A bedbug (or bed bug) is a small nocturnal insect of the family Cimicidae that lives by hematophagy, or by feeding on the blood of humans and other warm-blooded hosts. Now, what that means in English is that you don't want to have these things around when your sleeping.
Bedbugs are increasingly showing up in homes, apartments, hotels, dorms, shelters, and vehicles throughout the U.S. They hitch rides in luggage, boxes, shoes, and other mobile objects, and are capable of traveling as far as 100 feet to feed, but usually remain close to the host in bedrooms. These wiley creatures can and are found on their own, but more often congregate in groups. They are small, even tiny, insects (it can be hard to even notice them during the day) that live on our blood. It's hard to imagine that they range in size from about the size of a pin head up to a quarter inch across.
Here are a few interesting facts about bed bugs:
They cannot fly
They are not easily visible because of their small size
Bed bugs hide during the day
They are not know to spread disease to people
Their bites cause itching which, when scratched enough, can cause breaks in the skin and possible infection
A bed bug is flat and thin when unfed, however, it becomes more elongated, plump, and red when it is full of blood
One of the reasons they can be so prevalent in a given area is that they reproduce at an impressive rate: Females lay anywhere from one to twelve eggs every day, depositing them in cracks, crevices, and other secluded areas near and around the places where humans sleep. Not surprisingly, they are frequently found in hotels, hostels, shelters, and apartment complexes where lots of people come and go. Because bedbugs hide in small crevices, they can hitch a ride into your home on luggage, pets, furniture, clothing, boxes, and other objects.
Bedbug bites occur while were sleeping. Being active generally only at dawn, with a peak attack period about an hour before dawn (yea, that's right when we're sleeping most soundly), they are naturally drawn to warmth and will pierce the skin of its host with two hollow tubes where they then extract a small amount of your blood.
As horrific as these creatures sound, it is possible to get rid of them and free your sleeping area of these unwelcome visitors.
