Domestic bugs belong to the order of hemiptera. They do not fly, but they can move quite quickly from one corner of the apartment to another.
Usually they settle in close proximity with people. After all, human blood is the only source of nutrition for these parasites.
In our article we will talk about how home bugs look and how to get rid of them at home, as well as where they come from and whether it is possible to protect your home from unexpected guests.
Where do bed bugs come from?
When a person in the house gets bugs, he immediately raises many questions. From where and why, what kind of they are dangerous and how to get rid of. First, let's talk about where the bugs can appear in the apartment. So, first of all it is worth noting that no one is insured against the appearance of bedbugs in the apartment.
And it doesn't matter how clean and how often you take out the garbage. The main thing for these unpleasant bloodsuckers - the presence of food and heat. Therefore, the apartment of asocial elements and a fashionable hotel can become a refuge for them with equal success. And in places of large crowds and the presence of a large number of rooms, coping with bedbugs is much more difficultbecause they can migrate.
For a long time there was a belief that the bugs in the house infest from dirt, but this is not true. Any entomologist will tell you that insects cannot materialize in a home, which is called “out of thin air”. So there are ways of their penetration into housing. We will talk about them.
There are many reasons for the appearance of bedbugs in the house and you can read more about this in a separate article. In the meantime, we will list the most basic ways of getting bedbugs in human housing:
- Natural migration The breeding population penetrates into the neighboring premises through ventilation systems, pipe risers and other utilities.
- A person brings insects or larvae himself, having been in an infected room, on his clothes or in baggage.
- Acquisition of furniture and other items that were in use and infected with parasites.
Sometimes buying a house you may not notice the presence of bugs in it, because they have the ability to hibernate and become more active when food sources appear.
To better understand what bugs are and how to deal with them, you can learn more about the stages of development of parasites and the signs of their presence in the apartment in separate articles on our site.
How to recognize insects?
Varieties of domestic bugs called bedding or linen. The bloodsuckers who live in private houses and apartments are not particularly different from each other. They have a flat round body and look like a button. Sizes of a house bug from 4 to 8 mm. The flat shape protects against crushing.
By color there are white, light brown and almost black insects. In the first case, it is about young individuals, in the second - about adults, but hungry, and in the third - about adults and satiated parasites. The latter body slightly lengthened after filling with blood.
Often bedbugs are confused with dust mites and are called dustbugs. These are different insects, and dust mites cannot be seen with the naked eye. They do not bite people, but cause an allergic reaction. To deal with them will help regular wet cleaning, the use of a vacuum cleaner, no fleecy coatings and carpets.
In the next section you can see in the photo how the bugs look externally, in which places of the apartment they can be found.
A photo
In the photo below you can see what home bugbugs look like, where in the apartment they can live:
Read the detailed materials of our site about what cockroaches, ants, moths, as well as dust mites, fleas and woodlice are.
Nutrition and reproduction
Insects usually attack the victim at night. Entomologists even managed to find out during which period they are most active - from 3 am to 6 am. At one meal, the bloodsucker drinks a quantity of blood that is twice the weight of his body and makes several bites. Parasites feed once every 5-10 days.
Read also about how bedbug bites look here, and this article provides information on how to get rid of the itch and prevent bites.
Females lay eggs resembling a grain of rice in shape and color, somewhat smaller in size. Their length is not more than one millimeter. To see them on a light background is almost impossible.
Each female lays more than 300 eggs in her life. The larvae are born after 6 days, and after 4-5 weeks they turn into an adult insect.
Very often you can hear the following question: “How much do home bugs live and do they smell?”. Their life expectancy is from 8 to 12 months, depending on the ambient temperature. And the smell can be felt only if they become too much. It resembles sour berries.
Habitats
Bedbugs often infest near the bed. It can be a sofa, a bed or even a space under the mattress. In addition, there are other habitats.
Nests should be sought:
- in the cracks behind the plinths;
- behind wallpaper, especially in places where they have come off;
- in the folds of curtains;
- in the bedside tables and on the shelves between the books;
- under the carpets and behind the paintings on the walls of the bedrooms;
- in cases of household appliances;
- in the sockets near the bed;
- under window sills and window frames.
If you suddenly find red bugs in your apartment, do not panic, most likely these are soldier bugs. They are not harmful to humans and can not bite him. The soldier eats sap of plants. If you met this bug at home, you can just take it out. More he will not return to you.
What are dangerous bites?
These blood sucking parasites are known are not carriers of infections and life-threatening diseases. And yet their bites cannot be ignored.
Externally, they differ from mosquitoes in that they have the appearance of a track of several punctures. They:
- cause itching and irritation on the skin;
- lead to nervousness and lack of sleep;
- affect the psychological state;
- reduce performance;
- provoke allergies.
Combing bites can lead to pustules. In rare cases, if a child is regularly bitten by bugs, there is a risk of iron deficiency anemia.
Find out what makes cockroaches dangerous for humans and what diseases fleas suffer.
Methods of struggle
Wait until the bugs themselves leave the house, not worth it, this will not happen. Neither cleaning nor replacement of furniture will help. Not even all chemical bugs are able to cope with annoying guests, although this is the best way. Insects quickly adapt to insecticides. Therefore, chemical manufacturers are constantly inventing something new.
Among the most popular ways to deal with bedbugs are:
- Temperature.
Bed bugs do not tolerate too high or low temperatures. For the treatment of premises using powerful heat generators and industrial hair dryers. The effect is based on the same property with the help of hot or cold fog.
- Insecticidal.
Potent chemicals of various forms are used for destruction:
- gels: Forsyth.
- liquid solutions: Tetrix, Geth, Zifoks, Fufanon, Cucaracha, Hangman.
- powders: Malathion.
- crayons: Masha.
- aerosols and sprays: Clean House, Raid, Raptor, Combat.
- Folk remedies.
Excellent sense of smell prevents insects from carrying strong odors. They do not tolerate wormwood, tansy. Bouquets of herbs help, but temporarily. They will not stop a hungry bug. As well as vinegar.
Bedbugs are not afraid of ultrasound, so spending money and relying on scarers and traps in the fight against bed bugs is not worth it.
To remove them at home, requires careful treatment of every corner of the room. Often the owners have to call specialized services, move out for a while, and then do a spring-cleaning. And for this procedure you need to prepare your home. How to do this, read here.
Bedbugs multiply rapidly, feed on human blood (although in the absence of such can be content with animals) and are very difficult to get out of a private house, and even more so from an apartment. After all, if you start to poison them in one room, they may well run to another.
And after some time they will come back. During the harassment of parasites in the apartment, warn the neighbors, so they carried out preventive measures.
In general, choosing remedies for bedbugs in an apartment is to adhere to one rule - use in parallel several different composition and method of exposure to poisons.
With an overview of the main, presented on the Russian market, you can find here. We also prepared a series of articles about the most effective and safe ones.
So, we talked about house bugs, their types, which are in the apartment, showed you a photo of apartment bugs.