Warning: Bed Bugs are Starving During Covid-19

Alas, we are in Stage 2 and are allowed to travel while social distancing. Hotels are making extra efforts to clean rooms and common areas but there is another danger lurking in the dark.

While we have all be in lockdown in our homes, bed bugs have been in lockdown in their hotel nests and hiding out in cracks and crevasses around the bed and night tables. They too have been in the house bored and singing The Little Mermaid song, “I want to know where the people are? See them dancing. Suck their blood.”

Bed Bugs are waiting with baited breath for your return. They have had nothing to eat for months and are ravenous. Bed bugs can live for up to a year without a blood meal as they go into a hibernating state to conserve energy as they wait patiently for someone to come for dinner. For a bed bug, your breath is like the smell of you morning coffee. The CO2 wakes them out of their dreamlike state and they start marching their way across the bed to the most convenient spot on your body for their first meal in months.

A bed bug’s feeding cycle is about once every two weeks. If you have ever had bed bugs, this will explain why they are hard to diagnose. You get a few bites and then there is nothing for a few weeks and then you get a few more bites. You are probably not thinking that you have bed bugs and will explain it away as mosquitoes or spiders. It is usually when you find some evidence of bed bugs, like the tell-tale black smears or red blood spots. You may even get lucky and find a bed bug waltzing across your pillow.

But at this juncture, all the bed bugs in any given hotel room have a common thought. Where’s the Blood? As soon as you lay your head down, actually three or four hours after you lay your head down, the bed bugs will have caught your scent and will be on the prowl on mass. There will be no doubt in your mind as to what happened in the middle of the night when you wake up the next morning with dozens of bites on your

body.

Infestations have been on the rise over the last 15 to 20 years as bed bugs become immune to the pesticides that were developed in the 1970s. With each new generation of bed bugs, they become a little bit more resistant to the pyrethroids, organophosphates and neonicotinoids. There have been no new pesticides developed in almost 50 years. It’s no wonder that bed bugs are winning the war. They get strong and we get weaker.

Your best defense is to thoroughly search your hotel room before bringing your luggage any further than the bathroom. Bed bugs don’t like bathrooms as they have no cozy spots to hide and nothing to eat, unless you sleep in the bathroom after a raucous night out. Check all the typical hiding spots, like the seams of the mattress, along the top of the headboard, inside the night table drawers and behind pictures (if they are not screwed to the wall). Look for any one of three signs namely, black smears, dead casings or a nest. You will not be looking for any signs of blood as they have not eaten in quite some time. If you find any evidence of bed bugs, immediately remove your suitcases and head down to the front desk and ask for a room that is at least two floors away from the room you were just assigned. The reason you want to be at least two floors away is so there is a buffer between the infested room and your new assigned room.

Bed bugs, like lice, do not carry infectious diseases but they will drive you out of your mind if you get them. I remember that tons of loads of laundry I did when my kids came home with lice. Of course, they would sometimes sleep in my bed, so that meant I would have to do all my bedding as well as their bedding and stuffies. Then there was the lengthy chore of picking out nits. The Toronto District School Board has deemed lice not to be harmful and they will not send your child home if they are found to have lice. The same is true of bed bugs as they pose no risk to human health. The problem is that if your child is found to have lice or bed bugs, they will be asked to sit separately from all the other kids when it is story time on the carpet, which I think can do more damage to a child as they don’t understand the bigger issue or transmission. I am glad those days are over as my kids all hover in the range of 18 to 22.

Just like Covid, you will get through the horrors of bed bugs. It will take months for you to feel safe in your home again. I remember that every time I felt a twitch on my legs, I would freeze and look down and hope there wasn’t a bed bug or a bed bug bite. I was terrified to go to bed as it felt like I was a lamb going to the slaughter. Eventually, the anxiety passed and I found a passion helping other people solve their bed bug infestations.

Should you come home from your Vacation in the Time of Covid with bed bugs, please reach out to Bed Bugs Dead Bugs can save your sanity. Bed Bugs have not become immune to heat treatments. The adults, eggs, and larvae will still die at 45C as they have not been able to adapt to resist heat treatments. Usually, in one day, you can solve your bed bug problem by renting a bed bug heater. Logan and Adrienne are always happy to answer your questions and find the most economical treatment designed to fit your unique situation.