Share
ShareIt’s a well-known fact that bed bugs interrupt your good night’s sleep, but are they also active during the day, and if so how to find them when the sun is out?
This article will help you confirm and evaluate the bed bug infestation as well as teach you valuable tips and tricks you can use to find them during the day.
So, if you are tired of waking up with itchy bites every morning, let’s get rid of the pesky bed bugs once and for all.
Where Bed Bugs Hide During the Day?
Bed bugs love to stay close to their next meal, and unfortunately, that means they will stay in your room, bed, and mattress and wait for you to come. Bed bug evolution allowed them to create feeding patterns that are compatible with hosts so they will bite you while you sleep.
On the other hand, bed bugs will hide during the day and wait for the next best opportunity.
Considering how small and flat they are, bed bugs are the hiding places are unlimited, and anywhere is good enough as long as they are close. The bed bugs also don’t form colonies and nests like cockroaches, so you can find smaller groups all over your home.
Most of the time you can find bed bugs during the day on:
- Your sheets and pillows
- The mattress and bed frame
- Every seam and label
- Furniture, covers, and blankets
- Nooks and crannies in the wall and floor
- Electrical sockets
Bed bugs mainly stay hidden during the day because there is no temptation or host to feed on, but if you decide to take a nap you will most likely have the opportunity to capture some adult bed bugs.
Do Bed Bugs Feed During the Day?
Bed bugs are considered nocturnal creatures, meaning they mostly feed during the night. But, that doesn’t mean they don’t bite you during the daytime naps.
Bed bugs are attracted to the heat our bodies emit and the carbon dioxide we exhale, so they are not particularly picky about the time of the day when they are hungry. The only reason why so many bed bug bites occur during the night is that the host is most likely lying still and sleeping. This means undisturbed feeding time for the bed bugs.
Their feeding habits as the researchers suggest are based on instinct and food availability, so whenever you as a host are around some bed bugs will try to bite you.
How to Find Bed Bugs During the Day?
Now that we are familiar with the eating habits and the hiding places of bed bugs it’s easier to locate them even during the day. Keep in mind that sometimes daylight is not enough to discover small bed bugs and the microscopic traces they leave behind, so use a flashlight.
Here are a few suggestions to find bed bugs during the day:
Follow Bedbug Tracks
Bed bugs might be small but the marks they leave behind can be quite distinctive. Most of the time you will notice blood stains on your sheets from bites and squished bed bugs. This can help you confirm the infestation and even find the most populated hiding places.
In addition to blood stains, bed bugs leave dark feces and small clear bed bug eggs, so make sure to look closely for clues.
Inspect the Bed
The previous step will take you one step closer to confirming that you are dealing with bed bugs, and also provide you with enough clues for the next step – inspecting the mattress.
Your comfortable and clean mattress is the perfect hiding place for bed bugs. They will hide in the seams, under the mattress cover, in the baseboard, and anywhere in between. Use the flashlight to take a closer look, inspect all the edges and make sure to include all the potential hiding places, no matter how small they might look.
Check the Bedbug Traps
One of the best ways to confirm the bed bug infestation, lower the number of bites you get each night, and capture them even during the day is to use bed bug traps. The most efficient are interceptor traps and sticky traps with adhesive.
Interceptor traps are placed under each bed leg and they capture all the bed bugs that want to climb into your bed to feed. During the day it’s even easier to see all the bed bugs caught in these pitfall traps, to clean them, and set them under the bed once again.
As for the glue traps they work amazingly for all the bed bugs that might be hiding in the mattress, bed, and bed frame. These sleek and easy-to-use traps will help you capture all the night crawlers and get rid of them the next day.
Look in All the Hiding Places
If the infestation is severe the hiding places that bed bugs choose during the day will expand. You will be able to find them in the holes in the floor, nooks in the walls, behind the wallpapers, and even in sockets.
Finding bed bugs during the day in places that are not on the bed, mattress, or close to it means you are dealing with a serious infestation. At this point, it’s best to rely on professional pest control and deal with the pests in the most efficient way.
Setting up traps and dealing with bed bugs on your own is completely reasonable and possible, but some severe cases do need additional help from exterminators.