Female bedbugs can lay up to five eggs in a day and 500 during a lifetime. The eggs are visible to the naked eye measuring 1mm in length (approx. 2 grains of salt) and are a milky-white tone in color. A few bedbug species make use of a mating plug, secreted by the male upon withdrawal after copulation, effectively gluing shut the vaginal opening of the female against later males. Among such species, the male impales the female via her abdomen, thus circumventing a mating plug.

Infestations – Method of initial infestation
There are several means by which dwellings can become infested with bedbugs. People can often acquire bedbugs at hotels, motels, and bed-and-breakfasts, thanks to increased domestic and international tourism, and bring them back to their primary domiciles in their luggage. They also can pick them up by bringing home infested furniture, mattresses, or used clothing. Bedbugs may travel between units in multi-unit dwellings. This spread between units is dependent in part on the degree of infestation, on the material used to partition units (concrete is a more effective barrier to the spread of the infestation), and whether or not infested items are dragged through common areas while being disposed of, resulting in the shedding of bedbugs and bedbug eggs while being dragged.

Bedbugs are flat, allowing them to hide in tiny crevices. A crack wide enough to fit the edge of a credit card can harbor bedbugs. In the daytime, they tend to stay hidden in such places as mattress seams, mattress interiors, bed frames, nearby furniture, carpeting, baseboards, or bedroom clutter. Bedbugs are capable of traveling as far as 100 feet to feed, but usually remain close to the host in bedrooms or on sofas where people sleep. They feed every five to 10 days.

Detection of infestations
There has been a spate of infestations in New York City hotels, leading to many online bedbug registries purporting to list recent bedbug hotspots. The presence of the little critters has prodded the media out of their somnolence, since they are not sleeping well these days in NYC hotels. News programs and talk shows have regular bed bug segments these days.

The same unfortunate situation has also engulfed many college dormitories and administration buildings all over the country. It is thought students’ habit of scavenging used furniture has a lot to do with the spread, and their transference of the bugs to private residences. Bed bugs have been found in hospital maternity wards, private schools, even doctor’s waiting rooms! [3]

Bed bugs have also been cited for infestations at many public and University libraries across the United States. It seems the lil buggers like to hide in the books after the person reading in bed falls asleep, and travel to and from the library in the spine or other hiding places in the book itself [5]. The Denver Public library was forced to ban one user over his continuing return of materials that had been infested by bed bugs. The cost to the library was cited at over $12,000 for decontamination and replacement of materials that had to be destroyed [6].

Bed bugs can be detected often by looking for dark fecal stains on bedding. Occasionally an engorged bedbug is killed or crushed, resulting in a visible smear of blood and a sickly-sweet odor. Though bedbug bites can occur singly, they often follow a distinctive pattern of a linear group of three bites, often humorously term “breakfast, lunch and dinner” by those victimized.

The effect of these bites varies from person to person, but often cause welts and swelling that are more itchy and longer-lasting than mosquito bites. Others have little or no reaction to bedbug bites. Those whose bodies do not initially react may subsequently develop symptoms, however, due to an allergic reaction caused by the development of antigens.

With the widespread use of DDT in the 1940s and ’50s, bedbugs all but disappeared from North America in the mid-twentieth century. Infestations remained common in many other parts of the world, however, and in recent years have begun to rebound in North America.

Bed Bug Control
Most pest control professionals require the space be be prepared by residents prior to their arrival for a chemical treatment. If an apartment is not properly prepared, the coverage of pesticides and/or chemical treatment will be impaired. All furniture and appliances in the dwelling usually need to be pulled away from the baseboards [1].

An informal survey of pest control professionals conducted by a pest control professor at the University of Massachusetts stated that 68% of all bedbug infestations require three or more treatments, 26% require two treatments, and 6% require just one.