Bedbugs in an apartment are a real scourge not only for rural two-story houses, but also for quite modern buildings in megacities. Of all the unwanted insects in the house, it is the bugs that are still a serious problem in apartment buildings, because, unlike cockroaches and ants, both dirty old barracks and European-style apartments are equally easy to populate. Moreover, the good condition of the apartment can sometimes be very favorable for them.
Where do bed bugs live in an apartment?
Bed bugs, unlike many insects, do not form colonies with a clear structure, but at the same time they are almost always found in clusters, the so-called "nests". Such nests consist of actively breeding adult insects, larvae and maturing eggs. Larvae of older ages are hardly distinguished from adults by a lighter color. Younger larvae (nymphs) are quite light and have a translucent body when hungry. Bedbug eggs are very small, and therefore it is almost impossible to detect them with the naked eye.
As a rule, in the place where bugs accumulate, there are simultaneously a large number of insects themselves and their larvae of different ages, as well as the remains of their chitinous shells after molts, eggs, dead insects and excrement. All this resembles a similar place of cockroaches, only more neglected.
In general, for a fairly quick detection of bloodsuckers or traces of their vital activity, it is enough to know where to look for bedbugs in an apartment, and at least look at these places with a cursory glance.
Usually in the daytime, such colonies can be seen in fairly secluded corners of the dwelling.
For example, if you look at the joints of furniture, especially soft ones (sofas, beds, armchairs), behind bookshelves, and sometimes between the book bindings themselves, in the cracks on the floor and under the wallpaper. In general, apartment bugs have no specific preferences in choosing a place to spend their days, with the exception, perhaps, of one thing: they prefer to settle as close as possible to food, and therefore they are most often found under bed mattresses, in the joints of sofas, in chests of drawers and behind the baseboards of bedrooms. .
How to find out if there are bugs in the apartment: step by step instructions
Before you find out if there are bedbugs in the apartment, you need to talk with your neighbors and find out if they had problems with bedbugs during the year. If at least one apartment adjacent to the surveyed premises was disinfested during the year, then there is a risk of contamination of the premises.
Before you start looking for bedbugs in your apartment, it is useful to call the main pest control services in the city and ask if the treatment was carried out in neighboring apartments during the year. The services themselves do not need to hide anything here, and it will be quite simple to obtain the necessary information in this way.
Nevertheless, even if the neighbors do not know anything about bed bugs, their housing should be examined in detail for the presence of parasites and inspect the most likely habitats of bed bugs in the apartment. For this you need:
- Smell. If the apartment is heavily infected, a rather distinct smell is established in the apartment, reminiscent of the aroma of cognac.
- Raise bed mattresses and all reclining sofas. Ideally, there should be no signs of insects at all.
- Examine the sheets on the beds. Sometimes well-fed insects are crushed on them, after which a brown, hard-to-remove stain forms on the sheets.
- Inspect corners, baseboards and floors under beds and cabinets. It is enough to sweep there with a broom and inspect the garbage. If there are black dots in it that look like small poppy seeds, or the skins of dead insects, then this is already an alarm signal.
- Lift carpets off the floor or move those hanging on the wall. Insect settlements often form under or behind them.
And further: Poison bugs, but they appear again? It's time to think about prevention, and this is a delicate matter ...
It has been established that more than half of the people who are bitten by bed bugs from time to time do not notice their bites, which makes the detection of these parasites quite difficult. In the daytime, it is difficult to meet a domestic bug: they are active mainly in the predawn hours, between 3-5 o'clock in the morning.
Waking up during this period of time on a bed, in a room infected with apartment bugs, you can find either the insects themselves or their excrement on the sheet.If a person is bitten by several bugs at once, then in the morning distinct bite marks will already be visible on the body.
Very often, bed bugs appear in an apartment with purchased items, both new and old, and sometimes rare (see the photo below of bed bugs on furniture upholstery).
For example, a bought sofa or chair, stored in a furniture warehouse or even in the store itself, or a picture in a beautiful wooden frame, like virtually any other item, can contain a hidden surprise. And quite annoying...
How to destroy bedbugs in an apartment
To combat bedbugs in the apartment, many effective methods and chemicals have been developed. Even more recipes are offered by craftsmen.
The main folk remedies that are active against bedbugs, which were used by our great-grandfathers, are kerosene, turpentine, naphthalene, camphor and vodka (sometimes vinegar).
For example, among the recipes based on them there are the following:
- Dilute 2 teaspoons of naphthalene in two glasses of kerosene mixed with turpentine (1: 1);
- Dissolve 1 teaspoon of camphor in a glass of turpentine and vodka solution (1:1);
- Add 2 teaspoons of naphthalene to a glass of denatured alcohol.
Any of the resulting solutions must lubricate the habitats of bedbugs, both already established and intended, for several days, sometimes daily for a month.
Another natural remedy that repels bed bugs is freshly picked wormwood, which must be laid out in wardrobes, under carpets and in bed. However, according to the results of recent studies, it became known that the smells of bedbugs scare away weakly, and if they are hungry, then wormwood will not stop them.
Among the physical factors, high temperature has an impact on apartment bugs - above 50aboutC. Both adult insects and larvae and eggs do not withstand exposure to hot steam or air.
This is done by special pest control teams, but sometimes you can do it on your own. For example, clothes, bedding, bedspreads can be washed at high temperatures. You can also load them into the car, close the windows in it and leave for a day in the sun.
Freezing bed bugs is also effective. These insects die within a day at a frost of minus 18aboutS. All that needs to be done here is to take the infected furniture outside in winter or simply leave the apartment for a few days and leave the windows open.
And further: We catch bedbugs and put deadly experiments on them - this is a must see!
Among chemicals, drugs based on chlorophos, karbofos and other insecticides have recently been considered the most effective. The range of such chemicals is quite wide, the number of names exceeds a dozen (Executioner, GET, Tetrix, Fufanon, Raid, Raptor, Forsyth), but, of course, when choosing, you need to remember that any of them can be toxic and poisonous to humans or household animals.
From the premises where the destruction of apartment bugs will be carried out using appropriate chemicals, all its two-legged and four-legged inhabitants, and especially children, must be removed. Even small amounts of bed bug remedies can be harmful to young children, causing them to develop severe allergic reactions. Also, cabinets with dishes, places behind a refrigerator or stove should not be treated with these substances.
It is imperative to work with such means in rubber gloves and, at a minimum, wearing a cotton-gauze bandage to protect the respiratory system.
The person who performed the treatment should thoroughly wash their hands and all exposed skin with soap. After using the appropriate aerosols or emulsions, it is necessary to ventilate the apartment before re-occupying it, and rinse those areas or objects of the apartment that are most often touched by hands (door handles, window latches, water taps, dining table).
When using chemicals to kill apartment bugs, it must be remembered that some of them may turn out to be initially ineffective, to which these insects have already managed to adapt, while others will act too slowly, especially given the high reproduction rate of these bloodsuckers. This can also happen: at first, the drug will be effective, and as a result of repeated use, the bugs will get used to it and will calmly survive the treatment of the room with its use.
The most effective, fast, safe and reliable way to deal with bedbugs using chemical insecticides or temperature treatment of the premises will be to call in special pest control teams. Such services are quite expensive, but guarantee the complete disposal of the apartment from parasites. And if an independent fight against bedbugs can drag on for a long time, then specialists perform all operations in a few hours.
We protect ourselves from bedbugs: what to do so that parasites do not appear in the apartment
The appearance of bedbugs in the apartment is not always associated with the cleanliness in it and the number of cleanings carried out per day. However, there are measures that will help to significantly reduce the likelihood of these insects colonizing the premises.
It is necessary to make sure that there are no cracks and cracks in the floor, walls and ceiling where bed bugs can settle. You should also check and glue, if necessary, the departed wallpaper; tightly fasten skirting boards, switch panels. If possible, close the gaps between the joints of the shelves and other wooden furniture. Thus, it will be possible to reduce the number of possible shelters for apartment bugs in the house. Dry cleaning of the premises using a vacuum cleaner should be carried out at least twice a week.After it, it is advisable to either throw away the dust bag or clean it outside the apartment.
And most importantly - to stop any possibility of bedbugs entering the apartment from neighbors. Here it is important to place repellents in the ventilation openings, securely isolate the joints of windows and doors, and isolate sockets. So you can count with a high probability that bedbugs will never appear in the apartment.
Where do bed bugs come from in the apartment and how to deal with them
How to get rid of bed bugs? Useful video
Found bed bugs, can't get rid of them.
Artur, we have the same story... And it all started from a neighbor downstairs, she has them everywhere, we still have flowers. Here we suffer because of her (
We found one bug about five months ago, we checked everything, but we didn’t find it anymore. And here today they found it again, but such a big one, the worst thing is that a child has a stroller. Today we will go to the grandmother, and the husband will poison.
Today I found bedbugs, several already.I will fight and poison with chemistry. I don't know what will happen. Horror as I am afraid of these insects!
Funny! At least isolate everything (although this is impossible) and vacuum 2 times a day: if he sits under the mattress, no cleaning will help; most often, bedbugs are brought from hotels after traveling.
We have bedbugs all over the hostel, because they throw garbage in the entrance, and 10 meters to the container.
Bed bugs don’t give a damn about garbage, these are not cockroaches, they settle in new clean houses and apartments. They don't care if it's dirty or clean. The main thing is to have food at hand, namely people))
Tell me, please, in which stores you can buy a remedy for bedbugs? They tortured us, we have a small child, I am very worried about him.
You need to call a specialized service. A couple of days will have to stay with relatives. Call the Sanitary and Epidemiological Station, they will tell you everything.
Ekaterina, you will poison yourself, only miss the time. Store funds act only on the bugs themselves, and the eggs remain. More than three years ago, bedbugs were poisoned in my mother’s apartment, specialists were called, a woman came, diluted some powder with tap water and splashed everything that was possible. She said that this composition kills everyone: eggs, larvae and adults. We did not live there for a couple of days, although the woman said that we could come back in a few hours. Since then, we don’t remember the bedbugs, everyone died. And my mother at first tried to bring folk remedies, so they bred to horror. Do not suffer, call good specialists, they will help you. Neither furniture nor things have deteriorated, the only negative is a persistent smell, which then disappears for a long time.
in economic)
My husband brought us from a business trip. This is terrible.
We moved into a new apartment, they started biting me. Found a nest, destroyed it. They began to poison: they flooded the entire apartment with Kukaracha's poison. It seems that you can’t see it, but children get bites. I don’t know where to find them, I climbed everything, and they stopped biting me. In general, I don’t understand anything, where are they hiding? .. We have already dismantled everything, looked through it. I feel sorry for the kids, I can't...
I haven't slept in three days, guess why! They bite all over the body, and it doesn’t matter in which part of the house I am and what time of day. There are characteristic bite marks (unfortunately, no photo). I'm afraid to go to work.
Yes, of course, it's a horror to live with them in the same apartment. We have been fighting bedbugs for a year now, we have no strength anymore. We were advised to try Sinuzan medicine. It seems that they disappeared, we do not know what will happen next. I hope not to see them again.
It looks like we have bedbugs ... I wake up in the morning all bitten. Who will advise what?
All this is bullshit, do not poison herbs, everyone will return exactly. We must all together with the neighbors. And we have been poisoning for 1.6 years, they still come back. Moreover, the neighbors are stupid, they say that everything is fine with them, no. Already infuriates, as if they are only with us.
We have appeared from the neighbors (the neighbors rent an apartment to everyone). As they noticed bite marks, they immediately called a special service for processing. Although they also looked at everything (they removed the skirting boards, cashiers, raised the linoleum, dismantled the entire sofa, all the cracks - no, they didn’t find it. After processing, after 3 weeks they appeared again, they called for processing again, now we live in a different place. What to do, people ?..
2 years ago I cleaned my mother-in-law and found bedbugs in her, generously poured several bottles of insecticides from the store. She was horrified, her mother-in-law knew about them and treated them almost like pets! 2 weeks ago I invited her to my son's birthday party. After the first night, I had an “allergy” on my arm, a huge spot itched for a week, after the second night, 3 more “allergies” appeared. When the swelling began to subside, she showed her mother, the doctor, and she said that it looked like an insect bite, like a clip. I waved it off. And tonight on the floor in the hallway I saw this creature. Now I can not sleep, I think what to do. The most interesting thing is that I am on the 8th month, soon to give birth, and at home such rubbish! HORRIBLE!
I don't understand where we got it from. First I found a nest, killed it, but anyway my daughter is bitten. Repairs have already been started, so nowhere is there - neither under the wallpaper, nor in things ...
I rented an apartment with my husband. The first two weeks were uneventful. And one morning I saw a bite track on my leg. At first I thought about allergies, but at night I saw what this allergy was from. Just not enough candraties. Now I can't sleep. What to do with these creatures? People, tell me!
Be especially careful if you lived in the country for some time - there is an ideal habitat for bedbugs, and they will crawl into your things with pleasure and come to master your apartment as well.
Yes, kapets, damn it, how to remove them, everyone bit them. I do not know what to do.
I have a small child of 9 months. A few days ago, I noticed small pimples on my hands. Now she's all bitten! Face, hands, feet. Sorry, no power! They checked everything, nothing. The sanitizer is coming today. We had a neighbor downstairs in the winter, apparently, they got to us ((
I study daily, it happens that students bring them to apartments ((I have to poison, call specialists. There is a guarantee and it is reliable. Do not waste time on nonsense.
I’m sitting roaring, I saw my daughter’s bites and killed the bug, what should I do?
Since January of this year, she called the special services six times, threw away half of the furniture and things, and spent 20 thousand rubles. At the firm they wrote down in psychos, and these creatures are still eating, so what to do?
You need hot steam.
I heard that the smoke bomb from mosquitoes “Quiet Evening” helps against bedbugs. Not only mosquitoes die from it, but also bedbugs, fleas, cockroaches. Such a checker costs 500 rubles. But the thing is great.
Where is this bowl for sale?
We tried Raid, 5 cylinders (it cost about 1200 rubles), Kombat (500 rubles), checking pastels every 2 days. Nothing! They tore off the plinth and filled the joint between the wall and the laminate with sealant and ... drum roll ... grandmother's remedy - karbofos (45 rubles). According to the instructions, it is diluted with 5 liters of water, we diluted it with 2 liters. It seems to have helped, but after 1 month I got red dots. Maybe it's just a pimple or paranoia...
I agree with my grandmother's remedy - karbofos. Only he helped. The services were called several times. About nothing.
We have been fighting bed bugs since April. Two children. Babies don't have bites. But before they found bedbugs in their crib. All furniture has now been changed. Called different firms, poisoned themselves. The bugs disappeared, but appear again. They did both barriers and a chemical attack - it costs a lot of money, they have already given away 50 thousand. They processed it 17 times!
Two months ago they found it on a children's bed, but the children were not bitten. Bed in the trash, the room was treated with some kind of spray.Today I found one in my bed with my husband. I checked everything, vacuumed, found nothing. I want to poison with karbofos! Tell me what to process?! Everything? All furniture and walls?
I went to visit and, apparently, brought home ... Four days already at home, and bites appear again and again 🙁 I visited the doctor twice and both doctors confirmed that these were bites. I can’t find bedbugs yet, I sleep on white linen - no traces, nothing, but there are bites. I don’t understand anything at all 🙁 And the most interesting thing is that I stayed at a party for 2 hours, the next day I found out that there were bedbugs .... Buee. Did she really bring them home? There is no sleep at all.
I found bed bugs today. What should I do? I'm so afraid of them, they are vile! I saw blankets in the seams, and when I realized the mattress - there are a lot of them, although I dry-clean the bed. I have a bed steam cleaner, but nothing helps.
It is best to call specialists for the disinfection of bedbugs (SES). Folk methods do not help, do not even try to do something yourself, it will not help!
Yeah, don't try, it's better to pay money for the cold fog, which is absolutely useless. Do not listen to people like FROGI - they just earn money and do not give guarantees. That is, like a guarantee, but in fact they will send it softly, or maybe not very softly.
In short, remove the baseboards and buy cheap dichlorvos (only powder, not cans) and sprinkle everywhere, at all seams. Then it is advisable to leave the premises for two or three days. If there is nowhere to go, then prepare money for the exterminators, but by no means cold fog! I myself worked for a couple of years, I know what it is.
Bedbugs can be defeated if the apartment, beds, sofas and other furniture are carefully treated with organophosphate preparations that kill adult bedbugs, larvae and eggs.
Frankly, I'm in a panic. I go to bed at 6 am, I can’t fall asleep with the thought that they are. I catch them, they come from nowhere, I don't have time to catch them. And now I’m sitting, guarding my bed, I want to sleep. I myself am from Tashkent, we have some kind of epidemic, everyone complains.