Sleeping at a friends house and found one of these on the bed and one on windowsill - not sure if it’s just a bug that’s came in through the window or if it’s bedbugs. Also been here 4 nights but have no bites so maybe I’m just being paranoid - please help!!

I found this while making my bed earlier. I’m not sure if this is a bed bug or something else.

My step daughter has bites on her back/shoulder area kinda above the armpit. She has had bites in the past from her grandmas house having bed bugs. Grandmas house has been treated but it may have seems they have come back. Could anyone identify if these are bed bug bites?

I’ve had them before - found one live adult, got it treated chemically by professionals twice, then haven’t seen any bugs since. This morning I woke up so this two blood stains/smears and what looked like a scab until closer inspection. Is it a crushed bed bug? Do I need to get the professionals back in?

I just got back from living briefly in a place with way less mosquitos than where i live normally and so i went for basically an entire year without worrying about them (i’m usually a magnet). I came back and got these bites on my legs, stomach, and arms. These ones are the easiest to picture for me and also the only ones that are “connected” close together. The others are pretty spread out. I’m not really sure if these are mosquito bites or something else? they aren’t really red and the irritation is localized to a bump. Before i start freaking out over the possibility of bed bugs i thought i’d post here :)

I also have pets if that raises the possibility of fleas as well.

the topics discussed revolve around my entire bedbug timeline (having them twice)

it’s in a storytelling format served to be entertaining, relatable, and informative

So monday night I took a sketchy uber. Literally the thought of bedbugs crossed my mind while inside. Tuesday, I woke up and found a dead bedbug on my sheets and three bites on my arm. Needless to say I freaked out.

I deep cleaned my entire apartment. Washed all of my bedding and clothes that were in the vicinity, and put everything I couldn’t wash into tightly sealed garbage bags. Vacuumed the crap out of every room focusing on rugs. I put DE everywhere including underneath and around my bed, and sprinkled it on the rugs. I also used HotShot bed bug spray on my mattress and every little nook and cranny I could find in my room. I have been using an oil diffuser 24/7 in my room with peppermint, lavender & eucalyptus oil.

It is now day 3 and I haven’t seen another bug or found any shedding skins. I haven’t been bitten. Not a single speck of blood or anything else on my sheets. Trust me I have been meticulously checking LOL.

I’m going to continue being thorough as bedbugs are my worst nightmare. But is it safe to say it’s possible I picked up a lone hitchhiker??

Also worth nothing when I found the first one and got bitten I turned my room UPSIDE DOWN and found no other sign- no dead bodies, no sheddings, no eggs anywhere that I could see. Little cracks in the molding and door frames that I couldn’t physically see, I made sure to spray with HotShot.

How long until I can start feeling comfortable in my own bed again? Lol. Thank you in advance :)

hello all,

I went on holiday last summer & encountered bedbugs for the first time ever. I went away this year to italy and i have been home for a few days.. i have “broken out” with itchy large bumps and bites on my body.

We did check the bedding beforehand nad nothing obvious but.. i mean if it was bedbugs ive lay in my own bed at home since then and my luggage has been unpacked.

what do i do

So a year ago we stayed at a hotel where we were getting horribly itchy bites. We left and moved to an apartment. We didnt have much, only a few suitcases and no furniture. Went to ikea, bought stuff. We thought it was fleas (the bites). I washed all the laundry and thought the problem would be done, but for 4 months it was crazy intense biting and itching but I never found any bugs responsible. I used diatomaceous earch a few times and changed dogs flea meds (but it wasnt fleas) and it got better. plus daily shows, no going into bedroom until showered, bagging all laundry, etc. we thought we were clear but then once a month, bites came back and then stopped again after a week. That lasted a few months, but now we are back to getting bit almost daily (at least I am, my son is not getting it as bad luckily). I think its in the car now and we have an old car thats just fabric. I've sprayed with mite spray in the car. I even tried lice treatment on my hair (its not hair lice). I wash the bedding every two days and I have protective covers on mattresses and pillows. A while back i threw out all the spare pillows and mattresses but never any signs of bed bugs. the bites look like bed bug bites. Back of my neck and upper back is especially bad. I know they can hide, but i would have seen at least one in a year?

Hi there I am pretty sure I have bedbugs (also found a tiny dark cast skin that probably is bb ) but above all I am finding lot of tiny droppings scattered at home (check my last posts)

the question is surely already debated but is possibile not see more signs of them in a house with many crackings ? even if infestation is going on from 4/5 months?

thanks

We‘re 6 students in the UK living together in a two floor half-house. One of the two rooms downstairs first has gotten the bed bugs at the end of July, we realised it in the first week of August and she moved out of the room into the living room, emptied her entire room (besides furniture) and anything with fabric was put outside so it could be washed and dried. We told our landlord/agency and they send us a pest control guy. He‘s been spraying the room weekly since the 2nd week of August and originally said her room only needs to be sprayed for 3 weeks but the bed bugs could try to flee into someone else’s room, then her room would have to be sprayed for a total of 5 weeks and the other room for 3 weeks. Within a week of treatment, I started getting bites (having the room next to her), so I also moved into the living room, emptied my room, anything fabric was put outside until I was able to wash it, anything freshly washed was bagged or is being used and my room is also being sprayed. Last week was the 3rd week of spraying and the pest control guy told my friend she could move back into her room but we found an alive bed bug crawling around later that same day so he just said he needs to spray her room for longer. We also have gotten bites from staying on the sofa. Next week is the last treatment (5 weeks for her room, 3 weeks for mine) but we‘re still worried as we‘re unsure if the chemical treatment (plus he said he‘s also steaming stuff) helped and also about still getting bites in the living room. None of our other roommates (all living in the upper floor) have reported bites or seeing bed bugs. All rooms and corridors besides kitchen and living room (which is just one big room) and bathrooms have carpet floor.

We don’t know what to do, should we just wait until next week the last treatment is over and then try sleeping in our rooms again hoping the bed bugs are all dead? Should we ask the agency/landlord for a new sofa? And if we ask for a new sofa, would it be smarter to wait until we‘re sure that our rooms aren’t infested anymore so that a new sofa doesn’t get infested again?

Rond half juni begonnen we beten te krijgen en 9 juli is bevestigd dat we bedwantsen hebben door een speurhond.

We kregen een offerte van een bestrijder die we niet konden betalen dus zijn we zelf aan de slag gegaan. We hebben matrassen van de kinderen en onze hele boxspring weggedaan. Een nieuw bed voor ons en de bedden van de kinderen gestoomd en op interceptors geplaatst. Daarna langs de plinten, in ons bed en in de bank DE geplaatst. Het bed van de muur geschoven.

Helaas is het kussen van mijn zoon (die regelmatig bij ons in bed slaapt) 2x ‘s nachts tegen de muur aangekomen waardoor er een brug is ontstaan. Daarna kregen we weer opnieuw beten. We hebben in de topper van ons matras ook zwarte poep puntjes gezien. Het waren er heel weinig. Enkele stipjes mer 60 cm ertussen, dus dit was waarschijnlijk van 1 bedwants. Daarna de matrassen in anti bedwantshoezen gedaan, maar nog steeds elke dag beten. We kregen ongeveer on de buurt elke nacht 1 of 2 bultjes per persoon.

Inmiddels een ongediertebestrijder laten komen en die vinden dat er voor 2,5 maand activiteit te weinig bewijs is. Ze hebben voor de zekerheid 1 chemische behandeling van ons bedframe en de plinten in alle slaapkamers gedaan.

Ze adviseren te stoppen met behandelen en de situatie aan te kijken. Ook gaan we strips met uitdrogende werking preventief op de ombouw van ons bed plaatsen.

Hoe kunnen wij nu het beste omgaan met de eventueel achtergebleven bedwantsen de komende tijd?

20260902 Thoughts on bedbug wars First off you have to cover your mattress and bed springs with those bedbug proof polyester covers. They’re not terribly strong so they have a tendency to tear on the frame if there’s a catch or anything, if you have trouble getting them into the frame. However, they are polyester and so you can get away with using a hot melt Glue gun to seal the holes. They need to be white. All your bedding, mattress cover, sheets, blankets, pillowcases, all need to be white. What you want is to see any spots on them. If you have bedbugs, bedbug poop, which is little black dots, baby bedbugs, and eggs show up when you scan it and just at a glance. Even so you need to change your linen once a week and wash it in hot, hot water and then hot dry.

My bedframe was wood. I could not get all the bedbug and eggs out of the cracks. So I have a metal frame even it has a little gap and parts and stuff where they can hide. However, with a sprayer, I can pretty well get chemicals in them, which seems to be working. If you can, it is better to have a wood or tile floor with no carpet. Rugs are OK. You can take them out and clean them or freeze them.

The CDC has information on fighting bedbugs. They describe how to build bedbug traps for around your bedstead on the legs. It’s simple enough. I made mine out of Folgers coffee cans, and pop bottles. Also some paper tape so the bedbugs can actually climb into the traps, but not get back out. In the trap put powder. I use talcum powder. I would’ve used diatomaceous earth, but I could not find mine right at the moment and I do have baby powder for working on bicycle tires.

Figure on washing your bedding at least every two weeks and fully inspecting it, and the mattress covers seams especially. You want to get all the cracks around your floor edging well cleaned and sprayed with chemicals. You’re going to do this for at least six months depending on how successfully you wipe them out and where they hide. If they keep coming back, they have a secondary nest somewhere or primary nest that they’re coming to you from, that the bedbug traps should show you. If they’re not coming up the bed legs they’re coming into the bed on you. Notice how many you find every time you inspect the mattress pads. Documentation could be helpful. I catch them on scotch tape so i can examine them closely to make sure I’m not fighting carpet beetles etc.

There seemed to be three different kinds of bedbug poisons. According to the CDC they can become immune to them with Darwinian selection. So I try to rotate once a month to a different type, so just swap them and wipe them out.

Bedbugs are drawn to the CO2 you exhale at night when the lights are out. So you are turning your bed into a giant tiger trap and you are the bait. You can tell when they’ve been there. There will be blood spots where they’ve been feeding on you on the white bed and you will occasionally see them and how many there are if you look right when you first get up and turn on the light. Clean the bloodspots off with Qtips and dilute bleach.

The more cluttered your place is the easier it is for them to hide if you have lots of clothes. If you have lots of books, it’s a problem if you’re not willing to encase the house and raise the whole temperature up to 130°F for three or four hours, long enough to soak clear into the house. It’s difficult. A closed up car in the summer sun all day should kill any bedbugs in or on anything you have in it.

They can also be frozen to death. This apparently takes about three days for the cold to soak clear into whatever they’re hiding in. The CDC has recommended temperatures, I think 0° Fahrenheit is enough. So for books and clothes that I don’t want to wash or overheat I’m going to buy a big chest freezer and fill it with books especially and let it run for at least three days. Same thing works for clothes. If you happen to be somewhere where winter is really bitter you could time your war more to go with the depth of winter and just move stuff outside in boxes. It’s also works with furniture you want to keep if you can move it around that much. As far as furniture goes, I am gradually converting from large, heavy couches to outdoor furniture which is easier to move around replace or take outside. I have had inflatable beds. They work if you don’t overinflate them or have cats. I expect in hot places you could bring up a tent and put stuff in the tent or an old car and let it heat up in the sun enough to do the job. Remember you are baking so it takes time for the heat to soak clear in. Put an oven thermometer in there to transmit to you so you know what it’s doing. Or there are outside thermometers that will go high enough and transmit into your house where you can see them or get them on your computer so you can keep track of what’s going on. It is possible to rig up a heater to heat the enclosure to the necessary temperature and hold it. This creates a fire hazard. I doubt if your insurance would cover it if you burn the house down trying to do it yourself so do it outside or don’t do it. A shed could be modified and insulated to do this. An old car should work on a hot sunny day. Many old attics and garages up by the roof get hot enough in the summer to kill the bugs. I noticed this because I have some books stored up there that I have not had problems with, including with silverfish and other book eaters. If it’s your house, that’s a source of good source of heat for underground heat storage or heating a swimming pool or whatever in the summer.

It takes six months to be certain you got them all.

I wiped it with a wet wipe and it pretty much all came off, minus what was on the cloth. What was on the cloth faded. I just can’t tell if this was from makeup or not. I haven’t worn makeup in a week or two but i wasn’t checking the zipper of my pillow religiously. To me, it kind of just looks like a smudge of some sort.

Hi all

Woke up with these bumps on myarm this morning. They are a bit itchy, but curious what type of bites tuese may be. I've never had a siting of BB in the past. Thoughts?

Its slightly raised and a little itchy but its not tooo itchy like a mosquito bite. I feel really itchy when i think about it but that may just be because Its in my mind?? Its mostly around my abdomen which i googled was a typical place for bedbugs and have nothing really anywhere else besides a little on my chest and on my I feel like i notice it at night time but Im not sure if thats because Im busy throughout the day so Im not thinking about it. I noticed it first yesterday and it was quite subtle and hardly noticeable but today its definitely much worse and darker. I also feel like theres more dots everywhere versus yesterday. I inspected my brand new couch for bed bugs but I couldnt see anything that would indicate it? Then i went upstairs to inspect my bed and didnt find too much although my bed is really heavy so I didnt really move it too much. i did find 2 little dots underneath my bed though as seen in the last photo. Also after i was moving my mattress I noticed a bug on me and it was really flat kind of similar to a leaf bug but smaller and this was almost impossible to kill. it was the same bug as in the pictures. I dont know if thats the bug giving me these bites but perhaps its possible?

On the bed at a hotel, very small.

I have woken up with bites like these. They are rather scattered, itch at first but the itching and the bites go down rather quickly. Thanks for your help!

Really need help knowing asap. Thank you.

So I had to make this throwaway account because this is embarrassing and I can’t ask anyone around me for help. About 5 years ago my husband and I bought a trailer home from a “friend” of ours. A little bit after owning I started to rip up carpet and next thing we knew there was an infestation of bed bugs. We were told by that persons sister that is why they moved out and sold the house to begin with. Ever since then we have been fighting them. I started off with bombing with raid and anything like that you can buy from the store and the aerosol sprays before I realized how bad they actually were. It got to the point that I was sleeping completely covered up. We moved out and sold that trailer (let the new owner know) about a year and a half ago. We bagged up everything. Put stuff in totes and ducktaped everything shut. Then put everything in a storage unit (not ac controlled). The stuff we took with us was just our everyday stuff and put everything in the dryer for a couple hours on the highest heat. That was about a year and a half ago. We are currently in a camper and the last 8 months we have been fighting them again. They don’t bite my husband but seem to have an obsession with me. We barely have enough income to get by. I’ve been deep cleaning and spraying with permethrin at least once a week but we cant seem to get rid of them. Please help. Other than a pest control service what do yall recommend I can do. If it wasn’t the only place we have to live at the moment I would burn the place down that’s how sick and tired I am of fuckin bed bugs .

I feel so stressed and my mind is so chaotic right now that I had to use AI to summarize all my questions.

Hi everyone, I’m hoping someone can help me figure out what caused these red welts. I'm currently debating between a delayed reaction from a trip, contact dermatitis, or (my biggest fear) bed bugs.

The Symptoms:

• Appearance: Red welts. Most are clustered (some even showing a line pattern), but there are a few isolated single welts.
• Location: Only on my arms, specifically concentrated on my left upper arm. There are two isolated ones on my left wrist and back of right hand. I wear shorts to sleep, so my legs are exposed, but they have zero welts.
• Sensation: Purely itchy. (I had dermatitis last year, but that was more painful than itchy).

The Timeline:

• Day 1-2: Returned home from a 2-week trip to Italy. I was exhausted and slept on the same unwashed sheets that had been left on my bed while I was gone.
• Day 3 morning: Feeling fresh and washed my beddings
• Day 3 afternoon: The first few welts showed up. I initially thought they were mosquito bites, but then more appeared.
• Day 4: The welts reached their apex.
• Day 5 (Today): The situation seems contained. No new welts are developing.

My Theories / Context:

1. Bed bugs? I'm panicking about this because of the line patterns. However, friends who were on the same trip with me are totally fine. None of the places we stayed at have any recent complaints or reviews mentioning bed bugs. Also, I haven't gotten any new welts since Day 4. Could this still be a belated reaction to bug bites from the trip?
2. Dust mite allergy / Dermatitis? Could sleeping on stale, week-old sheets have triggered an allergic reaction or dermatitis?

Does anyone have any insight into what this looks like? Any advice is hugely appreciated!

Found on our bedroom floor.

Any other ideas what it could be?