Itchy raised lumps on your skin after a night of sleep, especially in threes can mean bed bugs have dined on you.
Bed bugs are small wingless insects that are parasitic similar to mosquitoes and they feed on the blood of warm blooded creatures.
To date there are nearly 100 sub species of bed bugs around the world, 92 to be more precise.
Cimex lectularius is the most common specie known to feast on human blood as they adapt to human environment easily.
A flat, oval reddish brown, wingless bug covered in microscopic hair is what the average adult bed bug looks like.
They grow from 4 to 5 mm in length.
While the bug itself is visible their eggs are whitish and merely specs that are not always visible to the human eye without the aid of a magnifying device.
Newly hatched or nymphs are more translucent in appearance and grow darker once they age.
They are not strictly nocturnal though they are much more active at night with a peak attack period an hour or two before dawn.
Their bites catch you off guard as the marks, bumps or welts are are not necessarily apparent immediately.
Different people have different reactions to bites, indeed, some people have a negligible reaction while others flare up.
Allergic reactions to bites have been apparent in most people as the repeated bites have caused the skin to be sensitized to their saliva.
The bite lesions are misleading and can resemble the appearance of other blood seeking insects like fleas and mosquitoes.
People bitten the first time sometimes even mistake the bites as poison ivy or spider bites.
The distinguishing characteristic is the small red dot in the center of each bed bug bite.
Adult females lay as much as 5 eggs a day or 500 in their entire lifetime.
As aforementioned these eggs are whitish in color sometimes they are visible enough to see without the use of magnifying devices.
These eggs can be found in crevices or cracks in the wall, floor, behind wallpaper, in furniture, baseboards and the like.
Their flat characteristic makes it easy for them to find dwelling in tiny crevices.
From its namesake bed bugs are often found living in beds, tufts, seams, mattress crevices, box springs the headboard or the bed frame can be itself be their sprawling Beverly Hills neighborhood.
While it is common for the bed to be their domicile, nightstands, sofas, upholstered chairs, clocks, telephones, wall fixtures, and even ceiling fixtures like your smoke detector is more than enough space to set up camp.
Initially they will usually be close to their meal, you, so the nest may start out in the crevices of the the mattress, box spring or behind the head board.
Look for little black spots.
The black spots are their fecal matter.
As the colony grows in size they will branch out to multiple nests.
The best method to determine if you have them or not for certain is specially trained bed bug sniffer dogs.
Do not delay you have to learn how to deal with bed bugs before the problem explodes totally out of control.
For example people often retreat to their couches to escape the bed bugs, but they will follow their food by your heat and carbon dioxide so you will soon have bites on your couch too.