How do you check for bed bugs? First, you need to round up some gear, know where to look for signs of bed bugs, and how to spot signs of an infestation.
Note: Bed bug bites are not a definitive sign of an infestation. Why? Bed bug bites look similar to common rashes and insect bites. Also, some people do not react to bed bug bites.
Be sure to check out our section below where we ask the experts all about these pesky intruders.
How to Check for Bed Bugs in Your Home
Before you start looking for signs of bed bugs, you will need to gather some gear.
What you’ll need to inspect for bed bugs
- Flashlight: This will enable you to shine a light in dark places to see any evidence of bed bugs.
- Credit card: A bed bug’s width is about as thin as a credit card. If a credit card can fit through a crevice or crack, a bed bug likely can fit through it.
- Disposable gloves: These help prevent a bed bug from hitching a ride on you to a new feasting spot.
- Mirror: A small mirror can help you to get a better look at an infestation in hard-to-reach places.
- Magnifying glass: Bed bug eggs can be as small as a pinhead. A magnifying glass will help you find any evidence your eyes can’t see.
Where do bed bugs live?
Bed bugs like warm places where humans rest, which means your bed (they are, after all, called bed bugs), couches, and chairs. There have even been bed bug infestations in theater seats.
Bed bugs also can be found all around your house, on curtains, on nightstands, on your floors, and even on your clothes (how do you think bed bugs went to the movies?).
What are some signs of bed bugs?
Use a flashlight to inspect dark spaces for live bugs, eggs, feces, or molted skin. Eggs are about the size of a pinhead, are pearl-white, and stick to surfaces.
Bed bug fecal matter is partially digested blood appearing in clusters of tiny spots, often found on bed sheets. Their feces will soak into the surface and leave behind a black dot, almost like a marker tip.
Bed bugs shed their skin and leave behind a molted, translucent skin shell. The shell looks like an actual bed bug, but empty. They appear in different sizes depending on the life stage of the bed bug.
Where to Check for Bed Bugs
1. Your bed
Your bed is the No. 1 hiding spot for bed bugs. According to the University of California Agriculture & Natural Resources, research shows 85% of bed bugs are in or near the bed.
What to look for: Inspect your bedding and linen for blood spots. Bed bugs will leave these brown or red spots behind when crushed. Look closely at the seams, tufts, and folds of your mattress and any corners or crevices of your bed frame. You may need to dismantle your bed.
2. Couches and office chairs
Your couches, recliners, and office chairs (in your home office or work office) are excellent places for humans — and bed bugs — to rest.
Where to look: Look beneath furniture and where the fabric meets the legs of the furniture. Inspect between seat cushions, underneath the seat cushions, and any furniture pillows.
3. Nightstands and dressers
Bed bugs can lurk right next to your bed — or wander into an adjoining room. Bed bugs will travel 5-20 feet from their established hiding place to feed on a host.
How to look for signs of bed bugs: Using your flashlight and a credit card, check your nightstand and dressers. Empty each drawer and inspect their cracks, joints, and underneath.
4. Curtains and drapes
Curtains and drapes make great hiding spots for bed bugs.
5. Windows and door frames
Inspect any crevices or cracks around windows and door frames.
6. Walls, ceilings, and outlet covers
Look around and overhead. Bed bugs love to hide behind loose wallpaper and outlet covers. You may even spot bed bugs hiding near the ceiling. If you have wall hangings, such as paintings, fabrics, or clocks, check behind and inside those items.
7. Your clothes
No one wants to be attacked by bed bugs as soon as they get dressed. Inspect all of your clothes for any signs of bed bugs.
8. Household items
Around your resting spots, check miscellaneous items (especially inside) for bed bugs. These items may include remote controls, alarm clocks, picture frames, and lamps. Don’t forget to check Fido’s bed for bed bugs.
9. Floors and carpets
Check your floors and the edges of baseboards, and don’t forget to check any carpeting. Bed bugs can travel from your bed to the carpet to another room.
10. Hotels, motels, theaters
Bed bugs are not found only in homes. These teeny-tiny pests can live in hotel and motel rooms (check the bed for those tiny red spots when you check in), and even theater seats.
Knowing the signs of bed bugs may help you avoid any infested areas, and when you see evidence of these pests, you will know where to treat for bed bugs.
How Monitors Can Detect and Trap Bed Bugs
The University of California Agriculture & Natural Resources says research indicates that monitors can help attract or intercept bed bugs moving from their home (your bed, for example) to a host (you or a family member).
Monitors are diverse in size, appearance, and price.
- Active monitors have an agent that attracts the bed bugs. These attractions include heat, carbon dioxide, host odors, or pheromones. Active monitors help identify bed bugs that remain hidden or may be hard to detect.
- Passive monitors take advantage of a bed bug’s attraction to dark crevices. These monitors rely on chance encounters that lead to pitfalls and sticky traps.
- Interceptor monitors are a hybrid between active and passive monitors. They rely on a host to attract hungry bed bugs and then trap them en route. These monitors can be installed under the legs of beds or furniture and can trap six times more bed bugs than human searches alone.
Ask The Experts
- What sign of bed bugs do homeowners most commonly mistake for another pest?
- What is your No. 1 tip for homeowners trying to uncover bed bugs?
- What is one place homeowners often forget to look when trying to find bed bugs or bed bug evidence?
- In your experience, what has proven to be the best method to detect bed bug activity?
1. What sign of bed bugs do homeowners most commonly mistake for another pest?
Skin irritations or reactions of unknown sources can be attributed to other pests or allergies, but could actually be bed bugs.
2. What is your No. 1 tip for homeowners trying to uncover bed bugs?
Use pitfall-style traps on all of the legs of your bed, which will capture any bed bugs that are moving on or off the bed. Using traps can help you find bed bugs if you are having a hard time locating their hiding places.
3. What is one place homeowners often forget to look when trying to find bed bugs or bed bug evidence?
One location that I recently discovered while assisting with bed bug infestations was the interior of springs on a metal bed frame. Several springs were densely packed with bed bugs, while others had none at all.
Bed bugs can fit in any location a credit card can fit into and they also are typically not found on smooth surfaces.
4. In your experience, what has proven to be the best method to detect bed bug activity?
I suggest people use pit-fall style traps to detect bed bug activity. This can be combined with a visual inspections as well.
Traps are not immediate but will locate low-level bed bug infestations as found in studies by Dr. Karen Vail at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and are critical to bed bug management, as found by Dr. Changlu Wang at Rutgers University.
1. What sign of bed bugs do homeowners most commonly mistake for another pest?
Bed bug signs are distinctive. Most often, folks mistake other insects and arthropods for bed bugs, not the other way around.
It’s possible that people who have German cockroach infestations may mistake bed bug fecal spots for cockroach frass (fecal spots). Bed bug fecal spots, however, are softer and sometimes smearable, while cockroach frass is hardened like resin or epoxy and cannot be smeared.
It’s also possible that, upon finding a bed bug exuvia (cast skin), folks will not recognize it as a bed bug sign and may think first of another insect or arthropod.
2. What is your No. 1 tip for homeowners trying to uncover bed bugs?
Perform a detailed inspection of the sleeping and resting areas in your home — review this inspection video.
If nothing can be found and bed bugs are still suspected, deploy an “interceptor trap.” These pitfall traps are specifically designed to catch crawling bed bugs. They can be placed under furniture legs or simply in contact with walls or furniture. Review this UC IPM video on utilizing monitoring devices for bed bugs.
3. What is one place homeowners often forget to look when trying to find bed bugs or bed bug evidence?
Artwork or wall hangings near sleeping or resting places. Look behind or even within (under paper backing, for instance) these items.
4. In your experience, what has proven to be the best method to detect bed bug activity?
Visual inspection aided by a flashlight and good preparatory knowledge is a proven detection method. Pest control professionals are trained and experienced in this method and can often find signs that are not clear to residents. Interceptor traps have also been proven as highly valuable detection tools, especially when populations are small or well hidden.
1. What sign of bed bugs do homeowners most commonly mistake for another pest?
Prof. Nair: Bites.
2. What is your No. 1 tip for homeowners trying to uncover bed bugs?
Prof. Nair: Reduce clutter. Clutter offers lots of hiding places for bed bugs.
3. What is one place homeowners often forget to look when trying to find bed bugs or bed bug evidence?
Prof. Nair: Behind pictures, clocks, or items hanging on walls. Most people focus efforts on their beds or couches, but bed bugs can be found in many other spots near or adjoining beds or couches, or even places where people spend long periods of time (e.g., toilet seats, or wheelchairs).
4. In your experience, what has proven to be the best method to detect bed bug activity?
Prof. Nair: Interceptor traps placed under bed legs, or volcano traps with lures.
1. What sign of bed bugs do homeowners most commonly mistake for another pest?
When identifying an active bed bug infestation, it is important to look for things that can positively ID bed bugs as having been present in the home, including bed bugs themselves (alive or dead) or their shed skins. Bites are not always a good indicator of a bed bug infestation, since reactions can vary from person to person and could result from a number of things other than bed bugs.
2. What is your No. 1 tip for homeowners trying to uncover bed bugs?
When an infestation is small, it can be challenging to uncover. Thoroughly looking over potential hiding places in the bed, bed frame, and box spring are a good place to start. If you suspect you might have bed bugs, hiring a professional pest control service to do an inspection can help identify small infestations and get things taken care of before the problem gets out of hand.
3. What is one place homeowners often forget to look when trying to find bed bugs or bed bug evidence?
Bed bugs are very flat and can fit into tight spaces. Cracks and crevices around the bed offer hiding spaces they can utilize during the day. Some places that can be overlooked are behind baseboards or inside of electrical outlets. Also, furniture, other than the bed, where people might be spending a lot of time, such as the couch or an armchair.
4. In your experience, what has proven to be the best method to detect bed bug activity?
Thorough inspection is the best way to identify a problem early before a population establishes and grows.
When to Call a Pest Control Professional
Managing a bed bug infestation requires removing or treating all infested materials. You must also ensure no reinfestation occurs. Call a bed bug exterminator near you if you’re unable to locate the infestation on your own.
A pest control pro can inspect the suspected infested area and provide an extermination solution. He or she may even bring along a canine inspector, as some dogs have been trained to sniff out bed bugs.
Calling a pest control professional becomes an urgent matter when bed bug symptoms are severe, bed bugs grow in large numbers, bed bugs expand their hiding areas, or re-infestation occurs.
Why You Should Routinely Inspect for Bed Bugs
The key to ridding your home of bed bugs — and keeping them out — is finding an infestation early. Once bed bugs establish a beachhead, they will spread to other hiding areas. Treating a well-established infestation is difficult and expensive. Exterminating a minor infestation quickly will save you a costly treatment down the line.
Finding a low-level infestation can take a significant amount of time, patience, and determination. Bed bugs are small, and their eggs are even smaller. You’ll need the right tools and information to help detect these unwelcome pests — and having read this article you’re all set.
Main Photo Credit: Content Providers: CDC/ Harvard University, Dr. Gary Alpert; Dr. Harold Harlan; Richard Pollack. / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain
