Bed bugs, as the name implies, are commonly associated with areas where we sleep. These insects lay dormant during daylight hours in small cracks and crevices, coming out at night to feed on blood. Bedbugs often hide near bedding areas, but can move more than 100 feet to obtain a blood meal. Peak activity occurs between midnight and 7:00 a.m. The bite of a bedbug is painless, but approximately 50% to 70% of people develop an allergic reaction to the saliva injected by the bugs as they feed. The reaction usually results in red swollen and itchy skin.

Adult bed bugs measure up quarter of an inch in length, and are reddish-brown in color, with oval-shaped and flattened bodies. The immature nymphs resemble the adults but are smaller and lighter in color. Nymphs must molt five times before maturing and require a blood meal between each molt. Females can lay about five eggs a day and up to five hundred in a lifetime. The eggs are white, very small (1/32”), and are deposited one by one in cracks and on rough surfaces where they are secured with a sticky glue-like substance. Eggs take seven to ten days to hatch. Without the aid of magnification, newly hatched nymphs are hard to see, and they are small enough to crawl through the stitching hole in a mattress. Development progresses from egg to adult in 30-60 days, under normal conditions (it can take much longer if adequate food is not available). If a blood host is not found, newly molted nymphs can survive close to two months, and adults can survive for an entire year without feeding

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