Where Do Bed Bugs Come From?

A common question asked by many home owners and Apartments and Hotels. We have discovered and rid countless residences of nasty bed bug infestations. We are providing here some true stories that might help you understand the problem and solution.

Florence County

How Do Bed Bugs Spread?

Florence, South Carolina is a city with around 37,000 people living in it. This area is known as being in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. Florence is home to several colleges. We had our first case of bed bugs in Florence, SC last year. A college student had left to go on Spring Break and once he returned he noticed he had itchy bites on his inner arms, neck and legs. He called the hotel in Panama City and asked them if the room he stayed in could have bed bugs. He was told that they were unaware of any problems, but would report the complaint to their manager and the room would be inspected. The student never heard back from the hotel and was left to figure it out on his own.

After having our K-9 team do a search of his Florence, SC apartment two bed bugs were found under his box spring in the edge of a cardboard box. Apparently after returning from his vacation he had stowed his empty suitcase under the bed and they had set up residence in the corrugated edging of the box. Lucky for this kid in Florence, South Carolina as his parents were able to pay to have his apartment heat treated and he was able to continue classes with little to no real interruption to his regular routine. K-9 team did a follow up complimentary scan and no bed bugs or bed bug eggs were found the next month. Pretty sure this guy will be checking out the next hotel bed and that of his friends before “getting the party started”.

Bed Bug Infestation   

Lake City, South Carolina is located in Florence and has around 8,000 residents. I think one of the saddest bed bug cases is one in which the family had bed bugs in Lake City and all of the young children had bite marks on them. I guess the bed bugs were biting the adults too, but they did not have a reaction to the bites.

It is especially sad to see children or elderly people being bitten and not able to get rid of bedbugs. The mother was trying to sleep on top of her covers in the hopes that the bed bugs would bite her instead of her children. The children were visibly upset and scratching the bites with dirty fingernails. This can lead to a staph infection and I recommended that the mother talk with the pediatrician about medication that might help relieve the itching. Needless to say we treated her Lake City home and allowed her to have a reduced rate which she was allowed to pay over several months.

We had to emphasize the importance of not letting the children spend the night off at their friends or family members because the infestation had been going on for over a year and the chances were high that their friends and neighbors had bedbugs which could be brought back in and the infestation would start all over again. I hope the children were not traumatized by their experience and I tried to remind them that it is only a bug and bugs can be killed.  I can promise you there is one family in Lake City, SC that does not use the saying, “goodnight, don’t let the bed bugs bite” as they do not want to ever think about these pests again.

Williamsburg County

Another Bed Bug Infestation     

Cades, South Carolina is located in Williamsburg County near Kingstree. We received a bed bug call from a lady living in Cades, South Carolina. Her daughter had returned home from college for the summer break and had moved most of her belongings back into her old bedroom. Her daughter had no bites or itching and did not think they had a bed bug problem.

Then one night the daughter went to sleep on the couch while watching TV, when she awoke in the middle of the night she noticed a red bug biting her ankle. She knocked it off and blood smeared a steak on the couch cushion. She got her mom up and together they pulled out the sofa bed and found more bugs crawling on it. She was confused because these were black where the one on her ankle looked red, but still she Googled the black bugs and could see they looked like the bed bugs on the internet.

The reason the bug on her leg was red was because it would have been a young newly hatched bug which are more clear until they feed and turn red when filled with blood. Later as the bug molts and grows into the next in-star stage it will become brownish black. The Cades home was heat treated and dusted and the family has decided that the daughter will not be returning to live on campus, but instead getting a very small house in which she will have greater control over.

Where Bed Bugs Come From     

Hemingway, South Carolina is located in Williamsburg and is very small with around 700 residents living there. I recall a case where a lady living in Hemingway had found bed bugs in her dresser near her bed. Bed Bug Detection Service likes to try and find out where the source of the bed bugs may have started as this is a good way to prevent the home becoming re-infested in the future.

As it turns out the lady had recently been to Indonesia and had been a guest in someone's home before returning to her Hemingway, SC home. She knew she had been bitten by bed bugs while in Indonesia, but did not realize how good they are at hitchhiking. She had unpacked her luggage and placed most of the clothes in her dresser which is exactly where the nest was at. I guess this resident in Hemingway was lucky in the fact that she had enough resources to treat the infestation right away and did not spend months trying to solve the problem herself. So many people just don’t have the extra money to have a professional company do the treatments for them and it becomes one more struggle in their lives. 

Professional Bed Bug Inspection

It can take two trained technicians up to two hours to search one bedroom for bed bugs visually and they only have around 25% accuracy. Inspecting an entire home with an IBBMA certified canine and handler can be completed in a number of minutes with accuracy of 90% or greater. Bed Bugs are excellent hitchhikers and just like lice they are parasites and need people or animal blood to survive. 

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Bed Bug Detection Remediation Services of South Carolina is a division of FFR, Inc.