Sleep Tight...

Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite

Once upon a time, that was my favourite saying before going to bed. I used to say it to my mother just about every night as a kid, never suspecting that a bed bug wasn't actually the equivalent of a bed mite.

Well, just for the record, please allow me to clarify that a bed BUG and a bed MITE are extremely different entities. A bed BUG is not only very visible to the naked eye, but is a messy, nasty little creature. While mites tend to add about ten pounds to your mattress every year while they reproduce like bunnies and leave feces all over the place, a bed bug will leave very large feces behind, as well as fairly large red stains on your pillows, mattress, and sheets. Bed bugs also leave a pretty gross red smear when squished.
What is the red smear?

Take a deep breath...

It's your blood.
Yes, indeed, they feed off your blood, but not like a mosquito. Bed bugs will often line up down your vein and push their little beaks in, injecting saliva while sucking blood. The saliva can cause massive swelling and itching at the site of the bite. It is also a signature of the bed bugs to leave several bites in one location.
In my own personal experience, I had over seventy bites on my body within the first week of infestation. It was horrible, and I looked like I had chicken pox on my belly and legs.

For me, these disgusting bugs came from a set of night stands that I bought from an infested elderly couple (whom I did not know was infested, of course). The bugs started off as tiny little white movements in the bottom of the drawer, and then grew and evolved into fair-sized, red vampires. Insomnia became my best friend, as the bugs only come out at night when all is dark.
Over a month and two exterminations later, I am still finding pockets of these rapidly reproducing, sick little monsters.

The countdown begins for being bug free!