What causes bed bugs to appear and infest in city apartments?

Despite the fact that bed bugs are found less often in a car than in an apartment or private house, they can cause a lot of problems for the driver. And we are talking here not only about comfort and personal hygiene, but also about maintaining your health and normal well-being.

These insects are carriers of many diseases, among which the most dangerous are tuberculosis, syphilis, fever and hepatitis B. Therefore, if traces of parasites are detected in a vehicle, it is necessary to immediately carry out sanitary measures. Let's look at what can cause bedbugs to infest a car, and how to deal with them.

Traveling pests

Bedbugs travel easily and can sometimes be found in parcels and clothing. While hibernating, they can travel long distances. At the first opportunity to “refresh” the insects come to life and get to work. So the car is their ideal habitat.

Cars are the ideal habitat for bedbugs.

Parasites are afraid of extreme heat and cold, but they can live for quite a long time without food. They live mainly in countries where there is no frost.

The risk of catching bedbugs increases for those who constantly transport furniture, parcels or other household equipment. They adapt well to a new environment and can attack in the dark and on the road. If the driver also transports people, then the parasites are easily spread by passengers, getting into their clothes and bags. Those who like to travel and spend the night in their vehicles often suffer from these insects.

The presence of bedbugs in a car is affected by the time of year, weather conditions and climate zone. That is, if it is cold in the car, then the insects will lead a passive lifestyle. If the temperature is very cold, the parasites will die. But the temperature should not be higher than –2 degrees. It is important to know and understand that due to the lack of food in vehicles, namely passengers to attach themselves to, bedbugs will increasingly hibernate until they completely disappear.

Despite the fact that truck drivers and people who like to travel and live in their vehicles most often suffer from parasites, in an ordinary car, where there are at least slightly suitable conditions, they can start up.

Fertilization

Bedbugs reproduce in an interesting way.
This process is painful. So, entomologists call it traumatic insemination. It is carried out through violence, which is not typical for other insects. During the absence of a food source, bedbugs receive food from their own eggs, located in the peritoneum of the female. Therefore, even a surviving queen can give new life to a huge colony.

A female bedbug mates once in her life, which cannot be said about males. They copulate up to 200 times a day. They attack the “newlyweds”, forcibly pierce the body with the genital organ and inject sperm into the abdomen. In terms of gender, they are not picky. They are capable of attacking nymphs, other males and insects not belonging to their species.

When copulating with a male, the released sperm are mixed with the victim's semen. Such indiscriminate attacks continue endlessly until the parasite reaches its target. The alpha male releases a large volume of sperm, but only high-quality sperm is fertilized.

The resulting amount of sperm is enough for the female to last for the rest of her life, remaining in a special zone of the body. Then it is spent evenly, as needed.

To fully understand how fertile bedbugs are, scientists have established the regularity of offspring produced by one female individual - 40-70 larvae per month, most of which survive and turn into adult insects. Against this background, it becomes clear why bedbugs reproduce so intensively in a short period of time.

How to detect parasites in transport

This will be more difficult to do than at home, but every driver can do it. In order to detect the presence of bedbugs in a car, you must:

1. conduct a thorough inspection of the interior, paying special attention to folds in the covers;
2. It’s good to inspect the top trim of the car, since pests like to attack from above;
3. If a parasite is detected, you can differentiate a bug from an insect by the unpleasant odor that appears when the parasite is crushed.

Carefully inspect the interior for the presence of bedbug nests

How bedbugs bite: marks on the human body

Such insects make a series of punctures on the skin. This is their distinguishing feature, since most other parasites (mosquitoes and lice) only need one bite to get the required amount of food. As a result, traces of the attack appear haphazardly.

If you are wondering what bedbug bites look like on a person, you need to pay attention to a number of characteristic signs:

• punctures on the skin (red or light dots in the center of the spots) form something like a straight line;
• the bug moves short distances as it becomes saturated, and it does not crawl far from the initial puncture, therefore, after contact with it, from 2 to 5 or more spots remain, which depends on the intensity of hunger and the stage of development of the parasite, for example, the larvae suck less in one approach blood;
• the consequences of contact with parasites appear in the morning, because bed bugs attack when people are sleeping, blood-sucking insects crawl out of their hiding places after midnight;
• if you need to find out what a bedbug bite looks like, you should take into account that its first signs do not differ from the signs of a mosquito attack: hyperemia develops, the puncture site swells, but the edges are not clearly defined, the shape may be uneven;
• you need to find out how bedbugs bite: they prefer to crawl onto open areas of the body to suck blood, a proboscis is inserted under the skin, it is thicker than that of a mosquito, it is designed differently, the oral apparatus is more powerful.

Bedbugs prefer to bite on open areas of the body. You need to understand how often a bug bites. The adult attacks infrequently. One meal is enough for 1-1.5 weeks. It may seem that for this reason the number of bites on the skin when an apartment is infected will be small. In fact, hyperemia is detected every day, because there are more and more bedbugs at the facility every day. They do not attack at the same time, but bite the victim that is closer. For this reason, bites immediately appear in different apartment residents, and their number also differs.

How to get rid of pests in the car interior

Cleaning your car completely will not be enough to get rid of these tenacious parasites. Because they are hidden in hard-to-reach places (in the folds of covers, under the seats, in the seats themselves). A simple wash will help for a short time, after which the insects will restore their population.

To completely get rid of parasites you will have to use chemicals. These are dusts against bedbugs, which are used in small quantities immediately after cleaning the car.

Important! Before cleaning, do not move things from the car into the house. They can become a real breeding ground for parasites. In addition, it is necessary to clean and process every part that is in transport. This is the only way to completely get rid of insects.

It is immediately worth noting that poisoning bedbugs with dichlorvos is useless. It is not recommended to use aerosols that have a strong odor, as this may harm human health. But boiling water and hot steam are deadly weapons for parasites. Running the steam cleaner over the car a few times will be enough to get rid of these insects. In this case, special attention must be paid to hard-to-reach places.

You can get rid of insects by freezing them. Sub-zero temperatures in a car will be fatal for most of them. That is why they do not survive in the Russian winter, but in the spring and summer they diligently spoil people’s blood.

Freezing temperatures in a car will kill all bedbugs

Bedbugs in an apartment and a private house????

Insects are nocturnal. They sprinkle when a person is already fast asleep. For this reason, bite marks are found on the victim in the morning. Along with the red spots, another pronounced symptom occurs - the body itches at the puncture sites.

A clear sign that you have been bitten by bedbugs: many bites are located in one row

Before you look for parasites, you need to know what they look like. These are insects up to 6-8 mm long, brown in color with 3 pairs of legs, distinguished by a flattened body, and enlarge after eating. The larva is much smaller - up to 1.5 mm at the initial stage of development. It emerges from the egg (formation 1-1.5 mm, white), develops until puberty. At the same time, the outer covers darken, but initially they are transparent, light in color.

Development of a house bed bug from larva to adult

Recommendations

When cleaning your car from bedbugs, you should be especially meticulous and attentive. It is necessary to check every item, including the first aid kit, since parasites often hide in the most unexpected places. We should not forget about the luggage compartment; quite often insects live there. Often, inattentive cleaning is the reason why it is very difficult to remove insects yourself.

If it was not possible to defeat bedbugs on your own, the owner of the vehicle can contact specialized services that will quickly and efficiently clean the car.

Appearance of bed bugs

The size of a bedbug does not exceed 5-8 mm. A hungry insect has a flattened round body with a large abdominal part, a medium-sized cephalothorax and relatively short legs located in the front of the body. The color of the parasite is brown. It is quite difficult to crush a hungry bug, either accidentally or intentionally: its chitinous cover is durable, and the shape of its body allows it to withstand pressure without much damage.

Bed insects do not have wings. Nymph larvae differ from adults only in size. The young resemble small bugs, about 2 mm in size, white and then light brown in color, with short legs and antennae.

Stages of bed bug development

A saturated bug swells and becomes more vulnerable; it can be crushed even by accident. In this case, the contents of the intestines (blood sucked from a person) leaves a characteristic mark on sheets and other textiles.

Description of bedbugs and photos

Bedbugs feed on blood, their survival is directly related to humans, and in rare cases, to animals and birds. Both males and females feed on blood, eating up to 7 mg at a time. Even larvae that have just hatched from eggs are parasitic.

The lifespan of one individual is 12-15 months. The average length of a bug individual is 5 mm. The color of bedbugs is usually dark brown, but depending on age and degree of saturation, it changes from transparent white and light yellow to brown and bright red. The bedbug has two canals that form the jaws - one that receives blood during a bite and one that releases pain-relieving saliva into the wound. The body of a hungry bug or a bug in “anabiosis” is thin and too flexible, it is not easy to crush it.

The flat shape is what allows the bug to squeeze through a very thin crack. It is not a problem for them to get inside a book or some gadget. Migrating with a person and his things is the only way for bedbugs to survive. Bedbugs enter apartments and other premises passively - they are carried along with old furniture and belongings, and are carried by people. At risk of infection are public accommodation facilities - hotels, hostels, hostels, communal apartments, etc. At the same time, not a single building is insured against the infestation of a house by bedbugs. In a residential building, bedbugs move from apartment to apartment and even from floor to floor. The speed of movement of a bug on a flat surface is about 1 meter per minute. For example, having infested a building, bedbugs move between rooms in it through ventilation ducts and openings in utility lines, and in the summer - along the outer wall of the house, entering apartments through windows. Often, bedbugs actively spread due to hunger or treatment with repellents.

Traditional methods

Folk remedies are effective for small numbers of ecoparasites or as preventive measures. They give a temporary effect, repelling bedbugs, but not destroying them. These methods are useful if there are small children living in the house, people with allergies, i.e. the use of potent drugs is undesirable. People's experience offers:

• Use strong-smelling herbs: chamomile, wormwood, valerian, tansy, wild rosemary, elderberry. You can pour powder or spread out twigs.
• Apply strong-smelling perfume or cologne to your body.
• Compositions with a pungent odor - vinegar, ammonia, acetone, denatured alcohol. Their solutions are used to wipe surfaces or place containers filled with them.
• Turpentine. For example, a 1:1 mixture with ethyl alcohol with the addition of 1/20 camphor. Treat, leave for a day, ventilate, wash thoroughly.
• Freeze the room - at temperatures below -200C, bedbugs die;
• Treat the room with steam or boiling water.

Strong-smelling compounds and herbs will only repel pests temporarily. Treatment with steam or turpentine is more effective, but it will have to be repeated. When there are a large number of bedbugs, special chemical compounds are used.

Why do bedbugs appear?

By and large, the answer to the question in the title sounds extremely simple. Bedbugs appear in an apartment or private house if only two conditions are met. The first is to get at least one female inside the dwelling. The second is the presence of a food base, that is, humans or domestic animals.

There are simply no other options for answering the question of why bedbugs appeared in the apartment. For example, violation of sanitary standards is not the reason for such developments. Parasites cannot appear out of nowhere. Any settlement of a human home requires the initial appearance of at least one individual in one of the ways described above.

Do exterminators tolerate bedbugs?

Another question we are often asked is: can exterminators themselves accidentally or intentionally transfer bedbugs from one room to another? Due to their duty, they have to constantly visit apartments in which huge numbers of these parasites live. Therefore, it can be assumed that they can get into the things and bags of specialists.

In fact, the risk of an exterminator bringing in bedbugs is virtually zero. Firstly, his work uniform, as well as all bags and equipment, are treated with insecticides. Because of this, even if bedbugs accidentally get somewhere, they quickly die and are definitely not transferred to the next clients. Secondly, an exterminator comes to an apartment with bedbugs in order to destroy them. He treats all surfaces in the house with potent drugs that quickly kill bedbugs. In such conditions, they simply do not physically have the opportunity to get into the bag or pockets of a specialist’s clothing.

Sometimes they express to us completely absurd ideas. Some people suggest that exterminators deliberately spread bedbugs into residential buildings so that their residents will then contact the company for help. They say that exterminators catch bedbugs in infested rooms and then plant them under the doors of a randomly selected apartment.

This is theoretically possible and this fact cannot be refuted with one hundred percent certainty. Maybe someone once tried to infect an apartment in this way, and it was not necessarily the exterminators who did it. Regarding the activities of the latter, let's think logically. The main problem of pest control services is high competition, not a lack of clients. The likelihood that after deliberately planting bedbugs in a particular house, its residents will turn to this particular company is extremely low. Therefore, it makes no sense for exterminators to increase the number of infected apartments using this method. There are already a lot of them, much more than all the companies in the city could clean up. In addition, people themselves successfully cope with the spread of bedbugs by constantly transporting them from one room to another.

Due to suspicions that exterminators are spreading bedbugs, when parasites appear in the house, residents first look at the notices posted nearby and refuse to contact these services. They assume that their employees caused the appearance of insects in their home. To get rid of them, residents begin to look for other companies or try to poison the bedbugs themselves. In general, it makes no sense for exterminators to plant parasites on someone, because competition between companies is very strong, and the likelihood that after an apartment is infested with bedbugs, its residents will turn to a specific company is very low. The main task for exterminators is to sell their services and work effectively to get clients, and not to increase their total number.

Transporting furniture without bedbugs

Having dealt with the things that can be loaded into boxes, move on to the most difficult part - disassembling the furniture. As noted above, bedbugs most often live in sofas, beds, and chairs. But this does not mean at all that they cannot be in closets, bedside tables and other places where there are warm crevices for their potential residence.

In turn, with each piece of furniture that you are going to disassemble and transport, follow these steps:

1. Place the furniture in a comfortable position to disassemble it. If it is upholstered furniture, then vacuum it first;
2. Next, start disassembling the furniture, making sure to wipe all elements where there is dirt. Do not forget that bedbugs most often live in all sorts of crevices. Rinse them especially thoroughly.
3. The next step is to treat the disassembled furniture elements with chemicals. Buy any effective bedbug eliminater from the store and apply it to the disassembled parts of the furniture. We recommend choosing products with quick effectiveness so that the bedbugs have time to die while you are tinkering with other furniture.
4. After the time indicated on the bedbug killer has passed, thoroughly wipe the furniture again. It wouldn’t hurt to shake it to get dead insects out of hard-to-reach places.
5. If it's upholstered furniture and you have a steamer, run it over the fabric. This will make it possible to destroy the remaining bedbugs and their larvae with high temperature.
6. Treated and clean furniture parts can be transported.

Bed bugs are such tenacious insects that it is quite difficult to fight them. It is enough to transport several individuals to a new apartment, and they will instantly breed in a new place. The most effective way to combat bedbugs is to simply get rid of the furniture where they live. But if this cannot be done, use the tips from our material.

What prevents reproduction

Females and males reproduce quickly only in a comfortable environment. When unfavorable conditions arise, insects slow down the rate of population increase.

Temperature

The optimal temperature for the development and life of an insect is +25…+30°C. Until the ambient temperature drops to +10°C, bedbugs will continue to reproduce, but at a slower rate.

This process stops completely when suspended animation occurs, i.e. when the ambient temperature drops to +5°C and below. Frost from -10°C is fatal for bed bugs.

Humidity

Bed bugs feel most comfortable in warm and dry rooms. Parasites cannot tolerate high humidity; the optimal indicators for them are 40-60%. Low humidity is easily tolerated by adult insects; they replenish the lack of fluid by increasing the amount of blood they consume.

The eggs run the risk of dying, because if there is a lack of environmental humidity, they quickly dry out and the embryo dies. If the humidity is too high (70% or higher), the eggs are susceptible to fungal infections.

Lack of food

A bedbug can live without blood for 3-4 days, a larva - 2-3 days. But even a month of hunger strike does not lead to the death of the bed parasite. If the insect does not receive food within 14-16 days, it will fall into a “inhibited” state - suspended animation. In this state, all processes in the body slow down, and nutrient consumption is reduced to a minimum.

Anabiosis

Anabiosis is the next stage of “slowing down” the life activity of the bug. This state occurs at a temperature of 0…+5°C. Too high a temperature does not lead to suspended animation, it kills the insect. The larva dies at +45°C, the adult bug lasts up to +70°C.

In this state, the parasite stops moving, feeding and reproducing.

Can a bug reproduce alone?

The bedbug is not a hermaphrodite, so the insect must mate to procreate. The female is inseminated once in her life, and begins to lay eggs daily. If there is one fertilized female in the room, there is normal humidity, plenty of food and an acceptable temperature, then after 2-3 months the number of insects will increase significantly.

If one male bug appears, it will not reproduce.

Bed bugs reproduce quickly but are highly dependent on environmental conditions. Cold indoors (below +5°C) puts the insect in a state of suspended animation, which stops the reproduction process. High or low air humidity (above 70% and below 30%) destroys eggs. Also, the reproduction process stops when there is a lack of food for more than 2 weeks. All these features are often used in the fight against bed bugs, for example, by freezing the room.

How to treat clothes that can't be washed

Bed bugs living on clothing can be frozen out. This is the most ancient and very effective way to combat parasites. When the temperature drops below -20 degrees, things are taken outside or to an open balcony and left there for several hours or overnight. The parasites are guaranteed to die, as well as their eggs. If it's warm outside, you can put things in a sealed plastic bag and put them in the freezer, if dimensions allow. For complete destruction, at least three hours must pass, and preferably more.

After such freezing, the clothes need to be shaken thoroughly to remove the remains of bedbugs and their eggs.

There is another way - the reverse of freezing. This is the treatment of clothing with a steam generator. Hot air directed directly at them kills bedbugs and their eggs. It is necessary to process things from all sides, in seams, folds. You need to process carefully, without missing any space for processing.

Exposure to steam or frost is detrimental to insects, but it is important to remember that not all fabrics can withstand treatment with hot air. They can fade, become deformed, and decrease in size.

If it is not possible to freeze or heat the item, you can take it to the dry cleaner, but warn that it may contain bedbugs.

Citizens living nearby

There are a lot of apartments in the high-rise building, and there are also a lot of people. There is a high probability that after pestering the premises by your neighbors, the bedbugs will move to your place. Insecticides irritate their receptors, insects take an easily justifiable flight.

It is important to maintain friendly relations with your neighbors. Greeting with a sincere smile when meeting is an integral attribute of mutual predisposition

And from here follow periodic discussions of the children’s progress at school, shared gatherings in the kitchen with tea and cigarettes, and conversations about bedbugs.

A normal attitude acts as a catalyst that opens access to relevant information. The more good-natured the communication, the more complete the verbally described pictures. Ask on occasion if your neighbors have been killing bedbugs for an hour, and everything will immediately become clear.