Acquiring Bedbugs

• Bedbugs are often found in places that experience a high turnover in occupancy, such as hotels, dormitories, homeless shelters and apartment complexes. You may bring one or more bugs home in your suitcase when returning from vacation. If you purchase a secondhand sofa or bed, such as those from garage sales, you might also bring bedbugs into your home. Some bedbugs prefer feeding on birds and bats, and might settle in the attic of your home. Once their food source leaves, they may decide to feed on humans.
  
  

Detecting Bedbugs

• Detecting bugs in your bed or sofa is not easy, because bedbugs are nocturnal, which means they are active at night. During the day, they hide in bedsprings, in seams of mattresses and sofas, or underneath your mattress and sofa. If you find blood marks in your bed upon waking up, it can be an indication of a bedbug infestation -- you might have rolled onto a bedbug while sleeping. Look for shed bedbug skins, egg cases and fecal stains around your mattress and sofa, in nearby cracks and crevices, behind wallpaper and picture frames. Be persistent, because bedbugs are good at hiding.
  
  

Treatment of Bedbugs

• You might have to discard your mattress and sofa if there are holes in them that bedbugs may have moved into. Wash bedding in hot water of at least 120 degrees Fahrenheit to kill bedbugs, regardless of which life stage they are in. After washing, move the bedding to the dryer and let it tumble in high heat for up to 20 minutes. Thorough vacuuming of your home also helps eliminate a bedbug infestation. Bedbugs travel, so vacuum all the rooms of your home. According to MedicineNet, a pest-control expert can apply insecticide to areas where bedbugs roam, to eliminate them.
  
  

Preventing Bedbugs

• Upon returning from travel, check your baggage thoroughly before bringing it into your home. Avoid picking up curbside or secondhand items. Encase a newly purchased mattress with a special bedbug cover that doesn't allow the pests to enter. Check hotel beds and sofas for the flat, oval-shaped, red-colored bugs, before staying in the room. To prevent bedbug bites, wear pajamas that cover your skin as much as possible, because bedbugs don't tend to crawl underneath clothes.