Where & How To Look For Bed Bugs

It Can Be Tedious To Find Bed Bugs, But Certainly Not Impossible

NEVER underestimate where bedbugs could be hiding. I made this mistake and severely paid for it later. Many times, I thought, “I’m sure they wouldn’t be there in that dark and hard to reach place”, but sure enough, they were right where I thought they wouldn’t be...

Just think of it this way – they could be anywhere. When you look for them, think 360 degrees – top, bottom, left, right, and inside! You will most likely see them in dark, undisturbed creases, cracks or crevices, but that’s not to say they won’t be hanging out in more accessible places as well. It’s important to find the bugs prior to extermination, so you can go straight for the jugular and kill them at their source. In order to do that, you will need to start by looking in the hardest to see and hardest to reach places. You have to move things around, pull things out from the walls, turn things upside down. Also, think clusters – they hang out in little groups or colonies. When you find one, you will most likely find a whole crew of them in one spot, or a cluster of them nearby. That being said, you will need a few things to help you find them:             

Flashlight - Bedbugs can blend in with things, and the lights in living spaces typically aren’t enough.

Butter knife - You will need this to slightly pry open places like gaps in furnishings

Magnifying glass - This can help you see the smaller ones and spot if you are looking at a bug or something else.

Where Can I Find Bed Bugs?

How to check for bed bugs or, more precisely, where can bedbugs find you? The reason I say this is because wherever you are, that’s where they are. They want to be as close as possible to their food source without being disturbed. Now, I’m not saying you won’t find them elsewhere, because I’ve found them in some pretty weird places, like the closet. I will get back to that a little later.

Below is a list of places you will be most likely to find bedbugs. If you use any of these objects or are near any of these objects more than once every couple of weeks, you will be more likely to find them there. Any area near, on, or in, where you frequently sit or lay, is where they can be found.

• Sheets, mattresses, and pillows (Though this one may be obvious, I would be wrong to leave it out.)
• Bed frames
• Headboards (most likely place for them in hotels)
• Box springs
• Couches
• Areas behind pictures and posters
• Piles of clothes
• Shoes
• Nightstand
• Cardboard boxes
• Wooden tables
• Space under the kitchen table and chair
• Baseboards (between the carpet and the wall and on top)
• Space in the crease where the ceiling and wall meet
• Purses
• Backpacks
• Laptop bags
• Luggage
• Space behind light switches & power outlets
• Extension cord plugs
• Curtains or drapes
• Window sill
• Electronics
• Alarm clocks
• Lamps
• Light fixtures
• Cell phones
• Books
• Office desk
• The area under mouse pads
• Headphones
• Keyboards
• Desk chair
• Vehicle
• Laptop
• Crevices under, on, and in desktop computer tower or monitor

Basically, you can find them on anything wood, fabric, leather, rubber, drywall, paper, cardboard, or just about anything that’s not smooth. It’s not likely that you will see them on smooth things like metal, plastic, porcelain, or glass unless it’s against fabric (like a bed frame with a box spring), or unless one falls onto it.

Chances are, you aren’t going to find them in all of these places, but these are typical places to find them.

Remember when I said I found them in my closet? Let me explain how they can get there. If you wear a shirt for a couple of hours and sit on a chair, couch, or even carry a bag that has bedbugs, you could have them on your clothes. If you take those clothes off and put them back in your closet or dresser, you may have little travelers on them. Another way they could get into the closet is if you throw your clothes on the bed when you are selecting what to wear for the day, and then decide you don’t want to wear it, and then hang it back in the closet. Just one bedbug can turn into a bed bug infestation if the bug is a pregnant female. Moreover, if you have one of them on your shirt when you put it on, you might as well be saying, “Come feast on me”. Gruesome, I know… but those are the facts.

Now, you might be thinking that it’s impossible to reach all of these places to kill the bugs, and you would be right, but if you use residual methods and traps, you will get to those hard-to-reach places. I will get to the full method a little later, but first, let’s go over the facts and habits before you go through with the professional Bedbugs Control Brisbane extermination process.