Where Are Holiday Bed Bugs?

There are some things we love around the holidays: festive lights twinkling and glowing on porches and inside windows, decorations strung up everywhere, the smiling faces of visiting friends and family, the smell of pie cooking in the oven, eating pie, making pie, anything to do with pie. The holiday season is filled with wonderful treats… especially, pie.

If you were to make a list of all the things you love about the holidays, what would be on your list? Would the turning of leaves and vibrant colors of fall be on your list? How about Grandma's famous lasagna? There is a lot to love about the holidays, for me, as you can see, its pie! But, with the holidays comes something that none of us love: the threat of bed bugs.

For a hitchhiking bug, the holidays are the best time of year to spread. For us, knowing where these bugs hide can help us protect ourselves from a potential infestation. Here are some of the places you can find holiday bed bugs.

• Beds. This one is the most obvious. But, do you know how to detect bed bugs in a bed? If you know the signs, you can protect yourself. Look for black residue in seams and around corners. Look for shed insect skins and the little rust-colored bugs themselves. Inspect sheets for blood stains, black smears from excrement, and brown stains from urine.

• Upholstered furniture. Bed bugs don't just live in beds, as the name might suggest, they are quite often found in furniture. The most obvious furniture are chairs and couches at hotels, motels and resorts, but these bugs can be found in other upholstered items, such as the seats in taxis, buses, trains, planes, and boats. When traveling, always be on the lookout for excrement, blood stains, shed skins and these oval-shaped bugs.

• Electronics. Bed bugs love alarm clocks, wall sockets, televisions, laptop computers and other electronic devices. If they are hiding in these things, you may find black excrement trails on the surface of these items.

• Bags. Bed bugs travel inside luggage, pocket books, boxes, and other items we carry things in. Always check these items closely, especially in seams, to make sure you don't have bugs or white eggs hidden inside. Bed bug eggs do not need the mother to hatch, which means an infestation can start from an unattended group of eggs in the seam of a piece of luggage.

• Clothing. Sometimes those female bed bugs will put their eggs in clothing. When returning from a trip, you should always wash and dry your clothing on the hottest temperature.

There is one other place bed bugs can be hiding, especially if you've traveled recently: They could be hiding inside your home. If you want to know whether or not your home has been infested this holidays season, before you start seeing the signs and getting bitten by these blood-eating bugs, give American Pest a call. With our K-9 bed bug detection, we can help you find these bugs before they become a nightmare this holiday season, or any time. The holidays are for pie--and other fun stuff, not dealing with these bugs!