As a home or business owner in Florida, few things can be more distressing than finding a small brown insect on your sheets and not knowing what it is. The impact of knowing you could be bitten as you sleep is not something that we can easily ignore. If you suspect you have bed bugs, they need to be identified before you spend money on a treatment or start moving furniture from room to room.
To help differentiate between bed bugs and the other pests in Florida that get mistaken for them, we want to run through a few things with you. Given we have fought bed bugs for years, we know what separates a useful photo or specimen from a picture nobody can judge. The EPA and the CDC’s laboratory reference both make the point we make on our calls every week: confirmation comes from physical evidence, ideally a collected bug, found near where someone sleeps. Let us help you weigh what you have found so you know what to look out for.
Do Bites Prove You Have Bed Bugs?
While looking out for bed bugs, it is important to understand that bites are the weakest evidence of all. Despite regularly being blamed on bed bugs, bites from mosquitoes, fleas, and several skin conditions can be easily mistaken for one another on their physical appearance. How a person reacts to a bite depends on numerous factors as well; some people show no visible reaction at all, while others react days after being bitten.
Sometimes, it is easier to spot the signs that bed bugs have been present instead of looking for the bed bug itself. They are very small – you are quite unlikely to spot bed bugs moving around the bed or mattress. Instead of counting bites, look for common signs of their presence, such as:
- Stains appearing in your bedding that look like a rust stain. These are caused by bed bugs being crushed as you move around during the evening.
- Dark spots that look like someone has had a pen burst on the bedding. As gross as this is, these small dark spots are excrement from the bed bugs.
- Signs of eggshells and shed casings. These will be tiny and almost invisible individually but become much easier to see in groups.
Focusing on the above signs will be much easier than trying to read a bite pattern. Using them together, you can feel more confident about determining whether you have bed bugs or another pest problem to contend with.
What Do Bed Bugs Look Like At Each Stage?
The bed bug has a small, flat body – most other bug species you will find indoors are rounder and have a less flattened-down look. Generally, an adult is going to be something in the region of 4-5mm once it has reached full maturity, which puts it roughly in line with a seed you would find in most forms of seeded fruit, such as an apple. Thankfully, the bed bug is also a wingless creature, so it cannot fly at you, and it cannot jump the way a flea can. The EPA’s life-stage guide shows the same progression with photographs.
One problem you will notice when comparing your photo against bed bug pictures online is that these pests seem to change color. In some photos, they appear in that reddish-brown hue most of us expect to see. Other times, though, they can be more tan in color or even close to translucent. More translucent-looking bed bugs tend to be nymphs. These are young bed bugs who have yet to feed for the first time. Once they feed, they change to the deeper reddish-brown color that we have come to expect from bed bugs.
Bed bugs begin their life as milky white, grain-like eggs that measure about a millimeter long, and females choose crevices and cracks to lay them in – so a pale speck sitting out on an open surface is usually something else. Smaller bed bugs are much harder to pick up with the human eye and usually require magnified inspection to spot. Fully-grown adults, though, are easily spotted with the eye, and easily photographed.
What Should You Look For Around The Bug?
Bed bugs stay close to ‘home’ – your bed – and are usually found near piping sections and tags on your mattress. Any cracks within your bed frame or headboard, too, could be a clear way for them to get in and out of the bed without being seen. In heavier infestations, it is common to find bed bugs littering places like the seams of chairs and upholstery, so couches and recliners deserve the same close look. The University of Florida’s identification page lists the same core signs we check on every inspection: the bugs themselves, eggs, excrement, and blood spotting.
The best place to start is with the stains mentioned above. These brown and red/rust-colored stains are the clearest indicator you can have that bed bugs are well and truly present. Cornell’s pest management program notes that a damp white tissue wiped across a suspected spot will pick up a rusty smear; treat that as a reason to keep searching the same seam rather than as proof on its own. As bed bugs age from being a nymph into an adult, they leave behind their old casings, and they continue to do this until they reach full growth. The casings will almost look like old, dead bed bugs until you inspect them close-up, and they are well worth photographing where they lie.
How Do You Take A Photo We Can Actually Use?
Taking a useful photo is not as challenging as it might initially sound. Don’t worry; you do not need any special camera equipment! What you will need to do, though, is get the camera as close to the insect as it will still focus, from directly above, in decent light. Digital zoom tends to smear the very details an inspector needs, so moving the phone closer always beats zooming in. Remember that even an adult bed bug is only around 1/5 of an inch in size – laying a coin or a ruler beside it saves everyone a lot of guesswork.
Look at the photo you have just taken, and you should be able to spot how flat and oval the body is. If you cannot make that out, we will not be able to either. Then take one wider shot showing the seam, crack, or piece of furniture where you found it, because where a bug turns up matters nearly as much as what it looks like.
Another thing worth doing, if you can manage it, is keeping the insect itself. An identification can be defeated by simple physical factors – being stepped on, crushed, or swept away – so try to trap the insect in a small container that closes securely. Sealed up like that, the bug will usually dehydrate and die on its own, and the body shape an expert needs to see stays intact.
What Trips People Up When Identifying Bed Bugs?
Several other creatures can easily be mistaken for a bed bug. Fleas are even more oval-shaped than the bed bug, and they appear longer and thinner as opposed to flatter and fatter; look for an actual jumping creature, too, because a flea can jump around 13 inches while the bed bug cannot jump at all. The most common relative to the bed bug is the bat bug, and separating those two honestly takes magnification. This is the situation where a sealed specimen earns its keep.
Understanding if your problem is the presence of bed bugs or another insect is important for hiring the right pest control solution. What works to kill off a bed bug will not work to kill off fleas, and so on. Getting the identification wrong is how people end up paying for a treatment they did not need. Do not assume that a single dark spot proves the case either; without more spots, skins, or a bug in the same area, it is extremely unlikely to hold up.
When Do You Have Enough To Call?
Suffice it to say that if you have a clear photo or a sealed specimen from a bed seam, frame joint, or piece of upholstery, it is time to call in professional support. The same goes for several of the signs above found together in one protected spot. If bites are all you have, start with a proper physical search instead of assuming the answer – you can work through our Florida bed bug checking guide room by room.
Now that you know what makes a photo or specimen useful, it should be easier to know if you have bed bugs in Florida. If you do, our bed bug inspection team can confirm the identification and handle the problem from there. Contact us today to see how we can assist in removing your problem ASAP!
From our recorded calls
These are real calls. The answers are word for word. The questions are our summary of what was asked, because callers do not record as clearly as we do. We never publish a caller's surname, address, phone number or price.
How close should a photo of a suspected bed bug be?
I don't need a picture of your ceiling. I need pictures of the bugs as close and clear as you can get them. If you think it's close up and clear enough, I need it even closer and clearer, okay? Because we have to enlarge it because the bugs, the biggest ones are no bigger than an apple seed.
Answered by Dori on a call,
