A list of the UK bed bug hotspots has been revealed, while experts have warned of symptoms to look out for.
A rise in interest in the blood-sucking critters tends to follow the seasons with less in colder months and usually a peak in August and September. This year, however, October has seen a surge in calls to pest control companies after Paris reported a surge in infestations.
New maps show the UK hot spots, with three areas in London being named as the areas of the UK where people are searching about bed bugs on Google.
Stats show around 80,000 searches for the term “bed bugs” in the past 30 days across the UK, with the rate among Purley in Croydon, south London residents being the highest of all.
The south east London town of Belvedere, Bexley came joint second, tied with West Drayton in Hillingdon, west London.
Residents living in Colchester, Essex, and Hale Barns in Greater Manchester have also registered a lot of interest in bed bugs, while in Southend-on-Sea, London commuters have been blamed for a rise in reports.
Experts at Bed Kingdom have outlined the signs to watch out for.
One early sign of bed bugs is a strange, musty scent in your bedroom. When bed bugs feel threatened, they emit alarm pheromones which have a faint smell of raspberries, coriander or almonds. In severe bed bug cases, this smell will be mixed with the odour of dead bugs and shed cell casings which creates a rusty smell.
If you wake up with red, itchy bites, this could be a sign of bed bugs as they typically feed on blood during the night. Usually, bites appear on arms, hands and legs in small clusters, but they can also show up as single bites. They are not usually dangerous, but some people can be allergic.
When a bed bug has finished feeding, the blood can leak out if you squash them during your sleep by sudden movements like rolling over. If you notice any small specks of blood on your bed sheets or clothing, check for anything on your body first that could be the cause, like a scab. If there’s no visible cause for the blood, it could be the stains were from bedbugs.
Dark marks from bed bug droppings about the size of a pen tip can appear on mattresses, sheets, headboards, and even walls.
Bed bug eggs can be hard to spot as they are only around 1mm long – but they can be found by paying attention to anything that looks like small rice grains in your bed.
Shell casings are an early sign of infestation. Bed bugs shed several times during different lifecycle stages, meaning their shell casings can come in different sizes – but you can spot them by their yellow, translucent appearance in the seams, folds and crevices of mattresses or even other areas such as cracks in walls and furniture.
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