Bed bugs and how to deal with them

Bed bugs (from the Latin Cimex lectularius) are external parasites (ectoparasites) that feed exclusively on blood, so a person begins to feel their appearance in the house immediately. Numerous bite marks appear on the body, which itch, itch, and sleep becomes restless, and if measures are not taken in time to destroy domestic bugs, the situation will only get worse every day.

Many people unsuccessfully struggle with bed bugs for several months (and sometimes for several years), without taking into account the important nuances regarding the biology of bed bugs and the way they spread between apartments. Next, we will consider in detail the interesting details of the life of these parasites, consider the mistakes made in practice in the fight against them, and also consider the most effective approaches to completely clean your home from bloodsuckers.

 

Why are bed bugs dangerous to humans?

If we ignore the unpleasant bed bug bite sensations, then we can talk about the epidemiological harmlessness of these insects in general: today there has not yet been a single case when a bed bug would infect a person with a bacterial or viral infection with its bite.

Despite the fact that bed bugs - especially in natural populations - are carriers of pathogens of many diseases, none of these viruses and microorganisms is transmitted by bite.

The photo below shows an adult bed bug at the time of bloodsucking:

And this is what the larva looks like:

For more information about bedbug larvae and their favorite places to hide in an apartment, see separate article.

It is interesting:

In the course of special studies, scientists have found several dozen pathogens of various diseases dangerous to humans in the organisms of individual bed bugs. Including typhoid, brucellosis, anthrax, leishmaniasis, plague, tularemia, Q fever and others.

However, to the surprise of the scientists themselves, these pathogens were found only in the excrement of bedbugs and in their internal organs. And none of them were transmitted by bite. Evolutionarily, this is very beneficial for parasites: the less risk the host is exposed to, the more likely the bugs are to retain their main food source.

To date, not a single fact of the transmission of AIDS or hepatitis by domestic bugs has been established.

However, a bed bug bite can be fraught with certain troubles, among which stand out:

• Allergic reactions to the bite. Statistically, allergy to bed bug bites in some manifestations observed in 80% of people. Such manifestations may be the appearance of papules, extensive redness, itching and pain, extremely rarely - even anaphylactic shock;
• Inflammation, damage to the skin, pustules that occur when combing the bite sites. Pathogenic organisms more easily penetrate into the human body through such micro-scratches;
• Iron deficiency anemia in children. This is a very rare consequence of bed bug bites. Occurs with a very large number of simultaneously biting parasites, when the amount of blood they suck out is significant, and the action of their saliva leads to some changes in the composition of the blood;
• It is also worth noting general fatigue, as well as increased irritability due to poor sleep.

On a note

According to statistics, 70% of bed bug victims do not feel their bites. It is because of this that parasites actively capture cities: in many apartments, people do not even suspect that insects suck their blood at night.

themselves Bed bug bites are quite common: they are arranged in a line of four to five red dots. Of all the blood-sucking insects, house bugs are the only ones that suck blood sequentially from several wounds to saturate.

But not only on this basis, bedbugs can be calculated: their appearance is also quite specific.

 

What do bed bugs, their larvae and eggs look like?

The bed bug has a flat, wide body. When hungry, it becomes almost round when viewed from above. At the same time, due to the absence of wings on its body, constrictions are always clearly visible at the junctions of the abdominal segments. Each individual has two eyes on its head.

Adult bed bugs are a uniform brown color. If a particular insect is hungry, it may be light, almost red. After saturation with blood, the bed bug darkens, sometimes almost completely black.

It is also useful to read the article: What do bedbugs eat and how long can they live without human blood.

The photo below shows a hungry bed bug (left) and a full one (right):

In addition, the body of a well-fed bed bug becomes larger, lengthens and increases in thickness due to the filling of the stomach with blood. Such a bug becomes like a wingless cockroach larva. Bed bug body sizes vary from 4 to 8 mm, and there is practically no difference in size between males and females.

Here are some more photos of bedbugs drunk on blood:

The flat shape of the body of a domestic bug protects it well from being crushed by a person tossing and turning on the bed. However, after drinking blood, the bug becomes more vulnerable, it is easy to crush it.It is the crushed, well-fed bugs that leave ugly brown spots on the bed, which are often the first sign that the parasites have wound up in the room.

On a note

Regardless of age, a bed bug can consume twice its body weight in a single feeding. Not surprisingly, bedbug larvae grow at an incredible rate, and adult females can lay fairly large eggs almost every day.

Bed bug larvae look like adult insects, but are smaller and lighter in color. Small larvae of the earliest instars, being hungry, are generally transparent, and after they are saturated, a drop of blood in their stomach is clearly visible:

bedbug eggs look like greatly reduced rice seeds. They have the same white color, elongated shape and a length of no more than a millimeter:

Household bugs are easy to distinguish from other domestic insects by body structure:

• Unlike cockroaches. Cockroaches have two characteristic processes on the back of the abdomen, similar to short antennae. Bedbugs do not have such outgrowths. In addition, adult cockroaches are larger than bedbugs, have wings and a more elongated abdomen;
• Unlike ticks. Outwardly, bugs are more or less similar to ticks. Here, for recognition, it is enough to count the legs of the parasite. Bed bugs, like all insects, have 6 of them, and ticks, as representatives of the arachnid order, have 8 legs;
• Difference from ants. Everyone knows the body shape of ants - these insects are slender and have a constriction in the "waist" area. In domestic bugs, even the larvae are wide, and do not have such a constriction.

Enlarged photo of the bug:

Bed bugs are almost impossible to confuse with fleas and lice because of their size: if the former are very difficult to see with the naked eye, then bed bugs are highly visible insects.

 

Where do bedbugs come from in the apartment

The appearance of bedbugs in the apartment - always a surprise for people, especially if the apartment is clean, well-groomed, and there have never been other insects (for example, cockroaches) in it. Sometimes residents of apartment buildings even get the impression that parasites appeared in many apartments due to the fact that bedbugs were deliberately thrown into the entrance, so that then the residents would pay for pest control services.

In fact, bed bugs in most cases start indoors for other reasons. Very often they are accidentally brought here with furniture, household appliances or things. In addition, parasites themselves can climb into the premises from neighboring apartments, from entrances, utility rooms, sometimes even from attics and basements. The main sources of parasites are other residential infested premises in which people are either unaware of the presence of bedbugs (and those at this time are actively multiply), or they know about insects, but do not breed them.

Bedbugs move quickly and easily between apartments in apartment buildings. Nymphs of the last ages and adults run slower than cockroaches, but still move fast enough to be able to overcome 30-40 meters along ventilation ducts, walls and crevices in a few night hours. And due to the flattened body, the larvae can make their way where, it seems, even sticking a needle is problematic. Not surprisingly, they can easily fit through the gaps between the walls, between the mosquito net and the window frame, in the gaps between the front door and the box.

Below are photos showing how small the larvae of bedbugs are:

Simply put, if one apartment in the house is infected with bedbugs, then with a high probability the parasites will penetrate into neighboring rooms. Only high-quality repairs and complete sealing of all cracks can protect the apartment from the penetration of these insects from the outside. If the repair is done so-so, then wait for the "guests".

On a note

In the summer, bed bugs can move from apartment to apartment along the outer walls of the house. Moreover, they can migrate even between detached private houses if the distance between them is small.

Another very common option is the introduction of parasites with things and furniture. Most often this happens when returning from business trips, when things, a bag, a suitcase were in the infected hotel for a long time - several individuals could climb into them, which then safely moved to the apartment, settled here and began to breed.

The photo below shows bedbugs in clothes:

With furniture, bedbugs are even easier to bring into the house. It is enough to buy a used sofa or armchair without examining them before bringing them into the house - in fact, in such a situation, people themselves bring home a nest of parasites and start feeding them on the very first night.

The above reasons for the appearance of bed bugs in the room may seem too simple - so simple that people are not always ready to believe in it. Many do not believe so much that bedbugs could so easily start up in their clean and well-groomed housing that they tend to blame the neighbors for everything. In some cases, when people begin to suspect the presence of bedbugs in the house and look for them, they immediately find nests, accumulations of excrement and eggs.It seems that parasites appeared here immediately in large quantities (say, this is an invasion of bedbugs from neighbors) - they never existed, and then they suddenly began to bite.

In reality, such a massive infection is in most cases nothing more than an illusion. Even when there are a lot of bedbugs in the room, their bites do not attract attention for a long time. Some of the people almost do not feel them due to the individual characteristics of the skin, someone at first sins on mosquitoes, allergies or dermatitis, and the bugs themselves behave “neatly” - they do not bite often (each individual eats every 3-4 day), carefully hide, and rarely get out of shelters and only at night.

That is, before the mass reproduction of parasites, people often do not even suspect that they are nearby. And when this neighborhood becomes obvious, there are already so many invisible home bugs that it seems as if they captured the apartment at once and with a whole horde.

On a note

Because of this, by the way, in practice it is usually difficult to understand where the bugs come from in a particular room. As a rule, a lot of time (2-3 weeks, sometimes even months) passes from the initial infection of an apartment to the discovery of bloodsuckers by residents, and it is already problematic to accurately determine the date of infection and the source.

Be that as it may, the theories that bedbugs infect only dirty and dysfunctional apartments are absolutely untenable, appearing here as satellites of unsanitary conditions. In fact, they can appear in any apartment - both in an elite new building and in a barracks. Unlike cockroaches, bedbugs do not care about the presence of food waste, but only the presence of blood sources is important - that is, the residents themselves.

And further: Deadly methods of destruction of bedbugs that really work in practice

The sooner bloodsuckers are detected, the easier it will be with them. fight.

The main sign of the presence of bedbugs in the house is bite marks, which regularly appear in people who sleep indoors. Outwardly, bites are similar to mosquito bites, but sometimes they can be larger in size (look like hard, itchy bumps). Their main distinguishing feature is lining up in lines of 3-4 pieces. This is due to the fact that each adult bug bites several times during feeding, moving 2-3 centimeters through the body after each bite, as a result of which such a “path” remains.

Examples of "paths" from bed bug bites are shown in the photographs below:

Also, bites are found mainly in the morning (bugs bite more actively towards the end of the night).

Spots of blood, which can be found on the bed in the morning, also help to find out about the presence of bed bugs. They remain when a person tossing and turning in a dream crushes a fed bug. Bedbugs themselves can sometimes be found here, but this happens very rarely.

This is how stains after a nightly feast of bedbugs look on bed linen:

Other signs of bed bugs less clear. For example, it is known that domestic bugs smell characteristically - in a room heavily infested with them, the smell of cognac is felt. However, at the initial stage, when there are still few parasites, this aroma may not be guessed. Excrement and remnants of the chitinous cover of insects also often do not attract attention, being the usual components of household dust.

If red spots that look like bites appear on the body regularly (especially in winter, when there are definitely no mosquitoes) - you should not attribute this to allergies, it immediately makes sense to look for bedbugs. For this you should:

1. Carefully inspect the sleeping places in the room - mattresses on the beds, wooden frames, internal cavities of sofas, seams and joints of upholstered furniture elements (black dots here will indicate the presence of parasites);
2. Examine skirting boards. Those plinths that are near the sleeping places can even be removed and inspected their inner sides adjacent to the wall and floor;
3. Raise the carpets on the floor and the edges of the linoleum (bugs often live under them too).

Here you need to look for the bugs themselves, their nymphs (reduced copies of adult insects), eggs, remnants of skins, excrement in the form of black dots. When parasites are found, they should be removed as soon as possible in order to prevent them from multiplying in even greater numbers.

On a note

Bedbugs masterfully hide in places where it is difficult to even suspect their shelter. They can climb into the gaps between the boards of the bed frame, they can hide under parquet, under a stretch ceiling, in computer system units, in sockets, in children's toys, in flower pots. Therefore, the detection of even one parasite is usually evidence that there are a lot of them in the house.

Also, the following technique is useful for detecting bedbugs: you need to get up in the pre-dawn time - at 3-4 in the morning - turn on the light and inspect the bed. On white bed linen, insects are especially visible, and often several individuals of different ages can be seen here at once.

In any case, it is important to remember that bed bugs are extremely rare in the daytime.And if no one has seen them in a dwelling, this does not mean that they are not here - parasites lead a secretive lifestyle and rarely catch the eye of their victims.

 

The lifestyle of parasites, their reproduction and nutrition in the apartment

Bed bugs are purely nocturnal insects. Only the destruction of the place of their accumulation (nest) or the action of some strong drug can make them move during the day.

Bedbugs are most active in the early morning hours, from 3 to 6 in the morning. It is at this time that the largest number of their bites occur. Due to their mobility and a fairly high running speed, bedbugs can get from any corner of the apartment to the bed in a matter of minutes, spend 20-25 minutes on self-feeding and quickly get into shelter.

In those places where the bugs wait out the day, the females lay their eggs:

On a note

Bed bugs do not have a uterus - all adult females are similar to each other and are able to lay eggs.

Over time, in the most convenient shelters for insects, large clusters of parasites form, which are also called nests, although there is no structure and system in such settlements. The photo below shows what bed bug nests might look like:

On a note

Bed bugs feed once every 5-10 days. On days when a well-fed insect digests food, it is in hiding and does not catch the eye. That is why in crowded places you can find significantly more individuals than on a bed or even in a room at night.

The bed bug is very prolific. Each female lays more than 300 eggs in her life, about 4-5 every day.

The larvae of the bugs hatch from the eggs on the 5th-6th day and after 4-5 weeks they turn into adult parasites.

During this time, they molt several times, and the chitinous shells left after molting can serve as a good sign of the presence of bed bugs in the house.

 

Why it seems that the bugs do not bite all the people in the apartment

Interestingly, in many apartments, people may get the impression that bedbugs are highly selective when choosing a victim. The reason for this is simple: one family member has multiple bite marks and severe itching in the morning, while the other does not have a single blister on his body. It seems that the bugs bit only one person, and did not touch the other.

Because of this, theories are multiplying that not all people are bitten by bed bugs. It is widely believed that these parasites only bite people with a certain blood type (or Rh factor), preferring women and children (supposedly their skin is thinner and bloodsuckers smell blood better). Accordingly, it is widely believed that some lucky people can safely spend the night in infected housing, and no one will bite them.

In reality, these are delusions. Differences in the apparent degree of bites are due to the fact that people have very different sensitivities to bedbug bites. Here, in a small experiment, it is clearly shown that in some people, when bitten, neither redness nor itching occurs:

As noted above, according to statistics, only about 30% of people have bug bites accompanied by severe manifestations on the skin. For the rest, blisters and itching at the bite sites literally disappear within 2-3 hours, even before the person wakes up. The next morning, such a person may no longer have clearly visible marks on the body, and it may seem that no one bit him at night.

Such sensitivity depends on several factors, the main of which is the individual characteristics of the body's reaction to the components of the saliva of the bug. In general, there are more such “insensitive” people among adult men. And, conversely, in women and children, the skin is on average more tender and more often reacts to the bites of domestic bugs with strong irritation.

On a note

However, it happens that both women and even children do not notice that bedbugs bite in their homes at night. Because of this, by the way, bedbug apartments can arise: people live in them, do not notice parasites, and bedbugs multiply here and begin to spread through neighboring premises.

But there are more nuances. It is known that when searching for a victim, bedbugs are primarily guided by the release of carbon dioxide exhaled by a person. An adult male in this regard will be much more noticeable to them and will attract a greater number of parasites - a large man exhales more carbon dioxide than a fragile woman and child.

On a note

The opinion that bed bugs do not bite people who have an increased concentration of alcohol in the blood is not confirmed in practice. Parasites equally actively bite both sober people and those who are in a state of extreme intoxication.

Also, some apparent selectivity of bedbugs may be the result of quite prosaic reasons. For example, parasites can occupy one sofa in a room (see article: How to get rid of bed bugs on the couch), it is safe to multiply in it and bite the person who sleeps here - they just get closer to him. Other residents either will not suffer at all, or they may have much less bites.

 

Fighting methods

Since the bed bug has accompanied man throughout the history of the development of civilization, many methods of struggle have been developed against these parasites - from useless conspiracies to powerful chemical insecticides.

Bed bugs have several biological features that determine the specifics of dealing with them:

• Bed bugs are temperature sensitive air in the room. Normally they feel in the temperature range from +10 to +30°С. At temperatures above 60°C, the bugs and their eggs die instantly, and at temperatures below +5°C, insects fall into a state resembling suspended animation.

On a note

When the room temperature drops to 10-15 ° C, the period of development of bed bug larvae to adults is extended to three months. But at the same time, the total life span of each individual also increases. But the eggs of bedbugs at this temperature practically cease to develop.

• Bed bugs quickly develop resistance to various chemical insecticides. That is why manufacturers of chemical pesticides are forced to constantly improve their products: populations of bedbugs that are resistant to the next drug regularly appear.

On a note

Fortunately, there are also drugs to which bedbugs cannot develop resistance. An example of such a drug isGEKTOR against bed bugs”, and it does not contain traditionally used pesticides at all.

The basis of the product is a fine powder of hydrophilic silicon dioxide, which effectively destroys insects due to their dehydration.It is also important that the Hector bedbug remedy is not toxic - it is safe for humans and animals, does not cause allergies and is convenient for domestic use even by untrained people.

• Bed bugs migrate quickly and spread between rooms. Therefore, getting rid of one apartment in an infected house does not guarantee that in a month or two parasites will not move into it from neighbors.

And further: Have you ever measured at what temperature bed bugs die? And we caught them and did it - watch the video...

Given these features of home bugs, today the following methods of dealing with them are most often used:

• Destruction of bedbugs with chemical insecticides. This method is considered the most effective when using modern proven drugs. Most of these drugs are relatively harmless to humans and pets, and their correct use in some cases allows you to get rid of bed bugs in just one day;
• The fight against bedbugs with temperature methods is very effective, but technically quite complicated. To reliably rid the room of bedbugs, powerful industrial hair dryers or heat generators (heat guns) are used, or the room is frozen out at low air temperatures outside;
• Physical methods of struggle, consisting in the use of a vacuum cleaner or slipper. With a strong infection of the premises, they do not give a special effect.

Biological control of bed bugs is also being explored today. Superparasites are known to lay their eggs in the bodies of bed bug larvae. In the future, the larvae of such an insect destroy either the bug nymph or the adult insect.

Moreover, a mold fungus has recently been discovered that infects bedbug settlements and leads to their death. However, the practical application of such biological control methods is still being developed.

You can deal with bed bugs on your own, or you can call special sanitary services for this.

Fighting on your own will cost less, but will require serious work and, possibly, more time.

Challenge same pest control services is most justified when a large number of neighboring apartments in the house are infected with bedbugs, and processing must be carried out quickly and at the same time in all rooms.

In any case, it must be remembered that success in the destruction of bedbugs and the duration of this process depend on several factors, the main of which are:

1. The effectiveness of the chosen remedy against that particular population of parasites (a drug that is effective in one household may be useless in another);
2. The quality of the treatment of the premises (if many places are left untreated, then the parasites will survive);
3. The condition of the premises and the degree of contamination of neighboring apartments (you can ideally treat the apartment with an effective remedy, but the bugs will again make their way into it from the neighbors if there are through cracks and holes in the walls, floor or ceiling).

 

The most effective means to get rid of bedbugs on your own

The practice of professional exterminators and those who poisoned bedbugs on their own shows that in the ordinary case, even the most common insecticides that can be bought at the nearest market or supermarket can be effective.

It is easy to make sure of this: you can buy the most inexpensive means, catch a bug at home, put it in a jar and sprinkle it with a preparation.If the parasite dies, it means that it does not have resistance to the agent. With a high probability, this also means that the entire population inhabiting the house is sensitive to this remedy and, if used correctly, will die from it.

On a note

Situations where some of the bedbugs in the house are sensitive to the remedy, and the other part are resistant, are extremely rare.

So, in most cases, available drugs such as:

1. Garden Karbofos, Fufanon, Doublet, Medilis-Malathion - all these are products based on malathion;
2. Aerosol products of the Raid line;
3. Dichlorvos different brands;
4. Aerosols raptor.

And others. However, due to their availability, bedbugs are the most commonly poisoned, and sometimes they are done incorrectly. As a result, resistance to these drugs is formed in individual individuals, which is transmitted to offspring and is fixed - a population appears that is resistant to a particular active substance.

Where bedbugs have not encountered such drugs, they remain sensitive to them and can be successfully removed.

There are also insecticides to which domestic bed bugs do not currently have resistance. At least, no cases are known when these substances would not destroy parasites. These substances include:

1. Lambda-cyhalothrin - is part of the preparations Lambda-Zone, Get Express, Paragraph;
2. Fention - is the active ingredient of the Executioner, Good FOS, Medilis Super.

To date, these agents are effective against any population of bedbugs.

Many bed bug products are available as concentrates to be diluted and then sprayed (economical option) or as ready-to-use aerosol cans.All these tools allow you to independently process and remove bedbugs in just a day.

However, there are also funds in the market in other forms:

1. Insecticide smoke bombs (Samuro, Quiet Evening, City, etc.), during the combustion of which the insecticide is released with smoke and penetrates even into the most inaccessible cavities and crevices. They are good because they allow you to destroy bedbugs even in the most inaccessible places;
2. Dry powders (Clean house, Phenaksin, Pyrethrum), scattered in the room and realizing their action when the insect runs through the layer of the preparation and the particles of the agent stick to the paws and body of the parasite. Good relative ease of use, but the fight against bedbugs using only powdered products can stretch for several weeks. This also includes powders based on silicon dioxide - Hector and Ecokiller;
3. Insecticide crayons (Masha, Tornado, Chinese pencils), the principle of operation of which is quite similar to that for dry powders. They are effective against bedbugs, but act slowly;
4. Adhesive tapes are safe for people and animals. Easy to use, yet with just one sticky traps bedbugs will take a long time to remove. Well suited for wrapping a bed around the perimeter. You can also put sticky traps under the legs of a sofa or bed.

In most cases, it is possible to get rid of bedbugs as quickly as possible by spraying diluted concentrates or ready-to-use products from aerosol cans. Other types of tools are useful for improving the reliability of processing and as part of preventive measures.

Below are some of the most effective remedies for bed bugs, and different types - by combining them, you can independently etch the parasites from the room in a fairly short time:

1. Lambda-Zone (South Korea) and Get Express (Yekaterinburg, Russia) are preparations based on lambda-cyhalothrin. Highly effective against almost any insects, low toxicity to humans and pets, do not have a strong odor;
2. Executioner with fenthion as an active ingredient. Adapted for domestic use, destroys even those populations of parasites that are resistant to pyrethroids;
3. Powder Hector (at the link at the bottom of the article you will also find a video where we tested Hector on bedbugs) - a preparation based on finely dispersed silicon dioxide. It poisons bedbugs slowly but effectively - they die after they run over the powder. Maximum safety for people and pets;
4. Get Total - the flagship product of the Get brand, which is quite effective against bedbugs and at the same time safe for warm-blooded animals (the solution formed by diluting the concentrate contains microencapsulated chlorpyrifos, a highly effective organophosphate insecticide);
5. Dobrokhim Micro - also based on chlorpyrifos;
6. Raid against crawling and flying insects with the smell of lavender - a very fast-acting aerosol preparation (here you can find a video where we tested this tool on cockroaches);
7. Xulat Micro, notable for the fact that it contains three active ingredients at once - cypermethrin, tetramethrin and piperonyl butoxide. Due to this, the likelihood of insect resistance to it is minimal;
8. Tetrix - a Dutch drug, the active ingredients in which are metaphos and cypermethrin.It smells strongly and is quite toxic to humans and pets;
9. Avalon based on temefos is a professional tool used in apartments by exterminators. Highly effective, smells bad and is sold only in large packages, which is why it is not very suitable for home use;
10. And finally, the usual sticky fly tape - with the right use, you can catch all the bugs in the room, including the smallest larvae.

There are also many positive reviews of the successful use of steam generators and steam cleaners for bed bugs. Especially hot steam treatment helps in the destruction of parasites in the folds of mattresses.

On a note

Various folk remedies for the fight against bedbugs and scaring them away are mostly ineffective. You can fill skirting boards with kerosene, denatured alcohol, vinegar for a long time, try to scare away parasites with wormwood or tansy, but this very rarely gives the desired result.

Also no effect electronic bed bug repellers (ultrasonic and magnetic resonance), actively advertised today on the Internet.

And another important point: not a single remedy, even the most powerful one, without additional preventive measures guarantees that bed bugs will be destroyed forever and will not appear again. If once the parasites got into the house, they are more or less likely to be able to get here again - in a week, a month, a year.

Therefore, let's look at the basic principles for preventing the reappearance of bedbugs in the room ...

 

Prevention of the reappearance of parasites in the apartment

Preventive protection of the premises from bedbugs is to eliminate any opportunity for these parasites to penetrate here.

To do this, you need to take obvious, but not always easy measures:

1. Eliminate any cracks, holes and other direct passages to the apartment from neighboring premises. They can be sealed with mounting foam, puttied, sealed with silicone sealant - it is important to eliminate all communication routes with other apartments. It is useless to lay out in such "entrance gates" for parasites sagebrush, pour dust here or pour kerosene - sooner or later, even through such barriers, individual individuals will break through. If there are no holes at all, then the parasites will not have a chance to get through them. Holes and slots can be located behind wallpaper, behind skirting boards, under stretch ceilings, in boxes covering sewer and water pipes, in ventilation ducts;
2. Reinforce ventilation grilles. Sometimes they should be replaced with new ones with a very fine mesh;
3. Glue rubber seals on entrance doors, get rid of cracks in window frames;
4. When buying used furniture, you need to scrupulously inspect it, if possible, disassemble it to make sure that there are no bed bugs inside;
5. After resting or staying in hotels or hotels, it is necessary to carefully inspect things, bags and shoes;
6. After visiting apartments and houses where there may be bedbugs, wash both things and shoes;
7. From rooms infected with bedbugs, do not bring things, bags, suitcases, clothes with you. In extreme cases, all this is carefully processed and washed before export.

See a separate detailed article on this topic: Prevention of the appearance of bed bugs in the apartment.

These measures may seem redundant. However, it is they who will save you from another long-term neighborhood with bloodsuckers, even if the entire apartment building is infected with them.Most parasite victims are not even aware that bedbugs can crawl up to them along the outer wall of the house (during the warm season) and get into the gap between the mosquito net and the frame, they can squeeze through the outlet or into the narrow gap between the wall of the water riser pipe and the concrete slab. Or just “arrive” in a bag from the hotel in which the head of the family spent the night on a business trip.

On a note

It is useless to try to protect the apartment by spreading odorous herbs in it or spraying essential oils. It's believed that bedbugs are afraid of them, however, if the parasites are hungry, the smells will not stop them, even if they do not like this or that aroma.

It is also worth saying a few words about bedbug eggs. It is they who are the reason that even after effective disinfestation, it is often necessary to do a fixing treatment. The fact is that today there are no insecticidal preparations on the market that would reliably destroy bedbug eggs - the shell of such eggs is an effective protection of the embryo from the insecticide.

As a result, after processing, young larvae of domestic bugs hatch from eggs, and within a few hours after birth, they begin to look for a source of food - a person. If there are few larvae, and after treatment, the agent is preserved on a large number of surfaces, then all such “young shoots” are poisoned in the first hours of life and no longer bother anyone. If the infection was strong, there were a lot of eggs and larvae, and the surfaces in the apartment were treated poorly, then some of these larvae survive, molt into nymphs and begin to actively grow and bite people.

That is why, as a preventive measure, it is recommended to re-treat 2-3 weeks after the first pest control. The incubation period for the development of bedbug eggs under normal conditions is 5-15 days (depending on the temperature in the room). Consequently, during the first two weeks after treatment, all the eggs that were laid before the persecution will hatch into larvae, but they will not yet have time to turn into adult insects (the average period for the development of a bug nymph to a sexually mature individual is 25-30 days). If you poison them in this range - from the second to the fourth week after the first treatment - then there will be no more bedbugs in the room.

Whether they will appear again in the future will depend only on the reliability of the preventive protection organized in the premises. With good insulation of the apartment, you can protect yourself from the penetration of bedbugs even when all neighbors have them.

 

Where do bed bugs come from in the apartment and how to deal with them

 

Useful video: 5 rules for choosing an insect extermination service