Bed bugs can be very ingenious. You can check the underside of your mattress if you suspect bed bugs are infesting your house. Their main survival tactic is to remain unnoticed despite their common infestation areas. Nonetheless, you will always come across stains, waste bits, eggs, or even a bed bug on the areas they have infested. You should check for their presence if you find red or puffy bite marks on your skin, especially in your armpits, legs, or arms.
- Eggs
Bed bugs lay very tiny, rice-shaped eggs and are grey or translucent in color. They are challenging to see and may be mistaken for scraps of dirt. If the eggs are laid on a piece of fabric, they are clingy or sticky to their surface.
In this regard, you should check for their traces on the underside of the mattress, on the corners, or on each side of the bed. They might hide uncommonly on the headboard or nightstands, which you should consider checking too.
- Blood Stains
Bed bugs feed by sucking blood. As they are detaching, they may lose some of that blood. While rolling on your sides while you sleep, you could crush some bed bugs through which traces of blood can be left. Depending on the mode of leaving the blood stains, their shapes could be spot shapes or stripes.
To be sure of bed bugs, check for similar stains at the corners, foot areas, or corners of the bed.
- Dark Stains
The waste of bed bugs is dark and greasy. You can find waste on bedsheets, fabrics, or the floor from which they live. You can notice the presence of their waste in relatively large amounts in areas where they spend most of their time.
It would be best to look for little, dark, and “tarnished” stains at the foot area or corners of your bed for the presence of bed bugs. The texture of the stains feels greasy or dry. If you find bloodstains alongside other traces, you should be sure of the presence of bed bugs.
- Bites
The most evident and noticeable sign of bed bugs is biting, which is often mistaken for mosquito bites. The bites on your skin may or may not feel itchy. For bed bugs, you should look for tiny, puffy ones with a darker red at the center, which becomes lighter as it spreads outward.
It would help if you looked for bed bugs’ bite marks on the exposed areas of your skin when sleeping. Look for bite marks on your armpit, wrists, hands, neck, face, and thighs.
- Shed Skin
Growing bed bugs shed their skin after every feeding period, which amounts to five times before maturity. You should check for translucent, dry, flaky, and easy-to-crumble skin traces. You can find the shaded skin on the underside or corners of the bed, close to where other traces are found.
- Musty Odors
Bed bugs secrete hormones that have a musty smell resembling dirty clothes that mark their hiding area. You should check the presence of bed bugs in areas where the musty stench is more powerful. You can find this trace, as well as other signs, can be found in the corners, sides, and bottom areas of the bed.