4 Hiding Places To Look For Signs Of Bed Bugs

Bed bugs are not friendly. (Or is it that they’re too friendly?) If you suspect that you may have a bed bug infestation, your first step is probably to freak out. We don’t blame you. Your second step is to call an exterminator. And your third step is to look for signs of bed bugs in all the likely places that they might be hiding.

If you think that bed bugs only hide in beds, you would be mistaken. Bed bugs are very mobile, can move extremely fast, and can hide in even the tiniest crevices. However, there are patterns of where to look first to find them.

Locating the main nest of bed bugs comes with several benefits. First, it can help you to know where to concentrate your extermination efforts. However, this won’t mean that you can just assume that there are no bed bugs in other rooms in your house. Second, it can help you to catch or photograph one or more bugs, which can help your exterminator to make a positive identification. Third, it can give you a clue as to how the bed bugs might have gotten into your home in the first place, as one of the ways that homes get infested is through pieces of furniture that you might have picked up at a rummage sale or a secondhand store.

To find the signs of bed bugs in your home, first, know what the signs are and learn how to spot them. We covered this in a bit more detail in our blog post on identifying bed bugs.

Look for the following signs:

• Bites on you or your children
• Blood spots
• Fecal droppings
• Shed skins
• Live bugs
• Bed bug eggs

Now, go through the following places in your home to find any traces of the bugs.

1. Mattresses

Pull off the fitted sheet and the mattress pad, if you have one. Look carefully around all the seams of the mattress to see if there are any cracks or wrinkles where the bugs are hiding. Look very closely at all the corners of each mattress, as well as the underside of the mattress and all surfaces of the box springs.

2. Soft furniture

Easy chairs, couches, and other upholstered items are also prime spots for bed bugs to hide. If you have a couch, remove all the cushions and look in the cracks of the seat and the armrest. If possible, turn the piece of furniture upside down and look for any place that bed bugs could be going in and out.

3. Hard furniture

It surprises some people that bed bugs would hide in hard furniture, but they don’t seem to be opposed to the idea. Take a special look at your bed frame and any crevices where they could be squeezing in and out. For instance, there may be a depression or cavity where the different slats of your bed frame fit together. Even if you can’t see into the cavity, look at the surrounding exposed area for fecal droppings, which look like small black dots made by a fine-tip marker.

Once you’ve checked the bed frames, check any dressers, bookshelves, desks, or other hard furniture. Give them a thorough examination, pulling out every drawer and looking at every possible surface, inside and out.

4. Carpet

It’s a bit harder to eradicate bed bugs from carpet than it is to eliminate them from hardwood floors, and it’s hard to spot bed bugs in carpet, too, unless you have a very large population of them. However, if you see the live bugs, their eggs, or their exoskeletons, you know you’ve got a problem.

Contact an exterminator if you suspect you have a bed bug problem

Bed bugs are hard to eradicate, and if you try to do it yourself, you may just end up frustrated and having lost a lot of your time and money, to no avail. 1st Choice Pest Solutions is here to serve West-central Wisconsin with extermination and pest control services for bed bugs and other pests. We are experienced with what it takes to eliminate bed bugs, and we’ll give you tips on how to make sure the bed bugs don’t come back. Please contact us to get started.