Yes - at that 2p2 of bed bug forums site I linked, they have many pictures of people's bites, and they can vary quite a bit. I mentioned earlier they can resemble flea bites.

As far as where they bite you - they go for exposed skin while you sleep. So if you have a bunch of bites say under the elastic of your underwear, that is more likely a chigger (prefer enclosed spaces IIRC). But could still be a bed bug. A good indication of potential bed bug biting is the "Breakfast-Lunch-Dinner" pattern I noted above.

As far as frequency - the bed bug feeds every 5 days or so. So the frequency of biting has alot to do with how many bed bugs are in your pad. So at the beginning of an infestation, you don't get bit all that much. When you are 1 month+ into an infestation, you may get bit every night.

Here's a good description from UofK's entomology site of how the bed bug feeds (they are a leading academic institution w/r/t bed bug research):

http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef636.asp

Determining whether or not you have Bed Bugs:

From what I've read and now have learned from my more paranoid friends in NYC: you must determine via the help of a professional whether or not you actually have bed bugs before proceeding with the extermination process.

You can not determine the presence of bed bugs from the bite appearance alone - ignorant medical professionals will tell you to go see a dermatologist - but everyone's skin reacts differently so it's impossible to tell.

The only sure-fire way to confirm the presence of a bed bug infestation in your home is to have a professional do a thorough examination and see signs of the bed bug poop and exoskeleton shedding I mentioned above, but most critically, finding an actaul bed bug or egg.

That's why having an initial inspection with a NESDCA certified bed bug dog and handler team is really worth the expense imo (it can run $300 for a home IIRC). The dog will get right to a bed bug's hiding spot, so the trainer can find one and 100% confirm you have a bed bug issue.

If the trainer/dog are not alerted to the presence of bed bugs at all, and gives a 100% safe after a very thorough inspection, you know you have some other kind of insect issue (chiggers,fleas,maybe even just mosquitoes). And don't have to completely freak out (dealing with bed bugs is alot of work on both the exterminators and the residents parts).

I had them once in an apartment building and it was a NIGHTMARE!
My suggestion would be to get bed bug covers for all of your beds and put them on both the box springs and mattresses. they run about $50-$80 a piece and can be bought at stores like Bed Bath and Beyond. I would then take all of your clothes and draperies out of your house. I mean everything and get them dry cleaned or wash them all in hot water. (this is avery imoportant step)
I wouldnt take anything back to the house until its been extermintated and you no longer have bites. I remember the bites being so ridiculously ithching and swelling up. I would go to bed and wake up covered in them.
I also threw away all of my furniture. If this isnt an option maybe you can store it in a storage unit for a year or more. Apparently they can live for up to a year with no food.
I wish you the best of luck. After you are bed bug free be sure to check all hotels you stay at as soon as you check in.(Check under the mattresses and the drawers). As soon as I got rid of them I got bites from a Las Vegas hotel. After returning home I threw everything in the garage and waited to go to the laundry mat to wash those clothes before bringing anything back into my house.

I had bedbugs when I moved in to my new place in Vancouver about 18mos ago. (apparently vancouver has become infested since the olympics)

Anyhow I actually used bed-bug smelling dogs to eliminate them. The dog comes in and sniffs them out, and then they treated those areas specifically. 2weeks later the dog comes back and confirms whether you are rid of them or not (we were after only 1 treatment).

We had to wait a week or so before we got the treatment though and it was really stressful. My g/f had a bad reaction to the bite (lots of swelling, redness, itching).

When we slept we just kept the lights on, as apparently they don't like light very much. This worked really well and we didn't get many(if any) bites during that that time.

Oh yeah and please keep yopur house clear of clutter. The bugs love to live in the clutter

My girl lived in a place with bedbugs and I would always go to work the next day scratching myself like crazy.

I don't know how effective all the previous methods are, but if you nothing works, raising the temperature of your home to about 120 degrees F will nuke em all. There are people that will bring in special equipment to your home to do this. Again, use only as last resort.

Were you advised by your exterminator on an action plan once it was determined you have bed bugs? The above jibes with what I've read on the optimal preparation (not exactly, but really damn close) - and was wondering if you did your own research or got a prep sheet / action plan from your exterminator. (My understanding is the good exterminator's help you out here, as there's alot of work to be done on the resident's part.)

Not doubting what you are saying is true - but in the spirit of keeping to "facts" and not rumor about bed bugs and treatment - I was told by the bed bug dog/trainer at Isotech that if your house has been treated with chemicals, the dog can not reinspect until after about a month wait, because the residual scent of chemical treatment will screw with the dog's nose and make for potential false positives/negatives.

This information was repeated by the bed bug dog team my ex-gf used on the East Coast as well.

Oh - and as I'm sure you know - Vancouver is one of the oft-cited "hotspots" of bed bug activity (along with Sydney, NYC specifically Brooklyn/Queens).

it's starting to weird me out how much al knows about this

Tony_P - haha, skunkworks just IM'ed me that!

I was very invested in helping out my then girlfriend in solving her problem. (Partly because I thought she may have infected my own pad.) And since she was honestly a mess about the whole thing (she's deeply scared of bugs), I did most of the heavy lifting research wise and learned alot in the process.

At the very least I'm fairly sure should I personally have an issue, I know exactly the right steps to take to minimize the pain. And can help out my friends and maybe help educate OOT as well.

There are a ton of misconceptions about bed bugs - makes sense when you consider from 1940 to basically 2000, there were none in the States. So there isn't historical/learned information in the medical, exterminator, or political communities on it. And none of our parents or peers have ever had it - so most people have no idea what to do should they have an issue.

it's FLEA season right now. they're hatching. i just got 3 bites over the past 2 nights. i fogged my bed an hour ago, and applied flea treatment to my dog. hopefully that stops it. flea bites are about 3 times more painful than a mosquito bite at least to me.

i hate them.

these bed bugs are scaring the hell out of me. i go to vegas a lot and now i'm in fear.

Bed bugs are really a pain in the ass to get rid of (as has been corroborated ITT many times), but ~50% of people don't even have reactions to the bites, and unlike fleas, bed bugs are not (currently) vectors of disease.

Also, hardly every hotel room in Vegas has them. Even if the hotel itself has some kind of bed bug issue, it's not like the whole hotel is screwed.

Just trying to balance out the fear/paranoia here.

i wish i never read this thread. i think im going to be paranoid as **** now. was thinking of going to nyc later in year for a holiday. **** that ****.

I dont remember. I did my own research. A LOT of research before the exterminator ever came. But throwing away my furniture, washing every article of clothing I had, along w/the mattress covers and extermintation I got rid of them in 2 visits. Where as we had 4-5 visits before we threw everything away and got the mattress covers.

It is a lot of work and to this day any time I get a bug bite I am paranoid it is bed bugs. I actually only saw one bug the whole time I had them but I had them bad. I would wake up in the night, throw on the light as fast as I can, and flip my mattress on the floor to try to see them. They were driving me absolutely crazy!

Thanks for the response. Yeah... my general impression when helping out my ex-gf is that you really do have to bring alot of your own research to the table to minimize the pain and treat it optimally and work with a really good exterminator.

I think the fact that more people are talking about it (probably because it's getting more commonplace), hopefully more people will be educated and less freaked out about it. Also strong institutional knowledge is building in the relevant communities.

What if I were to sleep with no covers and all my lights on and pointing at me? Will that deter the bugs at all?

They don't like lights but I believe they will eventually still bite you because they get hungry and their feeding instinct will override absent other hosts.

Someone above posted that keeping the lights on helped - can't hurt I'd think.

If you have them at all, there are other stop-gap measures you can take to help deter their biting while your pad is undergoing an extermination.

(A common one is to encase your mattress with a Bed Bug cover, to trap the ones in your mattress inside of it, while also putting the legs of your bedframe in bowls filled with mineral or tea tree oil - if they come from the walls and try to crawl up the bed frame legs they will be somewhat repelled by the scent of the oil, and also potentially drown in the bowl.)

I would check the bedbugger forums for some other suggestions.

How big are these? I occasionally spot a real tiny insectish thing hanging around my bed, they're only 2mm large though. They move **** slow(like, so slow that if I see them when I'm still tired I go back to sleep because I know they'll have either stayed on the spot or moved about 10 cm when I wake up later) and you can not see their head. The house is **** old so I figure there are a lot of tiny insects residing in the walls, I've never found any in my bed itsself though.

bbfg - just google around for pictures and descriptions of the bed bug. They are distinct in appearance as far as insects go.

This is a good picture of them? Deff not bed bugs then, they are fully fully black 100% of the time and you can never see their head, all I see is a round shaped shellish thing. The shellish thing also does not reflect light like in the pic.

I'll be terrified for life though . I only really am afraid of insects that can cause pain/infections when they bite/sting (and moths, I hate moths) but still am creeped out about vampire bugs coming out at night to steal my bloodz .

Wow, sounds like I'm going to need to build an ostacle course for these little bastards to travel through to get to me. I like the idea of an oil moat, maybe I'll light it on fire too. Nothing to burn the bed, just enough to burn the bugs. I'll start by playing zombies in CoD for a few hours to get some good ideas... thanks for the info Salman (in all seriousness).

grunch: How difficult can it be to get your house up to 140 degrees in Dallas?

Very informative. I'll keep in mind not to buy any wooden furnitures and bedframes in the future.

It's funny how some of you are willing to go back to sleep in the same bed knowing that there's a massive amount of hungry blood suckers awaiting to eat you alive. I would temporary move to the living room or somewhere else in the house until the matter is dealt with.

Don't know if it's feasible, but for economicalwise, perhaps we can introduce the bed bug's natural predator into the infested home. I mean you already have so much bugs, why not? I figure they would all leave once the place is rid of BBs & there's nothing for them to feed on. I used to live in a place where there's a lot of house centipedes, and it's nice cause the house hardly has any pests.

Temporarily moving is a bad idea, all the experts say you should not take that measure. The bugs are smart and are attracted to us and are hungry, hence they will come and find you. All moving elsewhere does is spread them to additional rooms.

There aren't really great natural predators for bed bugs. Spiders are good but obviously that takes some time. These things seem to be the best but they also bite humans and aren't exactly easy to come by.

Wow man, they have probably been feasting on you and your family for awhile, that would creep me out super bad and i couldnt sleep in that bed. How do you manage to live there still knowing they go full buffet mode on you at night?