Say Goodbye To Bed Bugs: The Most Effective Treatment For Your Lexington Home

Doesn't it feel like we need to upgrade our phones, computers, or gaming consoles every few months? Usually, an upgrade involves a software update and some equipment updates automatically. However, there comes a point when we have to replace the units because they are too old and no longer accept updates. While we don't like to spend money buying new gear, we know we need it to do our jobs and navigate through this world.

We upgrade or update our equipment because we need those things to work efficiently. No one wants something to work part of the time, and the same is true when we encounter bed bugs. Eliminate bed bugs in your home with effective bed bug control in Lexington from Action Pest Control. Why should you trust us to solve your bed bug problem?

Action Pest Control is an award-winning company with over 70 highly-trained pest management professionals led by staff entomologists. Our dedication to ongoing training has resulted in our receiving the Technician of the Year Award from the National Pest Management Association. Since 2001, PCT magazine has published its list of the top pest control companies, and Action Pest Control has been in the top 100 companies in a field of over 15,000 registered pest control companies. We offer environmentally friendly service options, after hours answering services, and convenient billing options.

Please keep reading to learn about bed bugs, how to prevent future infestations, and how Action Pest Control will stop the current invasion of bed bugs in your Lexington home.

Visual Clues: Identifying Bed Bugs By Appearance

Bed bugs are active at night. While you sleep, they crawl out of their hiding locations onto your body and feed using your blood. After five to ten minutes, they detach and return to the crack or crevice where they reside until they need more nutrition. Because bed bugs are elusive, many people don't know their characteristics or how to identify them.

Bed bugs are insects with six legs and two short antennae, and adults have 3/16 to 1/4-inch crinkly-looking three-part bodies (head, thorax, and abdomen). Their antennae are short and horizontal, and the back half of their bodies is considerably larger than their head and thorax combined.

Bed bugs have flat, broad, and oval mahogany-colored bodies when unfed. After enjoying a blood meal at your expense, their bodies become swollen, elongated, and reddish-brown. Despite having wing pads, bed bugs do not have wings and cannot fly.

Booklice, another bug often confused with bed bugs, have a long, thin, light brown bodies instead of the broad, dark bodies of bed bugs. One bug that has a similar-shaped body is the spider beetle, but they have much longer legs and antennae than bed bugs. Fleas have the same coloration as bed bugs, but unlike bed bugs, they can jump. The other way to identify bed bugs by their appearance is to understand their habits and behaviors. For example, bat bugs are similar to bed bugs but reside in caves where bats are present and not in bedrooms.

Under favorable conditions (>70? but <90?), bed bugs progress from the egg stage to adulthood in about 37 days. Finding bed bugs before they reach adulthood often requires a magnifying glass. Female bed bugs lay one to seven eggs for ten days after a blood meal. These eggs are 3/64-inch and white, but a black dot appears after five days on each egg. After a few days, the eggs hatch, and colorless nymphs emerge. Assuming a host is present, the offspring progress through five growth phases, known as instars, to shed their external skeleton (exoskeleton) to allow their bodies to expand.

Now that you have a description of bed bugs from egg to adulthood, here is where to look for them. Search for bed bugs in the cracks between baseboards, walls, flooring, nightstands, behind headboards and picture frames, underneath peeling wallpaper, mattress seams, box springs, and inside electrical outlets. Since you need magnification to find their eggs and the nymphs, use a magnifying glass during your investigation.

Action Pest Control provides bed bug pest control near you. Our trained technicians can determine if bed bugs are the cause of a pest infestation in your Lexington home.