Why bed bugs start in an apartment or house

Blood-sucking insects, which strive to penetrate into city apartments, are a real disaster today in many developed countries. If previously it was believed that bed bugs and fleas - this is the lot of sluts and marginals, now these parasites are found in the homes of respectable citizens. What causes bed bugs in an apartment - the most common version of their appearance.

Historical and statistical data

In Europe, bugs appeared only in the XI century. For the first time they are reported in German historical documents of the time. Archaeologists say that these blood-sucking parasites came from bats, which primitive people shared dry caves with. Ancestors of bed bugs parasitizing on dinosaurs are found in fossils formed from organic deposits 130 million years to the present day. A large amount of nutrient iron around insects indicates a source of nutrition - blood.

Interesting!

Migrating from advancing glaciers, a man in his belongings carried bedbugs to all continents, but most of all they liked the warm climate. In Asia, the largest population of blood-sucking insects still lives. Together with travelers, caravans of merchants, insects spread further and further. In the XIII century. they settled in the homes of France, in the XVII reached England. Bedbugs came to the east only in the 19th century.

With the beginning of the mass use of insecticides in the 20th century, it was believed that blood-sucking insects would be completely eliminated. And while the underdeveloped countries "itched" from lice, fleas and bugs, economically prosperous stained bloodsuckersusing increasingly sophisticated means.

Scientists report disappointing research results. Over the past 15 years, the number of blood-sucking synanthropic parasites in economically developed countries has increased several hundred times. Over the past two years, there has been a 500-fold increase in their number in New York. More than half of the apartments were infected. Let us consider in detail the scientific and pseudoscientific versions.

Versions of the increase in the population of bugs

The first is geographic

A growing number of tourists visit exotic countries in which bedbugs feel very well. People in their luggage deliver live adults and their eggs to their homeland. Passion for visiting countries in the Middle East, China, Vietnam, Central Asia increased the risk of infection. Gathering collections of antiques and souvenirs, people bring "emigrants" to their apartments, but you should get into favorable conditions with only one female, and given features of breeding bugs, after a short period of time, hundreds of her "children" will fill the house.

But even visiting developed countries does not mean that the traveler will not find "settlers" in his apartment. In Florida, seven years ago, they bred in a large area, increasing their numbers by 10 times. In Switzerland - by 70% compared with the end of the XX century. In Zurich, half of the apartments are inhabited by "bloodsuckers."There is a worldwide trend of an increase in the number of bugs.

The second is economic

An economic downturn always entails an increase in the number of parasites. With the advent and increased popularity of Second Hand stores, scientists associate a new wave of synanthropic ectoparasites. An adult can do without food for about a year, so long trips in the holds of ships, on board an airplane or truck wagons do not scare bloodsuckers. Getting into uncleaned and used clothes in our country, “illegal immigrants” take root in new territories. If bugs are wound up, take a closer look at the new acquisitions - folds of clothes, household appliances, computers, furniture.

Interesting!

Often there are messages in which people complain that bedbugs started at home after new furniture was brought into the apartment. So not only old things can serve as a source of “emigrants”, but new clothes are also rewarded with unexpected joy. Bedbugs on the couch or a new chair can get out of the store if the neighboring houses are infected with them, or from the clothes and shoes of shoppers who look after furniture.

In clothing boutiques bedbug eggs may fall during fitting. “Street bugs”, expanding their “hunting grounds”, penetrate the ventilation shafts into other apartments and houses, smelling pheromones, with the help of which their relatives mark the “hunting path”.

The third is climate

The World Bed Bug Monitoring Commission has voiced yet another version of why bed bugs start. According to scientists, their size and wide distribution were affected by climate change on Earth and the appearance of a larger number of heated rooms. These factors led to the fact that under favorable temperature conditions, the rate of reproduction and fecundity of bugs increased significantly. The period for which larva becomes a mature individual, ready for procreation.

Fourth - Political

Another version of scientists - where the bugs get from, echoes the first and second. The recent economic downturn in the world leads to the migration and movement of labor, especially from economically undeveloped countries. Coming to work, people live crowded, in conditions far from normal. Often they populate old, long empty houses, which are full of all "living creatures".

No country can cope with the flow of refugees and "illegal immigrants" now. Illegal "dormitories" are not checked by sanitary services, which is why a wave of synanthropic parasites literally swept through homes in prosperous and "clean" states and bring out bugs getting harder.

Fifth - Housing

Economic difficulties also affected the services, which should monitor the state of the housing stock. Ectoparasites propagate in moldy, arising from damp, basements, which rise in warm apartments, closer to the power source.

Interesting!

Bloodsuckers do not drink water, but they need moisture to maintain fluid balance in the body. Therefore, they prefer to settle in houses where it is warm and humid. In a dry atmosphere, insects quickly lose moisture and die from dehydration. Larvae are especially sensitive to humidity.

Homeless people huddle in the basements of the house, they spend the night on stairwells, bringing with them colonies of lice and bugs. The parasites that multiply under unsanitary conditions creep into apartments. Therefore, it cannot be said that bugs from dirt do not start, just dirt can be located outside the apartment.

Sixth - Biological

On the shelves of shops put up a huge number of various means of combating parasites, but for many of them bed bugs have long adapted.Due to the fact that arthropods reproduce very quickly and can transmit resistance to insecticides by inheritance, entire populations of “bloodsuckers” have appeared, which are difficult to exterminate with conventional chemicals.

These are the versions that explain in detail and scientifically how the bugs are made, shared the participants of the annual entomological conference in Annapolis (USA, Maryland).

Interesting!

Research continues to be conducted in the world to create the most effective remedy for bed bugs in the house. What to do if blood-sucking parasites are wound up? Canadian entomologists answered this question in Angewandte Chemie magazine. For eight years they have created a universal means of combating bedbugs. Using synthetic pheromones with which these insects lure a member of the opposite sex, they made a trap that can collect all the "tenants" in the house within a radius of several tens of meters.

Inside the trap there are “retention” substances and histamine, an organic substance that regulates instant allergic reactions. Getting on an insect, it causes inflammation and death of the "vampire". Adults and larvae that did not die can simply be drowned. To catch a bed bug, and then destroy it in any convenient way, is the goal of the invention of scientists from Simon Fraser University.

After a detailed explanation of how bugs get planted, we’ll consider how to get rid of parasites at home.

How to deal with bedbugs

Until traps from Canada arrive at our stores, you have to fight bugs tried and tested methods.

If a bug is found, then somewhere there is a whole colony of "bloodsuckers." In bed, they are only to eat. Most of the time, insects hide in the crevices of the floor, behind skirting boards, household appliances, under the fixtures of the bed and furniture. Bedbugs are hiding on the walls of the house under the wallpaper and in sockets, so they are difficult to detect.

The fight should be conducted systematically:

1. If excrement and blood stains are found in bed, and in the morning the characteristic paths from bedbugsthen you should carefully examine all the rooms in the apartment and clothes.

   

2. Remove and clean carpets and curtains, vacuum upholstered furniture. Move the furniture away from the walls of the house and wash the floor, baseboard and back of the furniture with the insecticide solution.
3. Wash clothes and textiles in hot water, dry in the sun and iron. Insects die at temperature above 50 ° C and in severe frosts.
4. Furniture and floors can be cleaned. using a household steam cleaner.

Interesting!

Bedbugs can not be crushed so as not to leave blood stains on light tissue or wallpaper. Especially if there are red bugs. This color gives them yet undigested fresh blood. While eating, the “vampire” drinks up to 7 mg of blood in one night, mechanical destruction will not solve the problem, but it can ruin the fabric or upholstery of the walls. On the abdomen of parasites are glands that synthesize volatile substances, warning the "neighbor" about the danger. The bugs, having received such a message, will hide in inaccessible places at home, "smoke" from which it will be impossible.

After the main preparation of premises for processing will be finished, you can begin the chemical destruction of parasites. Any suitable for this. effective household remedy for bedbugssold in a store. It should be sprayed in places of probable colony dislocation, thoroughly moistening the surface.

You need to know how bedbugs are bred, because many bloodsucker control products destroy only adults and larvae without affecting the laying of eggs. Therefore, over time, it is necessary to re-process to destroy the hatched young insects.

In the room where little children sleep, it is better to use folk remedies for bedbugs:

• suitable for this vinegar solution, essential oils oranges, cloves, pines, etc.
• to create barrier protection to get into the apartment of the “neighboring” bloodsuckers, you need to use an insecticidal pencil - the bugs outlined by this tool around the door and window frames, bed bugs can not overcome.
• in ventilation shafts, ducts, cabinets with clothes, repellent sections should be hung.

Interesting!

V. Mayakovsky, L. Tolstoy, Yu. Entin and others wrote about bugs. In his story “Bedbugs” Leo Tolstoy tells how he tried to protect himself from bedbugs in a hotel room. Putting the legs of the bed in water bowls, he carefully watched as the insects tried to reach him and drowned. But soon the bugs began to bite the writer. It turned out that they fell into bed, falling from the ceiling.

Those who are bitten by bugs know how painful the consequences of bites can be. To protect yourself from infection, which can penetrate through wounds and scratches, it is necessary to treat them with a disinfectant, ointments from bedbugs.

The fight against synanthropic blood-sucking insects has been waged by humans for a long time and with varying success. In order to create an effective tool to combat them, scientists study the DNA of parasites. Perhaps by declassifying the insect genome, it will be possible to influence the reproduction system, “sterilize” the bloodsuckers and end them forever in city apartments and houses.