Iron Curtain Exterminators Are New York City’s and New Jersey’s Board Certified Bed Bugs Specialists

Our Bed Bug services are eco-friendly And include 
Bed Bug Certified Mattress Covers, Bed Bug Intercepters, Hepa-Vacuum, Steam Treatment and Dust Treatment.
 

Adult bed bugs are reddish-brown but become”blood red” after feeding. There body is flattened, oval, and wingless, with microscopic hairs. Adult’s are 1/5 inch long which allows them to crawl into narrow cracks. Newly hatched nymphs are translucent, lighter in color and become browner as they moult and reach maturity. Bed bugs can live for a year or eighteen months without feeding, they normally try to feed every five to ten days. Bed bugs that go dormant for lack of food often live longer than a year, while well-fed specimens typically live six to nine months. Low infestations may be difficult to detect, and it is not unusual for the victim not to even realize they have bed bugs early on. Patterns of bites in a row or a cluster are typical as they may be disturbed while feeding. Bites may be found in a variety of places on the body.

Feeding habits

Bed bugs are normally active just before dawn, with a peak feeding period about an hour before sunrise. However, they may attempt to feed at other times, given the opportunity, and have been observed to feed at any time of the day. They reach their host by crawling, or sometimes climb the walls to the ceiling and drop down on feeling a heat wave. Attracted by warmth and the presence of carbon dioxide, the bug pierces the skin of its host with two hollow tubes. With one tube it injects its saliva, which contains anticoagulants and anesthetics, while with the other it withdraws the blood of its host. After feeding for about five minutes, the bug returns to its hiding place. The bites cannot usually be felt until some minutes or hours later, as a dermatological reaction to the injected agents, and the first indication of a bite usually comes from the desire to scratch the bite site. Because of their natural aversion for sunlight, bedbugs come out at night.

Reproduction

Females bed bugs lay between 300-500 eggs during its lifetime and adult females typically deposit up to 5 eggs per day depositing them in a wide variety of locations witch hatch approximately 7-10 days after being deposited. All Bed bugs shed skin in the process of growing to maturity. Bed bugs reach maturity in about five weeks.

Bites

In most observed cases, bites consist of a raised red bump or flat welt, and are often accompanied by very intense itching. The red bump or welts are the result of an allergic reaction to the anesthetic contained in the bedbug’s saliva, which is inserted into the blood of its victim. Bed bug bites may appear indistinguishable from mosquito bites, though they tend to last for longer periods.

Bites may not become immediately visible, and can take up to nine days to appear. Bed bug bites tend to not have a red dot in the center such as is characteristic of flea bites. A trait shared with flea bites, however, is tendency towards arrangements of sequential bites. Bites are often aligned three in a row, giving rise to the colloquialism “fleas bite in threes.” This may be caused by the bed bug being disturbed while eating, and relocating half an inch or so farther along the skin before resuming feeding. Alternatively, the arrangement of bites may be caused by the bed bug repeatedly searching for a blood vein. People react very differently to bed bugs, and individual responses vary with factors including skin type, environment, and the species of bug. In some rare cases, allergic reactions to the bites may cause nausea and illness. In a large number of cases, estimated to 50% of all people, there is no visible sign of bites whatsoever, greatly increasing the difficulty of identifying and eradicating infestations. People commonly respond to bed bug infestations and their bites with anxiety, stress, and insomnia.

Individuals may also get skin infections and scars from scratching the bedbug bite locations.Most patients who are placed on systemic corticosteroids to treat the itching and burning often associated with bed bug bites find that the lesions are poorly responsive to this method of treatment. Antihistamines have been found to reduce itching in some cases, but they do not affect the appearance and duration of the lesions. Topical corticosteroids, such as hydrocortisone, have been reported to expediently resolve the lesions and decrease the associated itching.

Many patients also experience temporary relief of itching and inflammation with the application of hot water to the bite.The water should be quite hot (about 50 °C / 120 °F) because if it is not hot enough it may cause aggravation of the symptoms. The water should be hot enough to cause minor discomfort, but care must be taken not to burn the skin and this treatment should only be self-administered in order to reduce irritation. Itching and inflammation can be relieved for several hours by applying hot running water, a hot washcloth, or even using a blowdryer to heat the area of the bite, for 10 seconds to 1 minute (or longer if desired). There is disagreement as to why heat causes the symptoms to abate. Some hypotheses propose that heat overwhelms the nerve endings that signal itch, that heat neutralizes the chemical that causes the inflammation, or that heat triggers a large release of histamine causing a temporary histamine deficit in the area.