Pest Identification: Bed Bugs

Ants or beetles may be frustrating to find in your Tennessee home or business, but bed bugs stand apart from the crowd when it comes to the number of issues they can cause when they invade. From inflicting painful, itchy bites while they feed blood to destroying hotels’ reputations, bed bugs can quickly become a serious problem.

Additionally, bed bugs’ ability to reproduce rapidly makes it almost impossible to get rid of bed bugs without the help of pest professionals. That’s why it’s crucial to send these unwanted visitors packing as soon as possible. Learn how to identify these bloodsucking pests below, and contact U.S. Pest Protection to eliminate them swiftly.

Characteristics of Bed Bugs

Bed bugs are tiny, measuring only 5-7 millimeters in length (roughly the size of an apple seed). They’re even smaller in their younger nymph stages, which often allows them to go unnoticed until they’ve infested your space.

Additionally, bed bugs are reddish-brown in color and are often mistaken for fleas, carpet beetles, and even ticks. Other bed bug characteristics include:

Flat, oval-shaped bodies (unfed)
Unpleasant, musty-sweet odor
Yellow-ish white coloring when young

When they’re unfed, bed bugs are wide and flat, which makes them more visible to the naked eye. Once they’ve consumed blood, however, their bodies fill like water balloons, becoming longer, rounder, and more difficult to identify. If you’re concerned about the identity of any pest you’ve found in your home, bring in U.S. Pest Protection’s experts.

How to Identify Bed Bug Bites

It’s common to find bed bug bites before you catch the actual pests. Unlike fleas or other bloodsucking pests, bed bugs cannot transmit harmful diseases to humans. Nonetheless, their bites are itchy, are painful, and may trigger allergic reactions, such as hives and anaphylaxis.

Bed bugs feed on exposed skin while you sleep and bite several times in one area. The bite sites are painless at first but eventually develop into red, irritated welts. If you find clusters or lines of bites on your body, contact pest professionals immediately.

Where to Find Bed Bugs

Due to their small size, bed bugs are often difficult to find without a trained eye, but they love to invade several common areas. Places to check for bed bugs include:

Bed frames
Headboards
Under or around mattresses
Under pillows
Around electrical outlets

In addition to the actual bed bugs, keep an eye out for rust-colored, pen-mark-sized spots on your mattress or pillow. These stains are caused by bed bugs being crushed or leaving waste while you sleep.

Banish Bed Bugs with U.S. Pest Protection

At U.S. Pest Protection, we believe residents and business owners throughout Tennessee deserve peace of mind and protection from bed bugs and other unpleasant pests. While other pest control providers offer expensive, damaging heat treatments for bed bug infestations, our trained professionals go the extra mile with targeted, efficient solutions.

When you choose U.S. Pest Protection’s team to get rid of bed bugs, we’ll use a combination of effective control and preventative measures to root out the source of your issue, including:

Applying dust aerosol around areas where bed bugs travel
Treating mattresses with liquid aerosols
Sealing mattresses with bed bug-proof covers
Free monthly bed bug inspections after service

We want you to feel safe in your home or business. If we find bed bugs in your space after our treatment services, we’ll gladly take care of them, free of charge.

Don’t let bed bugs make themselves at home—schedule your free bed bug inspection and have peace of mind with reliable pest protection today!

Pest Protection

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At U.S. Pest Protection, we protect what matters most. That could be your family, your home, your business, your pets - anything. Our professionals are trained and certified pest control technicians that have the knowledge & experience to protect what matters most for our customers. Ask about a FREE inspection today.

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