subject: I Keep My House Clean! Why Do I Have To Worry About Exterminating Bed Bugs? [print this page] Exterminating bed bugs is newsworthyExterminating bed bugs is newsworthy. A recent article in the New York Times reports that bed bug infestations have been on the rise in homes, apartments, hotel rooms, hospitals and dormitories in the United States. The article says that "international travel, immigration, changes in pest control practices, and insecticide resistance" have ganged up to create "a resurgence in developed countries," including the United States. In San Francisco alone the number of reported infestations doubled in one year. We will never know how many infestations were not reported to public health services.
Bed bugs are small. About the size of a caraway seed. They can crawl through the tiniest crevices between rooms and aprtments and hide and breed in any crease or corner. They feed soley on the blood of warm-blooded creations, including your children who are sleeping completely unaware of what is going on in the darkness of their room.
Bed bugs only need one feeding to lay eggs and progress to the next stage of development. Adults can go for months between feedings. If anybody in your family has visited an infested house or apartment, or stayed in a hotel recently, or had an article of clothing come in contact with an infested area the bed bugs could have gotten a free ride to your house without anybody being the wiser.
If your family members are waking up with insect bites that look like mosquito bites, or if you see tiny blood stains on the bedding in the morning then you may have a bed bug infestation.
The transmission of more than 40 human diseases has been attributed to bed bugs according to a report published in 2009 by the The Journal of the American Medical Association. The good news in the report is that medical evidence of transmissions is not unambiguous. The bad news is that even if bed bugs don't spread AIDS or hepatitis, they still cause feelings of disgust and shame. You are responsible for your family's safety and now that you know about the danger you can take care of it. This problem is too big too ignore - and you won't.
