![]() ![]() But then around 8,000 BC, the bed bugs moved onto their next meal. Before this, they are thought to have fed off of other warm-blooded animals who liked living in dark, cool places like caves. Most scientists agree the bed bug started its feast on humans around 10,000 years ago. ![]() Let’s start with the bug of it all: the bed bug, or its scientific name- Cimex lectularius. But reminding me that there are very real bugs that may be living in my bed and may bite me while I’m sleeping?! Now, that’s terrifying! So, what is the origin of this phrase and when did bed bugs start biting humans anyway? If I can see the upper seam of the box spring, I'll take a look at that as well, looking for the little brown bugs themselves as well as the black speckling which are the droppings of the bedbugs.Nothing put more fear into this author as a child more than being told, right before bedtime, “Sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.” I was a logical kid and I knew that ghosts, boogie men, vampires, and the monster living under my bed were all imaginary. The reason I look there first is because bedbugs tend to be drawn to heat and carbon dioxide as a person sleeps so if they're on the mattress, you're more likely to see them in that location. "First thing I do before I unpack is I remove the bed sheets and the blankets and I examine the upper and lower seams of the mattress at the two corners by the pillow area and along the seam that runs along the headboard. On how Potter inspects his hotel rooms before spending a night But the bed is certainly ground zero for bedbug infestations." Though we do find them in couches and recliners and they move outward from the bed into lots of other places. So this creature has evolved over the eons to feed on humans, and from an efficiency standpoint, why crawl further than you have to for your next meal? So the bed is probably the most common place where bedbugs are found. "One thing that a bedbug needs to survive is blood. Basically when you have lots of people living in close proximity to one another and you have lots of travel and movement of people, you're going to have bedbug issues." So it's cities like New York and Philly and Detroit and Chicago and San Francisco and Baltimore. ![]() ![]() Areas that have a lot of people and a lot of movement of people tend to have more bedbug problems. "It parallels the larger metropolitan areas. On the cities with the biggest infestations Strange News Conquering Your Fear Of Bedbugs Interview Highlights Though bedbugs are certainly appearing more frequently than they used to, Potter says it's important to have a healthy attitude about the infestation. In recent years, the tiny critters have moved beyond homes and hotels - affecting many different types of facilities, including college dormitories, homeless shelters, nursing homes, office buildings, hospitals, schools and day cares, movie theaters, modes of transportation, laundromats, retail stores, libraries and camps. Potter says that not only have bedbugs survived, they've thrived. "That's a good survival mechanism because if you woke up and felt the pain, not too many bedbugs would survive to feed another day." "They inject both an anti-coagulant, which allows a bedbug to extract blood from a human, and also a sort of anesthetizing agent, which allows the bite to be painless," Potter explains. What's happening when a bedbug bites a person is tricky, he explains, because initially a human may not even realize he or she has been bitten. Bedbugs are more likely to inhabit a bed than anywhere else because, as Michael Potter says, "Why crawl further than you have to for your next meal?" ![]()
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