Myth 6: Bedbugs prefer unsanitary, urban conditions
#Pictures of bed bugs movie
"They should also be called pet bugs and suitcase bugs and train bugs and movie theater bugs." Bedbugs spread away from beds into living areas and can be seen on any surface, he says, including chairs, railings and ceilings. "'Bedbug' is such a misnomer," Kells says. Myth 5: Bedbugs live exclusively in mattresses Keeping a light on, then, unfortunately does not keep these tiny vampires away. "If you go away to visit a friend for a week and you come back and sit down on the couch, even though it's daytime the bedbugs will come looking for you," Schal says. But because they are cold-blooded, their metabolism will slow down in chillier climates, and the insects may live up to a year without feeding.Īlthough bedbugs are generally nocturnal, they're like humans-if they're hungry, they'll get up and get something to eat. Scientists debate this point, but evidence suggests that at normal room temperature, about 23 degrees Celsius, bedbugs can only survive two to three months without a blood meal. Myth 3: Bedbugs can typically live a year without a meal Each bedbug egg takes 10 days to hatch and another five to six weeks for the offspring to develop into an adult. On their own, bedbugs crawl about a meter a minute, he says.Ĭompared with other insects, bedbugs are slow to reproduce: Each adult female produces about one egg per day a common housefly lays 500 eggs over three to four days. That is unless you put a blow dryer behind them, says Stephen Kells, a bedbug researcher at the University of Minnesota. Straight from the experts, here are the facts behind some of the most notorious myths about the diminutive bloodsuckers.īedbugs lack wings, and therefore cannot fly. Spreading rapidly with the bedbugs is a mass of misinformation about their biology and behavior. "It's just the beginning of the problem in the U.S.," Schal says. And because bedbugs are indoor pests, there are no high or low seasons throughout the year, he adds, only continual bombardment. Health authorities and pest control operators are regularly flooded with calls, and the epidemic may not have yet peaked. "By every metric that we use, it's getting worse and worse," says Coby Schal, an entomologist at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. This revival may be the worst yet, experts say, due to densely populated urban areas, global travel and increasing pesticide resistance-something to consider as the summer travel season gets underway. In the past 10 years, however, the pests have staged a comeback worldwide-an outbreak after the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney was a harbinger of things to come. prior to World War II, bedbugs all but vanished during the 1940s and '50s thanks to improvements in hygiene and the use of pesticides. Cimex lectularius-small, flattened insects that feed solely on mammalian and avian blood-have been living with humans since ancient times. Once a pest of the past, bedbugs now infest every state in the U.S.
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