5 Signs You Have Bedbugs On Your Premises

Do you manage a hotel or holiday accommodation? Are you in charge of a care home or do you own student rentals? Well watch out, there are bed bugs about!
As people travel and move from place to place, these sneaky pests hitch a ride onto your premises in clothing, luggage, bags, and furniture. Once they're in, they bite and feast on the blood of a human host, and they breed fast. A female bed bug can lay up to 500 eggs in as little as two months, so you can see how quickly an infestation could occur. When they're established, you won't be able to confine them to one room either, and your entire premises could be affected.
So before you have irate customers, residents, or tenants taking to social media and complaining that they woke up covered in bug bites after a stay in your property, you need to act fast.
But before you do anything, you need to know if you do actually have a bed bug infestation. Would you know how to spot the signs that you have bed bugs on your premises?
5 signs you have bed bugs on your premises
The chances are that the first sign you'll get that there are bed bugs on your premises is that either you or someone else will wake up with bug bites that can look like wheals. The arms and legs are common sites for bites. But even if you don't notice bites, you might notice;
Shed skins: Bed bugs shed their skins as they develop into adults.
Faeces: Bed bugs faeces look like little black dots. You might notice these on bedding, along the seam on mattresses, and anywhere else that has been infested.
Specks of blood on sheets: Noticing specks of blood on your sheets from the bites that the bed bugs have inflicted is common.
A strange odour: This is a tell-tale sign of a serious infestation. Bed bugs tend to give off a strange sickly sweet smell when they are disturbed, which is a hormonal signal. Dogs can be trained to sniff out bed bugs as they can identify this scent a lot more easily than we can.
Live bed bugs: They are very small and experts at hiding out in places like mattress seams and nooks and crannies in furniture, but you might be able to spot a live bed bug if you have a keen eye.
Suspect there are bed bugs on your premises?
If you've seen one or more of the 5 signs of bed bugs, you need to act fast to protect your business and your reputation.
Contego can help you protect your business by dealing with the infestation and working with you to carry out the best possible treatment for your situation.
From proofing measures to effective eradication treatments like heat treatments, we can help get rid of bed bugs and keep them out of your premises for good.
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