Bed bugs are tiny insects that feed by sucking blood from people and other warm blooded mammals.
Although it was thought that they were largely eliminated about 50 years ago when DDT and other strong chemical pesticides were introduced, they seem to be more prevalent these days due largely to the fact that they have developed resistances to many of these chemicals.
Just because you know your home is well cleaned does not mean you are free from bed bugs.
These insects are ubiquitous and can be found everywhere from luxury hotels to housing projects.
They live in tiny cracks and crevices in and around beds, bed frames and hotel rooms.
These insects will grow to about 4-5 millimeters in length when they reach maturity, but they can be detected by the naked eye.
Females lay up to five hundred eggs, so once they get a foothold they proliferate freely and are hard to get rid of.
These insects find people to bite because they are sensitive to the presence of carbon dioxide.
This is typically done when people are sleeping.
They can penetrate a person's skin and inject a compound that numbs the local area of the bite.
They then can draw out the person's blood, and it does so until it is full.
This usually takes about 5 minutes.
After eating the creature goes back to its hiding place.
They like to eat every five or ten days, so if you have these pests in your bedroom you are likely to be bitten on numerous occasions.
There are a couple of ways for people to determine if they have bed bugs in their home.
If a member of the family has small red splotches on the skin, this could indicate a bite.
Very tiny reddish or brownish spots on sheets or pillow cases are also indicators.
These are fecal droppings of the insects.
There are a few standard treatments that exterminators will use if they determine you have an infestation.
Chemicals are still often used, and high heat is another method employed.
Bed bugs will die if they are exposed to 115 degrees F for seven minutes.
Of course there are quite a few problems involved when a bedroom is heated to such a high temperature.
In fact it is a challenge to expose the hidden insects to that level of temperature for that that long a period, but experienced professional exterminators know how to prepare rooms and and seal them for this type of a job.