How to Get Rid of Bed Bugs

Bed bugs are spreading across the world, turning up in hotels and private homes. We show you what bed bugs look like and how you can get rid of them.

No one wants to have tiny creatures suck their blood as they sleep. But it happens.

While this scenario sounds like a horror movie plot, it’s real. The culprits are bed bugs. While their bites aren’t as scary as a movie monster’s, they can be extremely annoying and sometimes have unhealthy consequences.

Learning what bed bugs look like and how to get rid of them is important because the insects are becoming more common.

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Entomologists call these tiny, flat parasites Cimex lectularius. To the rest of us, they are bed bugs, creatures you may assume live only in dirty, unsanitary places. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that the cleanliness of a place does not where you find them Bed bugs have turned up in five-star hotels and luxury resorts, the CDC reports.

How do you get bed bugs?

There is usually one common denominator wherever infestations occur. Bed bugs are found around or near areas where people sleep:

• Private homes
• Public shelters
• Rooming houses
• Dorm rooms
• Cruise ships
• Even commuter trains and buses

The miniscule creatures hide during the day in places where they often go undetected, such as:

• The seams of mattresses and box springs
• Inside cracks or crevices in headboards and furniture
• Behind wallpaper
• In objects around a bed

As you (and sometimes pets) sleep in a room in which bed bugs lurk, the insects move onto your warm body, crawling and latching on to suck blood.

Bed bugs are not known to transmit disease. But the CDC says bed bug bites affect people differently. Some may not see or feel any physical sign of a bed bug bite; others may find small, itching bite marks. Allergic reactions to the bites are possible, especially if a person has sustained numerous bed bug bites. What’s more, because of itching, bed bug bites can cause loss of sleep, and excessive scratching can sometimes lead to skin infections.

Bed bugs live all over the world, from North and South America to Africa, Asia, and Europe. Long thought to be a problem primarily for developing countries, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and CDC report bed bugs are now frequently seen in the U.S., Canada, the UK, and other parts of Europe.

The recent increase in bed bugs in the U.S. is likely due to more travel, lack of knowledge about preventing infestations, and increased pesticide resistance, the EPA points out.

What do bed bugs look like?

Learning what bed bugs look like is key to protecting yourself and recognizing if a bed or room is harboring the tiny creatures. Unfortunately, a survey of about 2,000 U.S. travelers by researchers at the University of Kentucky found most Americans who take trips for business or leisure can't identify a bed bug. If they think they spot bed bugs, even if they are wildly mistaken, however, the idea a bed bug is in their hotel room evokes a stronger response than any other potential room problem.

"Considering all the media attention paid to bed bugs in recent years, the fact that most travelers still have a poor understanding of them is troubling," said researcher Michael Potter, PhD, a professor in the University of Kentucky’s entomology department.

The results of the study by Potter and colleagues, published in American Entomologist, revealed only 35 percent of business travelers and 28 percent of leisure travelers queried could correctly identify a bed bug in a photographic lineup of common insects.

The public’s lack of understanding of bed bugs, including what they look like, “contributes to their spread throughout society as a whole,” Potter noted.

Bed bugs can be hard to spot and identify because they are extremely small. Adult bed bugs have brown, oval-shaped bodies as small as an apple seed or smaller. They are as thin as a credit card unless they’ve recently eaten; then they are balloon shaped.

The EPA offers several tips for spotting the parasites.

Adult bed bugs have antennae, wings (although not for flying), and golden-colored “hairs.” Young bed bugs (also called nymphs) are even smaller than the adult version and are translucent or whitish in color, unless they’ve recently fed on blood.

You may also spot groups of bed bug eggs on a mattress or in other areas. Each egg is the size of a pinhead and whitish, with a small “eye” spot if the eggs are older than five days.

Other signs of a bed bug infestation include:

• Bed bugs leave brown exoskeletons behind after molting.
• You may spot groups of bed bugs in the fold of mattresses and sheets.
• Bed bugs leave behind rusty-colored spots on sheets, a mattress, or nearby furniture when they excrete blood-filled fecal material.
• The insects produce a sweet musty odor around a mattress or other areas of a room they infest.

How to get rid of bed bugs

Getting rid of bed bugs can be complicated. The EPA warns it takes time and patience; there’s no quick fix. Catching a problem early is your best solution.

EPA do-it-yourself strategies include thorough and frequent vacuuming (and immediately sealing the used vacuum bags in plastic bags to kill the insects afterwards), including your mattress and box springs.

Texas A&M bed bug experts advise washing bedding in hot water and drying it for at least 30 minutes to kill bed bugs. After vacuuming your mattress and box springs, you should cover them with bed-bug-proof encasements — fabric sacks with zippers designed to be tight enough to prevent even the smallest life stages of bed bugs from escaping.

You can place small items infested with bed bugs in plastic bags and freeze them in your freezer for four days. You can also place them in a clothes dryer on high for 30 minutes or longer to kill the parasites. Consider using a professional pest control service to treat an infestation, but make sure the company is licensed and uses pesticides approved specifically for bed bugs, the EPA cautions.

Even if you are convinced all of your bed bugs are dead, it’s important to check at least every seven days after treatment to make sure the insects are gone, according to the EPA.

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