Bed Bug Identification is Critical

Bed Bugs

Bed bugs are often mistaken for other bugs. So, it’s important that you know that it is bed bugs that you are dealing with.

Adult bed bugs are easily seen with the naked eye. They are reddish brown in color, flat (before a blood meal), and approximately 1⁄4 inch in length. The female can lay a few hundred eggs in her lifetime of many months to around a year. The eggs are similar to the size of a poppy seed, pearl white, translucent and are attached to surfaces by a sticky substance.

Unless you have exceptional eyesight or a magnifying glass, their eggs are not very visible to the human eye. Depending on temperature and conditions, these eggs can hatch anywhere from three to ten days or longer. Once the eggs hatch, and the young bed bug is exposed, it searches for a blood meal for survival.

After feeding, they will return to their hiding place, digest their food and deposit fecal stains [poop]. It then outgrows and sheds its skin and searches for another blood meal. They grow through five [5] of these stages which take approximately 6 weeks before becoming a breeding adult. Bed bugs life survival time is debatable and is completely dependent upon regular blood meals and suitable environments.