It’s almost impossible to find someone who hasn’t either encountered bed bugs or know someone who has encountered bed bugs at some point in their lives.
It doesn’t matter whether you have lived most of your life in an urban or rural area. Bedbugs are found everywhere that people have settled for millennia.
A nightly encounter with these little critters is usually marked by tiny slightly itchy red bumps on your skin.
These tiny red welts are almost the de facto tell-tale sign of a visit by this pesky insect.
Bedbug bites are typically found in threes, an odd fact that has resulted in a myth about the insect.
The myth claims that the three bite marks correspond to the three meals of the day, breakfast, lunch and dinner.
There is no doubt that this is not true.
Below are 10 of the most surprising facts about bedbugs
Bed Bugs can’t live on the human body
It is common for people to believe that, as is true with lice and fleas, bedbugs can also be found on a person’s hair or on the skin.
This is not so. Unlike fleas and lice, bed bugs lack the specialized claws to move through hair and cling to the skin.
These claws would help a flea or louse to grasp and hold onto hairs and skin and thus attain the leverage needed to propel themselves forward.
For lacking claws on its limbs, a bedbug cannot traverse easily on hairy skin.
Bed Bugs aren’t a sign of poor hygiene
Bedbugs are in fact not attracted to filth or grime at all.
This insect feeds on human blood and can therefore be found anywhere a human host is.
It would not be a surprise to find bedbugs in a five star hotel.
Bedbugs are able to find human settlements and human hosts due to their ability to detect faint chemical signatures left in the air.
These chemical signatures take the form of carbon dioxide and heat emissions that humans produce.
The elevated levels of carbon dioxide and localized heat emission enable bedbugs to sense and home-in on nearby human beings.
Bedbugs can’t jump or fly
Despite belonging to the species Hemiptera which is made up of true insects, bed bugs do not possess wings.
True insects essentially have three body main body parts, a total number of limbs not exceeding 6 limbs and at least a pair of wings.
However, Bed Bugs do have the stubs where the wings usually attach despite lacking the actual wings.
Bedbugs lack the strong hind legs that would enable them to jump.
The jumping legs would be similar to those of a grasshopper’s hind legs.
Bedbugs can’t live on pets
As is the case with the inability of bedbugs to live on the human body, the lack of claws also makes it impossible for this pest to live in the fur of dogs and cats.
Furthermore bedbugs are quite sensitive to temperatures exceeding room temperature. This means that the insect would be quite uncomfortable living near the much higher temperatures within the fur of household pets.
Bedbugs don’t spread disease
Despite carrying disease causing pathogens, bedbugs are not able to transmit them to humans during a bite.
It’s possible that the feeding apparatus found on bedbugs do not allow pathogen-containing fluids to flow back to the host.
Bedbugs don’t only come out in the dark
Bedbugs can also come out in a lighted room as long as the human host in inactive long enough to allow them to feed.
Bedbugs are not killed by the cold
Leaving out your mattress out in the cold during winter will not kill the bedbugs infesting it. The bedbugs just become inactive due to the cold but don’t die and soon revive once temperatures rise again/
Bedbugs don’t bite through clothing
Bedbugs possess a short beak and straw-like proboscis that makes it impossible for them to pierce through clothing and reach the skin.
You can’t get rid of bedbugs by throwing out your mattress
Even though a large proportion of bed bug infestations is found on the mattress, bedbugs will leave their eggs in the bed frame, cabinets, baseboards and so forth.
Soon these hatch and the infestation returns. In order to get rid of these bed bug infestations it is best to call a professional bed bug expert to deal with them quickly.
Bed Bugs can live in household fixtures, not only in furniture
Bed Bugs are able to wait in hiding for months on end and have been known to hide in electrical fixtures such as switches, carpets, rugs, cracks on walls and so forth.
Some contact pesticides are known to be effective in killing bedbugs.
However, their application must be repeated every month for three months to ensure the eggs that hatch later are also catered for.
