How fast do bed bugs spread from room to room?


Dave Campbell

Bed bugs are a common pest that can be found in hotels, apartment buildings and homes. These pests can move quickly from one area to the next. To stop bed bugs multiplying across your home, it is important to take action as soon as possible. Before you call a pest management expert, there may be a few things you can do yourself to remove beg bugs from your home, and stop them going from one room to another.

Bed bugs can spread quickly and can move with a speed of 4 feet per minute, so it only takes them 15 secs to move 1 foot. So if you have 30 feet between two rooms, it would take them 7 mins 30 secs.

Ways that bed bug infestations can start

Bed bugs start out in other parts of the home, likely on someone who has been bitten and then travels to another location.

It’s not uncommon for bed bugs to be found near a person’s bed or living quarters because it provides warmth, shelter, and plenty of blood meals. Bed bugs feed on human blood, so they will move towards a bed and stay there during the evening. These creatures will follow the carbon dioxide you breathe out when you are sleeping. Bed bugs will happily use any warm blooded hosts as a food source.

One type of bed bug infestation can lead to another in the form of these insects contaminating other, non-living spaces.

Bed bugs can multiply rapidly and be difficult to manage if they are not discovered early on.

What to look for

You can spot bed bugs by their flat bodies, long antennae, and distinctive reddish-brown color. If bed bugs have recently eaten, their bodies will be bloated with a blood meal, and the bed bugs will appear larger.

Bed bug bites are often mistaken for other insect bites or reactions to particular foods such as wheat flour or banana peels.

Bed bugs hide in many different places of a home, but there will be tell tale signs. The first signs may be small blood stains or dark spots on sheets or linens found near the infested area. Signs of a bed bug infestation include the insects themselves, eggs found in bedding, skin cells from the bed bug’s cast-off exoskeleton shed while molting, and fecal spots. A female will lay eggs that are around the size of a poppy seed and is white in color. If you can identify these pests yourself, you may be able to save time and money before calling out a pest management operator.

sofa infestation of bed bugs

Bed bug travel speed across a room

Bed bugs travel long distances between one room and another sometimes quite quickly. Bed bugs live up to a year, which gives them plenty of time to spread from one area to another. They are most often picked up by travelers who unknowingly bring infested items from a hotel room into a new location. A person could also pick them up on public transportation, on a bus, train or plane. How fast bed bugs spread from room to room is determined by how the things they attach to are moved around.

Furniture

Bed bugs will also crawl between an infested piece of furniture in one room and then find their way onto a person’s clothing, suitcase, or possibly even backpack. Once they get on these items, bed bugs spread easily into a new area and start to infest the bed in that location.

Walls and floorboards

Bed bugs move between one area to another through hiding spots in cracks and crevices or holes located around floorboards, baseboards, light switches and wall molding. These tiny spaces are just big enough for bed bug eggs, nymphs and adults to squeeze through and make their way into an adjacent room.

Luggage

It is a known fact that bed bugs spread through the use of luggage or infected suitcases, as these items are often moved from one location to another. Many travellers will be unaware that bed bugs have travelled along with them and found a new home.

Reproduction rate

Adult bed bugs also reproduce at a rapid rate. For their population to grow, it only takes one male and a female in the same space to produce up to 800 baby bugs within just six months. In a relatively short amount of time, you can have an area of your house overwhelmed with bed bugs.

luggage service

Movement speed and distance

Bed bugs generally prefer to crawl, since they are slow. Bed bugs can move about an inch in a minute. This may not seem very fast, but bug movement is often overlooked and underestimated. Bed bugs will also go into hiding during daylight hours as their photophobic instincts tell them that this is the best time to rest and avoid detection. This means that their rate of movement is even slower during the day than it is in the morning or at night.

Understanding their behavior can help us understand ways bed bugs spread from one room to another, as well as what we need to do if we think there might be a problem with a bed bug infestation.

Bed bugs travel around a home on furniture, bedding and belongings. A single infested item left alone for more than 24 hours may lead to new infestations in other rooms of the house. Bedbugs are not known to spread disease but their bites can cause allergic reactions or psychological effects such as anxiety and depression.

bed bug close up photo

 

 

Bed Bug Prevention tips

1. Cover your mattress

2. Store clothes in sealed plastic bins and keep them off the ground

3. Remove clutter

4. Clean up after yourself

5. Use bed bug powder

mattress

Conclusion

Hopefully, this article has helped answer this question for you. Bed bugs are a serious problem that can cause significant anxiety for people. In order to prevent bed bugs spreading, it is important to know how they travel and what steps you should take if you find bed bugs in your home.

There are many different ways that bed bugs spread around the house; some of these include on clothing or by hitchhiking onto furniture or objects carried into the home. You may also have an infestation in your bedroom because there is something attracting bed bugs that needs to be replaced with new material that doesn’t attract pests. If after following all of our suggestions, you still see evidence of bedbugs crawling out at night, get professional help and call a pest control company right away! A pest control professional will be able to identify the source of the problem and offer the appropriate treatment.

Reference: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/top-10-myths-about-bedbugs/

 

Dave Campbell

I'm Dave Campbell and the owner of deadpestz.com. You can read more about me and my background on my About Me page.

Recent Posts

Dead Pestz