Bed Bug Signs in a Mattress

AdminMay 20, 2021

Bed bugs are amongst the worst pests that could be infesting your home as they feed on your blood while you sleep, hence the name “bed bugs.” This preference for human blood causes sleepless nights and much anxiety for many homeowners.

Cimex lectularius (bed bugs) are often hard to identify. They’re crafty bugs and operate during the night, and due to this, the first bed bug signs people spot is usually that they have been bitten on their body. Our guide will help you identify bed bugs and the common signs that they may have infested your home.

Can you see bedbugs?

Bed bugs can be challenging to see for multiple reasons, mainly because they’re active during the night, as well as their size. Adult bed bugs are around 5-7mm in length, making them difficult to spot with the naked eye. However, if your infestation is relatively bad, you may spot signs of bed bugs as they congregate together.

When looking for bed bug signs, you should check the following areas:

The heading of your beds
The frame of your beds
The creases of your mattress
Carpets
Cupboards
Electrical sockets
Draws
Cracks and crevices
Wooden areas such as skirting boards

The first area to start your search would be your bedroom as they feed on human blood during the night. Due to this, we recommend inspecting bed frames and headings, as well as the creases of your mattress, before checking other areas.

I’ve spotted bed bug signs, now what?

You need a thorough inspection by Rattic to confirm the problem and arrange for one of our technicians to carry out a treatment. Our experience is exceptional, and we’ve performed loads of bed bug treatments in London and its surrounding areas.

Learn more on how to get rid of bed bugs

What to do

If you think you’ve found a bug that is a bed bug, trap it and take a photo of it. Now you can send it to a professional or compare it online with images to see if the bug is a Cimex lectularius. It’s best to ask a professional, as bed bugs often get confused for other insects such as:

Ticks
Fleas
Cockroach nymphs (young)
Carpet beetle
Other nymphs

Next, you should gather all your clothes, bedding and materials and wash them at a high temperature of above 60°C. If cleaning your clothes at this heat is not a suitable option, you can freeze them for a couple of days.

Ultimately, you should contact a professional pest control company to undertake the treatment. Trying to remove bed bugs after you’ve noticed signs on your own rarely works as professional have access to high-grade equipment, insecticides and, more importantly, knowledge.

Bed bug shells

Over the years, we’ve found that one of the quickest ways to spot bed bug signs is to look for empty shells on a mattress. Bed bugs grow as they feed on human blood and, over time, need to grow larger, resulting in them shredding their bodies. Bed bugs have around five stages until they reach adulthood, resulting in five-time that they shred their skin, and when bed bugs have heavily infested an area, you’ll find hundreds and maybe thousands of shells left behind.

Bed bug faecal spots

Looking for dark black spots on your furniture or mattress sounds unpleasant, but it’s a typical bed bug warning. These opaque black spots are likely to be bed bug excrement and can be tested by seeing if they smudge when rubbed with some water. Check pillows, sheets and other bedroom surfaces for faecal spots, and if you find some, it’s best to call an expert to inspect the property further.

Bed bug bites

Unfortunately, as mentioned throughout this article, bed bugs bite. Bites are horrible and can cause sleepless nights for anyone with a potential infestation; however, Rattic must point out that not everyone has bite symptoms. So if your partner has bite marks and you don’t, make sure to check all the other potential bed bug clues to identify if you have a problem.

Itchiness from bites

The primary identifier of bed bug bites is usually how itchy your skin becomes. These irritating red marks are nothing to be concerned about health-wise but can be very itchy. The most common areas in which bed bugs bite include:

Arms
Neck
Head
Hands

Itchiness is not the only discomfort you may spot as a sign; other symptoms include:

Burning sensation
Raised red bumps
Red bumps in a zigzag pattern or line

Bad quality sleep

If you’re reading this article, you probably already have an issue with some insect in your bedroom. After you notice any of the previous symptoms, it’s common for sleep to be dramatically impacted, and if you think you have bed bugs, you’ll never be able to nod off to sleep again. Although the first thought is to move out until the problem is fixed, we strongly recommend against this; bed bugs travel in clothing, and you risk infecting the new place while you sleep there. Instead, contact our emergency 24/7 line on 0740 043 4999 to arrange a bed bug treatment for your home. We’ll have you sleeping like a baby again in no time at all.

Blood spots on bedding

A further step to confirm if your home is infested with bed bugs would be to look for blood spots on bedding, pillowcases and your mattress. When bed bugs feed on your blood, they often disperse residue onto your bedding. Furthermore, you may roll over and squish a bed bug during your sleep, leaving minor, visible red stains.

Bed bug musty odour

If you have a more significant infestation, the number of bed bugs will result in a musty odour. Other professionals we work with have compared it to coriander, but we can’t quite put our finger on the smell. What we can say is that the scent is highly noticeable. The smell produced by bed bugs is not a distinguishable sign of an infestation and should be used in combination with the other symptoms mentioned throughout this article.

Preventing bed bug infestations

Now that you know the bed bug signs and symptoms to look out for, you’ll want to know how to prevent infestations in the future. Most bed bug infestations are a result of travelling, not because you are dirty. When staying at hotels, other homes and accommodation, you are potentially staying in an infested area. Bed bugs attach themselves to clothing, shoes and bags to make the journey back to your bedroom.

To prevent an infestation, you should inspect any new sleeping area and elevate clothing and bags to avoid bed bugs crawling inside – never leave clothing on the floor. According to a study undertaken in the New England Journal of Medicine, 5% of hotel rooms were infested with bed bugs, making these checks essential to prevent bringing them home with you.

Bed bug treatments

If you’ve noticed any of the bed bug signs mentioned throughout this article, we recommend contacting us today. We operate throughout London, Surrey and all the southeast of England, helping remove these challenging pests from homes for good.

Our bed bug control service uses two different methods to remove them, heat and chemical. It’s important to trust a professional with this work, as all bed bug lifeforms need to be destroyed to prevent the infestation from returning, which is where most untrained individuals fail.

Rat Vs Mouse

AdminJune 12, 2017

When you notice a rodent in your home or around your property, most people want to know; is it a rat or a mouse?

They have many similarities, but once you understand the difference, you’ll be able to identify which of the two you’ve seen.

But first, what is a rodent?

“A gnawing mammal of an order that includes rats, mice, squirrels, hamsters and their relatives, distinguished by strong constantly growing incisors and no canine teeth.” – Definitions from Oxford Languages

What is the appearance of a rat vs mouse?

For this article, we are going to focus on the typical brown rat. Brown rats have a thicker body and are much larger than mice. Often, people confuse a mouse with a young rat; however, a mouse will only span 4-10cm in length. Other ways to identify if the rodent is a rat or a mouse is that a young rat will have larger feet and smaller ears.

Brown rat:

Spans around 15-27cm
Weight of around 200-300g
Tail is 10-24cm

Mouse

Spans around 10-20cm
Weight of around 12-30g
Tail is 5-10cm

What is the difference between rat and mouse droppings?

Using droppings as a way to identify which rodent is causing pest issues can be efficient. Rat droppings tend to look extremely shiny and are around 1.27 to 1.9 cm in length, compared to mice droppings which are smaller, softer and have pointed edges.

When inspecting rodent droppings, we recommend using personal protective equipment due to the diseases these droppings carry. Gloves and face masks should be sufficient, and an extra pro tip is not to sweep up the droppings since the diseases can become airborne. Read more information on how to get rid of rats or how to get rid of mice.

How does a rats behaviour differ from a mouse?

If you have mice in your home, you will notice they prefer to feed on cereals, fruits, seeds and grains and on some occasions; they can eat meat. On the other hand, brown rats tend to prefer grains, fish, nuts and meat.

One of the main differences in these two rodents behaviour is their reaction to new objects. Rats are known to be highly neophobic, which means they have an intense fear of anything new in their area. When a new thing is placed in their area, they tend to avoid them and stay wary for days. Neophobia in rats can make them difficult to catch or poison, and our experience has seen rats avoid traps for weeks on end. On the other hand, mice tend to be more curious and tend to approach new traps and poison to investigate them, making them easier to catch than rats.

Other behaviour differences between rats and mice include their need for water. Mice do not need to drink water. However, if there is water available, they will consume as little as 3ml per day. On the contrary, rats drink 60ml of water per day, making them more reliant on finding a water source.

A rats need for water will often find them living closer to water in larger areas. One of the most common issues we encounter in homes is rats accessing through sewers, which can cause costly damage if the problem is left for some time. On the other hand, Mice will nest in almost any area as long as it is quiet. They’re fantastic climbers and are usually found in attics, walls and under floorboards.

Health problems caused by rats and mice?

Although a rat vs mouse has many differences, they share one similarity with the health problems they transfer to humans. These health concerns include:

Plague
Salmonellosis
Leptospirosis
Tularemia

None of these diseases is fun to catch, and you want to take all measures to prevent rodents from accessing your property. Rodents can pass on these diseases in the following ways:

Contaminating food and drink
Being bitten by a rat or mouse
Rodent urine
faeces
Breathing airborne diseases

Breeding differences between rats vs mice

The brown rat breeds throughout the entire year, making an initial sighting significant to act upon. In total, the female rat tends to have up to five litters per year, and they can be as large as 14 rats. All of these litters become sexually mature by five weeks and go onto produce their own, showing how a small rat infestation can grow into a large one in no time at all. A shocking statistic taken from newscientist.com is that one pair of breeding rats can produce 15,000 pups in one year alone.

Comparing rats to mice is not on the same level. Mice can produce 7-10 litters per year which contain 4-12 pups. Furthermore, they become sexually active after 4-6 weeks of age, which is a severe issue for those trying to control them. Living indoors allows for breeding to happen all year round.

The lifespan for both of these rodents tends to be around one year; this is less than their life expectancy of three years due to the number of preditors and environmental challenges they face.

Next steps

If you’ve had rodents in your home, you should now be able to know the differences between a rat and a mouse. The following step is to contact a professional pest control company to remove the problem; as mentioned in this article, rats and mice have different behaviours that make them hard to catch and an untrained individual will struggle to remove the problem.

Rattic is the pest control company of choice in London; we’ve performed mice control in London and rat control in London to help homeowners avoid the terrible diseases these rodents carry. Alternatively, you can contact us on 0740 043 4999 for some advice.

Bedbugs