What Can You Do About Bedbugs?

"Night night! Sleep tight! Don't let the bedbugs bite!" I've heard that little saying all my life. But I never even thought where the rhyme came from. This article is how to treat bedbug bites and infestations.

Bedbugs are little 6 legged reddish-brown bugs that are nocturnal. They hide in the walls and inside your bed until you are asleep on your bed. When you are asleep they crawl around on you and bit you to eat your blood. They are like little vampires! I got into a house full of them when my daughter was a baby. We stayed at my husband's aunt's house and she was loaded with them! I never saw one though. But when I woke up every morning my daughter and I were covered with bites that went in a line. It was like a big bit and walked a bit and bit again, and walked a bit and bit again. We looked like we had leprosy. The bugs do not carry diseases to humans, but the bites cause a severe itching reaction.

The signs and symptoms of bedbug bites are small itchy bumps or wheels. The lesions may be clustered or linear, which indicates the eating pattern of a single bug. Some people-like me-develop large itchy whelps up to 8 to 10 inches across. Some people develop rashes that are similar to the hives, while others break out into pus sacks and blisters.

Bedbugs will feed on any animal, including dog, cats, birds and bats. When traveling to places where bedbugs may be prevalent, make sure you check your suitcases so that you do not carry them home with you. Until DDT was phased out, we hardly had a case of bedbugs, because the DDT killed them. Now the exterminators have to use special chemicals to get rid of them. What may kill the roach and spiders may not kill the bedbug.