The holiday season is over. Parties and gift exchanges, out-of-town guests, and huge feasts marked several weeks of family fun for homes all over the area. Now the last of the decorations have been put away for another year. By this time, people are usually content to wait out the rest of winter in relative peace and quiet. It’s usually right around the time when you just get settled in that you figure out something isn’t quite right with your peaceful plan to start the new year. With all the traveling and the sheer number of people so many of us welcome into our homes for the holidays, it is unlikely that at all of your guests came alone. The sneaky bed bug could have very quietly hitched a ride with a one of your guests and is already making a home right where they are not wanted – inside your home.

House guests, whether they stay for a week or even an hour, could unwittingly bring a present no one wanted. Bed bugs are tiny and quick. They have no trouble sneaking into a suitcase or even just on a neighbor’s coat or shoes to make the trek to a new house. After they are there, they could very quickly establish themselves. Female bed bugs can lay up to 12 eggs a day that will hatch in just a few weeks. Once they hatch, the new nymphs are ready to feed. This is how the bed bug has managed to quickly spread into full-blown infestations in homes across the country in record numbers. If it’s been a few weeks since the party ended and there were no signs, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t there. It can take a month or so for any signs to become noticeable as the bed bugs move from one place to another finding the best place to be able to have easy access to their hosts for feeding. Usually that means the bedroom, preferably near the headboard. Being able to go a long time without feeding, bed bugs generally have the time to be picky.

All too frequently, the first sign that most homeowners will notice is an itchy rash when they get up one morning. A better way to find out is to do periodic inspections of the area, especially with the number of people in and out this time of the year. Check around the bed, especially by the headboard and in the crevices of the mattress. If there are bed bugs present, there will likely be tiny brown stains from their waste, black specs, shed insect casings, or tiny eggs. There could be blood droplets on the sheets or mattress. Perhaps the bed bugs themselves might be visible, but if they are not, do not doubt that there is something going on. If the signs are there, call for a home inspection from a professional.

Thomas Pest Services has been treating bed bug infestations for years. These pests are one of the toughest infestations to manage, but our environmentally friendly heat treatments can rid your home or business of these biting beasts in hours including all the eggs and nymphs that many traditional treatments will leave behind. If you suspect that you have a bed bug problem, give us a call today. Thomas Pest Services will show you how you can get back to being bed bug-free in no time.