typically treat them yourself.
This might include minor sings of bed bugs or bed bugs localized to one room of your home.
How To Treat Bed Bugs?
There are several different ways you can treat bed bugs.
Common treatments include:
- Washing, Steaming and Vacuuming
- Heat Treatment
- Mattress Encasement
- Fumigation
- Chemical Insecticide
Washing, Steaming, and Vacuum Treatments
This treatment process involves washing all fabrics, sheet covers, and drapery where bed bugs are located.
Items need to be washed on hot and dried on high temp to kill any bed bugs hiding inside.
The second step using a steamer on all major furniture where bed bugs are hiding.
Steamers can reach temperatures up to 180 degrees Fahrenheit which can kill bed bugs instantly.
Using the steamer to steam all major hiding places for bed bugs.
The final steps is to vacuum up all crevices, folds, and seams where bed bugs hide.
This does two things:
- It picks up any dead bed bugs.
- Removes any remaining bed bugs that the steamer missed.
Vacuuming is an excellent way of removing a large number of bed bugs, eggs, and shells skin quickly.
Heat Treatment
Extreme heat is fatal to bed bugs.
And heat treatments take advantage of this.
Heat treatments increase the heat in structures, rooms, and items to a temperature lethal to bed bugs and eggs.
When treating smaller infestations you can use heat chambers to treat furniture and smaller
Mattress Encasement
Mattress and box spring encasements can be a great way to control bed bugs.
Encasements create a barrier between you and the bed bugs living in your mattress.
They are great if you are looking for an inexpensive and quick solution for your bed bugs.
Encasements are also great to use if you do not want to dispose of heavily infested mattresses.
Fumigation
Fumigation treatments release fumigant gas into bed bug-infested areas to control bed bugs in all life stages.
The great thing about fumigation is its ability to penetrate areas that are difficult to access, such as tiny folds, seams, and intricate fabric.
That said, fumigation requires extensive preparation.
You’ll need to vacate all living things in your home until all traces of the fumigant have dissipated.
Fumigation also requires professional assistance, which can be costly.
Chemical Insecticide
When using insecticides, make sure to read and follow all label instructions.
Pay special attention to what type of furniture, surfaces, and materials is the insecticide safe to use
You’ll also want to pay attention to how long it takes before re-application and follow accordingly.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Are Bed Bugs Active During the Day?
Bed bugs are most active at night because that is when we are sleeping.
Since we are sleeping nearby, they will feed on us while we sleep.
Bed bugs can be active during the day.
They adapt their activity to match the behavior of their host.
If their host sleeping during the day, the bed bugs will be more active during the day.
Bed bugs could also be active during the day if infestations are large or have not had a blood meal for a significant time.
In most situations, bed bug activity during the day is rare but not impossible.
Do Bed Bugs Feed During The Day?
Yes, bed bugs can feed during the day if their host sleeps during the day.
If the human hosts is not sleeping at night, the bed bugs will not have a chance to feed.
Bed bugs will need to resort to feeding during the day to survive.
While bed bugs can feed during the day, it’s not common.
Can You Spot Bed Bugs When They’re Hiding?
Bed bugs are hard to spot while they are hiding.
They hide in small crevices and folds where they are not easily visible.
To spot bed bugs when they are hiding you need to look in the right spots.
In severe infestations, bed bugs might be much easier to find that in smaller infestations.
In some cases, finding bed bugs was as easy as checking under your pillows or blankets.
Where Do Bed Bugs Hide Their Eggs?
Bed bugs like to hide their eggs in small crevices, seams, and folds in the fabric.
Females often hide their eggs in dark and secluded spaces to ensure that they are not crushed or disturbed before they hatch.
Bed bug eggs are sticky which allows females to stick them onto surfaces without them falling.
One of the most common places that bed bugs hide their eggs is around your bed. This includes:
- Mattress seams and folds
- Inside or on box springs
- Cracks and crevices on the bed frame
- On bedding or inside headboards
- Inside cracks on wood, screwholes, and other entry points around bed frames.
Bed bugs can also infest other furniture such as dressers, chairs, tables, and coaches.
Depending on where you suspect the infestation, the bed bugs and eggs will be hiding nearby.
Remember that bed bugs prefer to hide near their host, especially early on in the infestation.
As infestations grow, they may move to other home areas that are farther from their host.
Can You See Bed Bugs with the Human Eye?
Yes. Adult bed bugs are visible to the human eye.
Adult bed bugs are around 4-5mm, comparable in length to the size of a grain of short-grain rice.
They also have around 2mm thick bodies, making them a bit easier to spot than a rice grain.
Baby bed bugs, on the other hand, are much smaller.
They measure around 1-2mm, but they are still visible with the human eye.
To see baby bed bugs, you need to pay close attention.
Although bed bugs are visible to the human eye, using a magnifying glass will make them easier to detect.
How can I make Bed Bugs Come Out of hiding During The Day?
There are a few things that bed bugs are attracted to.
You can use these to your advantage and draw bed bugs out during the day.
You won’t draw every bed bug out using these methods but you will draw out the ones that are looking to feed.
You can use heat, carbon dioxide, and chemical lures to draw out bed bugs.
To do this revert to step 4 of this article.
Where do Bed Bugs Hide during the day?
Bed bugs hide in the same places at night and during the day.
The only difference is that some will come out at night to feed.
Remember that not all bed bugs feed every night.
Bed bugs will remain hidden for several days after they have a blood meal.
During the day look in in the following locations:
- Mattresses seams and folds
- Underneath mattresses
- Under box spring
- On box spring seams and fold as well as inside boxsprings, especially on the wood.
- On wood crevices on box spring
- Bed covers
- Pillow covers
- Drapery and curtains
- Small crevices or gaps on the bed frame
- Dressers and nightstands
- Other furniture near beds or couches
- Lamps
- Walls
- Behind hanging pictures and other hanging items.
- Holes or crevices on walls or floorboards.
- Inside couches
- On carpet
- On chairs and other furniture
- Window sills