Bed bugs are tiny brown insects that have recently started making a comeback in American homes! They feed on your blood, usually when asleep. Their bites often leave itchy welts on their victims’ skin. Some beds even become stained with rusty spots of dried-up bed bug excrement. It is their colorless waste product.
You will wonder how to stop them before they start to appear all around your home. But how intelligent are they? Just how much brain do they need to live off your blood?
Can bed bugs sense you?
Yes, bed bugs can sense certain chemicals from their victims including ammonia, carbon dioxide, and heat. This is how they track you down. These chemicals give away how you breathe, how your heart beats faster when you are anxious, and how much you sweat while sleeping. They respond to the faintest of chemical traces.
But how do they know where to go? How do they get into your bedroom in the first place?
It all starts with your sheets. Bed bugs will hide during the day in tiny cracks or holes in walls, on storage boxes, or furniture legs near a bed. Too many insects for one small hole lets some climb up onto nearby curtains or clothing hanging on a wardrobe door or shelf above your bed. They creep under loose wallpaper and into cracks in wooden furniture.
Bed Bug Behavior and Habits
Know more about three ways of how bed bugs act and their typical activities. Here they are:
Dine and Dash
Bed bugs are small, so they have to eat more often. After sucking out the blood of their victims, some return to their hiding spots while still engorged with food. Some will even take a nap first before going back for seconds.
This behavior makes it easy to eradicate them because you know how long it takes them to digest what they just ate and how long they will go out hunting again! Imagine how many eggs can mature in one month when only five adults are left alive! You have to exterminate them before any eggs hatch or you will fight a losing battle.
Bed bugs howl over a good meal! You can call a cluster of these feeding bugs a “congregation.” It is how hungry they find each other. They can sense how recently another bug fed and how quickly it was digesting its food!
Mating and Feeding Cycle
Male bed bugs cannot lay eggs. They just cause problems because they bite people while trying to get the “honey” that female bed bugs secrete usually before their blood meal. Females are the only ones who lay eggs. But how do they find a place where their babies will become safe?
That is why male bed bugs love when females feed on you in one spot more than once. It lets them meet up with her when she is “ready” for mating. How soon does she start laying eggs afterward? Some scientists say 14 days. She can lay around 500 eggs in her lifetime.
Signs You Have Bed Bugs
How can you tell when you have them in your home? When a bed bug bites, it hides from its victims as they feel the pain of its chemicals injected into their skin. It goes under your mattress or sofa cushions to escape from getting squashed. That is how chemicals from your body kill it over time!
Bed bugs are experts at crawling through cracks and crevices on:
- wood
- plaster
- stone
- plastic
- leather
- upholstery seams
- folds
They get behind picture frames and inside electrical switch plates or light-fixture housing walls. Likewise, you can see them live in laptop cases for days after finding their way inside there somehow.
Do bed bugs hide in electronics?
Yes. Bed bugs hide in any micro-hiding place that gets them inside your home by squeezing through tiny cracks where there are routed wires, other utilities, or even through power outlets. They find their way into computers, radios, and power adapters plugged into an outlet behind furniture, for example. These bugs can survive inside drywall and the wiring behind it.
Keep your electronics safe from blood and do not drop them. The absence of stains on the device itself and rust means to look for dark spots throughout its interior. Remnants of bodily fluids from these pests can make sense due to their proximity within such an area.
What is the likelihood of finding bed bugs in your electronics, and which devices are at risk?
Electronics are potential habitat for bed bugs because they are dark, moist, and roomy. However, how likely is it?
To begin with, recently hatched nymphs cannot survive away from a food source for more than 10 minutes. That makes them unfit even to stay inside your electronics. This is especially when you always keep the device plugged into the wall socket. They need blood meals that last for hours to survive off of breast milk.
How often do you use these devices during the day and at night before you sleep? It is best as not often enough to warrant concern about possible infestations. Bed bugs will find their way out quickly through any opening or crack to eat!
How can you treat your electronics for bed bugs?
You cannot use the same chemicals on electronics as you do to treat your mattress since it is risky. Instead, move your device to a new location at night after spraying before returning it to its usual spot. Bed bugs dislike heat or light, but they will feed when hungry enough that only blood can satiate them.
Are bed bugs that hard to get rid of?
Bed bugs are hard to exterminate. They can go weeks without feeding and this makes it harder for you to get rid of them! You will not see signs of how many exist. Without any bed bugs after a year can mean they may have all died off even while hiding in your walls or other locations.
Once gone, how long will it take for them to leave your home? You should leave as little as possible as bed bug food sources after removing their habitat from cracks and crevices within surfaces that are close by such as:
- walls
- furniture seams
- folds
- leather
- upholstery seams
You can consider bed bugs intelligent. But you also have the power to outsmart them! The information above about them will help you get ahead of these pests and conquer your problem!
