Just hearing the words “bed bugs” is enough to send a shiver down anyone’s spine. These creatures are a hassle to handle without a team of professional pest control technicians, and the disruption they can cause to your day-to-day life has a real emotional effect.

As with any battle, the first step is to identify the enemy. With bed bugs, they are often mistaken for beetles or cockroaches. To ensure you’re better equipped to handle their discovery, we offer this guide on how to identify bed bugs, where to search for them, and what you should do once you’ve found them.

What Do Bed Bugs Look Like?

An adult bed bug is visible to the naked eye. Around the size of an apple seed, the adults can vary in appearance depending on their environment, but there are several universal features:

• 5 to 7 mm in length 
• Brown or reddish-brown colour
• Elongated or oval-shaped body 
• Musty smelling
• Technically winged but does not fly

Bed bug eggs are very small, often the size of a pinhead. It may also be difficult to spot larval bedbugs without magnifying equipment, as they’re incredibly small and translucent. However, if the young bed bug recently fed, they may become just large enough to spot without any visual aids.

Where Should You Search For Them?

Bed bugs feast at night and otherwise hide in small crevices. This makes them difficult to spot even when you’re actively pursuing their presence. Often, your first sign of them will not be the discovery of a living specimen. Instead, you’ll find other proof:

• Tiny eggs 
• Their feces, which looks like blurry, dark dots 
• Their remains, which can look like red or rust-coloured stains on your bedding or mattress 

Because of their small size, bed bugs can find habitation in almost any crack in your flooring, or walls, and even furniture. If you suspect you’re having nocturnal encounters with bed bugs, search their common hiding spots:

• Beds, mattresses, or bedding 
• Curtains 
• Drawers and drawer joints 
• In the seams of a chair 
• Underneath loose wallpaper 

Generally, though, you won’t discover bed bugs by looking for them. Instead, they’ll let you know they’re there through their bites:

• Usually 2 to 4 mm in size
• Often appear as a curved-shape pattern of marks that typically consist of three to four bites
• Intensely itchy when you first wake up
• Most often found on the arms, legs, and chest
• Sometimes small blisters form on top of the bites

Still, these bite patterns can look like those from a variety of different pests, such as fleas, mosquitoes, or lice. If you’re experiencing bite marks that look like they fit this pattern, seek advice from a doctor for proper identification and treatment options.

How Can Truly Nolen Help?

Bed bugs can affect anyone in any home. They are not exclusive to those with poor hygiene or unclean living environments. This means that no one should ignore the warning signs of a potential bed bug infestation.

If you believe your home or business is home to bed bugs, call Truly Nolen right away. We can help uncover the signs of infestation and take action to remove the pests. We use a patent-pending high-pressure misting system that forces our treatment material into any room’s crooks and crannies, and we use products that meet both our and Canada’s high standards of health and environmental safety.

We’ll also discuss with you ways to avoid attracting bed bugs in the future. This can help reduce the stress and anxiety that often stems from a bed bug infestation, as well as keep your home protected going forward.

Bed Bug Removal With Truly Nolen

If you need bed bug removal, call Truly Nolen right away. Let us help you get rid of these pests once and for all.