- Bed bugs can live more than a year without eating.
- Bed bugs draw blood for about 5 minutes before retreating to digest.
- Bed bugs can withstand a wide range of temperatures from nearly freezing to almost 113 degrees Fahrenheit.
- A bed bug is brown before it feeds and afterwards turns reddish-brown.
- Bed bugs can ingest seven times their own weight in blood, which would be the equivalent of an average-sized male drinking 120 gallons of liquid.
- Bed bug hatchlings are so small they can pass through a stitch-hole in a mattress.
- It doesn’t matter if a room is dirty or clean. Bed bugs only care about a dark hole to hide in and access to humans.
- Because bed bug bites are painless, people often don’t even notice there’s a problem until the infestation is large.
- 11% of women homeowners believe bed bugs are a threat to their families’ health.
- 70% of homeowners view bed bugs as a nuisance pest, while 20% term them a disease threat.
- Bed bugs leave a cluster line of itchy bites.
- There has been a 500% increase in bed bug infestations reported since 1999
- In 2000, 59.4% of surveyed pest professionals received no bed bug calls. In 2004, 67.1% reported receiving bed bug calls. That’s a 63.6% increase!
- Only 12% of homeowners surveyed say they are concerned about bed bugs.
- Pest control companies have had the most bed bug calls in cities (52.3%), vacation spots/resorts (13.4%), rural areas (3.4%), suburban areas (14.8%) and other locations (16.1%), which could be anything from movie theatres to airplanes.
- According to calls received by professional pest control companies, bed bugs are found in apartments (23%), single family dwellings (21.6%), hotels/motels (37.2%), college dormitories (2%), and other locations (16.2%).
- A majority of pest control companies believe that bed bugs have made a comeback because of increased international travel (56.7%) and new targeted treatment methods employed by pest control companies (25.1%).
- To prevent bed bugs from entering your home, experts advise vacuuming suitcases and washing clothes in hot water after returning from a vacation where you’ve seen signs of the pests.
- In addition to being found in beds, bed bugs can also be found in carpets, under wallpaper, behind baseboards, and in small cracks and crevices throughout a room.