How does bed bugs spread

That being said, clutter does make it easier for these insects to hide, which may fuel such misconceptions. Their ideal environment is warm and provides them with access to a human blood meal. Given those conditions, you may be wondering how fast bed bugs spread?

Let's look at some of their travel habits and what you need to know about how quickly they can make themselves at home. Bed bugs spread so easily and so quickly, that the University of Kentucky's entomology department notes that "it often seems that bed bugs arise from nowhere. Bed bugs don't have wings, but they spread quickly by hitchhiking and are agile and fast-moving once they're in your home.

Typically, you pick up one or more of these unwanted hitchhikers when you visit a home or hotel that already has a bed bug infestation. The bed bugs hide themselves in your clothing, luggage, furniture and other items, and you inadvertently introduce them to your own house when you return home. Bed are typically only found within about 8 feet of a person's resting space.

However, what's more concerning is the distance that bed bugs spread from one infestation site to another. This distance is almost limitless due to the ability of bed bugs to survive without food for extended periods of time. Research shows that adult bed bugs can survive for over a year without food.

This means that the pests can hide on furniture, used items, clothing, footwear, luggage and other materials you've brought. They can then wait until they've traveled great distances, only to be unpacked and brought into a new home with a fresh supply of food i. Ultimately, it can take mere minutes to travel from room-to-room, with infestations growing in a matter of weeks or months.

Every day, bed bugs can lay between one and 12 eggs, and anywhere from to eggs in a lifetim e. Those numbers should speak for themselves if you're wondering how long it takes to get an infestation of bed bugs and how quickly those bed bugs can spread. It doesn't take long for a problem to grow out of control, so the sooner you contact a pest control professional for inspection and treatment, the better off you'll be. Bed bugs need to take blood meals from warm-blooded hosts — preferably humans — to survive, and they'll hide near their sources until ready to feed.

They can also move throughout the house in search of other hosts. If the conditions are favorable, they'll continue breeding wherever the item or items is moved. The rate of how quickly bed bugs spread from house-to-house increases the more time you spend traveling or inviting people over to your home. About the size of an apple seed, bedbugs hide in the cracks and crevices of beds, box springs, headboards, bed frames and any other objects around a bed.

The risk of encountering bedbugs increases if you spend time in places with high turnovers of nighttime guests — such as hotels, hospitals or homeless shelters. It can be difficult to tell bedbug bites from other types of insect bites.

However, they are typically itchy, and they may appear clustered or lined up in rough rows. It can be difficult to distinguish bedbug bites from other insect bites or rashes. In general, the sites of bedbug bites usually are:. Some people have no reaction to bedbug bites, while others experience an allergic reaction that can include severe itching, blisters or hives. If you experience allergic reactions or severe skin reactions to bedbug bites, see your doctor for professional treatment.

Bedbug infestations usually occur around or near where people sleep. They hide in the cracks and crevices of:. Catching bed bugs at this stage is beneficial, as things start to get out of hand by the end of the third month. The bed bug population explodes during the third month of infestation. By now the colony has grown to over breeding adults, 1,s of developing nymphs, and eggs.

In addition, some of the adult bed bugs will start to migrate to other rooms within the home, since they can survive for several months without a meal. If left to continue to grow and expand, the bed bug colony starts to turn into a major infestation. Within six months of introducing the original pregnant female bed bug into the home, you could be facing infestations in every room of the home. Populations by this point will have soared to well over 8, breeding adults, ,s of developing nymphs, and 50,, eggs waiting to hatch.

Knowing how bed bugs spread and populate new areas, you can clearly see why prevention and early detection are vital to keep your home or business bed bug free. So if you notice a bed bug infestation in one room of your house, if left untreated they are likely to spread to other bedrooms, living rooms, and other rooms in your house.

At peak speed, bed bugs can move as fast as 4 feet per minute. Realistically, bed bugs can easily travel as much as feet or more in just one hour. Female bed bugs typically lay an average of one egg per day, although they can lay as many as eggs in a single day at their peak.

It takes only days for an egg to hatch, and a bed bug is able to reproduce about 6 weeks after hatching. And most bed bugs live approximately months.