Bedbugs?

Vasko

What exactly are bedbugs? Do they bite?

I stayed in the YMCA at Vizag and every night got stingy and itchy bites even though I couldn't spot or hear a single mosquito. Who or what is to blame??

"sweet dreams, sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite"...?

rab

In my opinion the worst pest that a traveller can come across in India is the Bed Bug (Cimex lectularius). There are a lot of misconceptions about these pests, e.g. that you can't see them for instance - you can, they are up to 5 mm long!

They live in the cracks and crevices around beds, skirtings, behind torn wallpaper and very often in the plastic buttons holding on the headboard of a bed.

The best thing to take when travelling to help is firstly a small torch. Without a torch you are unlikely to be able to detect them.

If you find them the best thing to do is ask for another room as whatever you do you won't be able to eliminate all these creatures.

If you do decide to stay spray all the cracks and crevices with an aerosol insecticide. Chalk around the bed frame or bed legs is worthwhile, but a thorough inspection and hand removal is best (i.e. squash them - but you will be put off by the second hand blood - partly digested it's dark brown ... yuk!).

Another thing to look for are the tell-tale signs of bed bugs and that is blood spotting - black or very dark brown marks along the wooden bed frame or around the potential harbourages described above.

Another good tip is take your own sewn sheet sleeping bag and sleep inside that which may help keep them out. Incidentally their flat profiled bodies are just perfect for crawling between bedsheets (as opposed to fleas which are tall but narrow for negotiating between animal hairs!)

Every night in India I always check for bed bugs and fortunately have not come across them, although I have seen plenty of cockroaches, especially on trains funnily enough.

If you get a mystery bite after a night's sleep in India and you have been under a good mozzie net, the chances are that you didn't look hard enough for bed bugs!

rab

(hope this is informative - don't want to come over as too much of a "know it all" but I did used to work for several years as an Industrial Field Biologist in London, UK - so ask away with your pest questions!).

Note this is a repeat post from the thread "Cockroaches" but re-posted here as this thread is just about bedbugs.

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Vasko

Hi rab,

Thanks for the info! What kind of marks do bedbug bites leave on the skin? Are they itchy (and scratchy )? I mean, I want to be able to distinguish the marks left by mozzies and bb's.

Alan D

Bedbugs leave a raised lengthwise, differently coloured, area on the skin and yes they do itch.

Mosquito bites leave a circular raised area with the puncture at the centre.

Personally I've only found bedbugs at one hotel in India. The problem seems to be worse in Nepal (crowded lodges at lower altitudes) and south east Asian countries like Malaysia and Indonesia where they seem to live in cane furniture.

They're more of a nuisance than a danger as they don't carry diseases like mosquitos and fleas.

I think you would be most at risk with bedbugs in cheap dormitory accommodation.

Check your sheetbag or sleeping bag if you suspect they are around - they have a habit of finding their way to the bottom corners.

flamingo2004

And I thought Indiamike was a nice place.
This thread gives me the creeps all over. Maybe because I just read about a german who was nearly eaten by his pet spiders and leguanas after dying from a Black Widow bite.
I do like cockroaches though. They give such a nice sound when crushed and in Spain I have seen them so big, that you can wrestle them
Oh - by the way: good advice in the above postings

LuAnnandJawahar

Vasko--don't stay someplace where everynight you get stingy OR itchy bites--or at least ask for a different room. Just because one bed is infected it doesn't mean that everyroom is infested. Bed bugs feel like a very tiny animal just stung you, like a pin prick, and you wonder how such a small creature could cause such a sharp pain. Then they itch, but not always for long. Hope that helps.

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beach

I hate bedbugs. They leave thick patches of itchy rash for hours. Mosquitoes are less evil.
At cheap dinky lodges both these guys are at a tug-of-war. Mosquito squad will try to lift you from the bed and the bug will pull you downward.

Tomi

You can see the bedbugs best if you turn off the lights and stay quiet for a minute, then quickly turn on the lights and look under the mattress. You can see them scurrying for cover. If you do, take my advice and go elsewhere, even if it is 2 AM.

One night long ago, despite noticing the profusion of bedbugs in my bad choice of lodging --a bedroll on the floor of the public baths in the casbah in Algiers-- I was too tired to find other lodging and passed out hoping for the best.

I woke up with over 200 bedbug bites. I counted 50 on one arm alone and multiplied by four. I hurt, bled, and itched, but had no other health problems, no fever, no plague.

IVAN

Also check this thread - it's not just about cockroaches.

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Tomi

This link is for you, Ivan, I thought you'd appreciate it.

Bugfood!

Why not get them back??!!

picklepak

Gross!

Rab do you know if they can be small enough to crawl through the pores of a good cotton sleepsheet? I swear I found bedbugs in Vagator, Goa that made it inside my sleepsheet, which I rolled up during the day, but they were very tiny and a beige color... perhaps something else. Upon discovery of whatever this was I promptly moved to another guesthouse.

mdchachi

I didn't see any bed bugs in India but I just found one last night on my shirt! I was on the couch next to where I had put my luggage after our return. I caught the bugger and when I squished it, bright blood came out. Neither I or my wife could detect any bites on our persons though. Now I wish I had unpacked the luggage outside. Hoping against hope that we don't have any more of these stowaways.

rab

Also back home watch out if you have a taste for antique furniture. I have heard many a sorry story about people buying a nice old Victorian bed or an antique wardrobe - delivered along with a small colony of Cimex and their eggs!

Tomi

This whole issue of bringing back bugs is seldom mentioned in guides, mdchachi, unless I just haven't noticed. But it IS important, and I have taken to keeping my return luggage in a separate room and washing most everything carefully before I toss it around.

I have brought back spiders from South America. Not quite like the Arachnophobia movie killers, but I have an irrational fear of spiders, so I treated them with respect --if flushing them down the toilet can be called respect. I brought back moths from New Mexico that settled in my house and it took months to get rid of them. God knows what else. I also bought a wood African sculpture here in Massachusetts, locally, and I could hear the beasties chomping inside it at night, then see the dust below in the morning. I didn't know what insects they were, but I had to put Deb (the statue) in the basement over a Boston winter, wrapped in mothballs, as the local pest control folk advised. Freezing is supposed to work, as well as mothballs apparently. Deb is happy and healthy now.

wonderwomanusa

Bedbugs will get caught in seams of your clothing and bite in lines; the bites itch very badly in the warm afternoons, and take a week or more to go away. If you have a rash, it's from something else.

I heard of one hotel in Varanasi that had bedbugs, and the place I stayed in Bhopal had them.

They are too big to go through the pores of your sleep sheet -- they look like flat, dark-colored "ladybugs"

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