Beware Bedbugs: How to Keep Them from Your Home

(CBS)  More and more people are waking up to find tiny bites on them. The problem could be -- bedbugs.

They're out and feeding in a frenzy right now, and could be scurrying away in your town. It's being called a nationwide epidemic, says "Early Show" Consumer Correspondent Susan Koeppen. The little critters are being found everywhere from our homes to fancy hotels, and it has nothing to do with cleanliness, she says.

In Seattle, exterminators are reporting a 70 percent increase in bedbug-related calls in the last two years. In Fort Worth, Texas, bed bugs caused 200 people to move out of their apartment complex. In New York City, three major retails had to temporarily shut their doors after a recent outbreak of the tiny blood-suckers.

Louis Sorkin, entomologist and bed bug expert, says they're great hitchhikers. They sneak around by hanging onto our clothes and inside our suitcases. They're super-resilient and can live just about anywhere and go up to a year without having to feed.

One reason the bedbugs are getting away with this is because most people don't know how to look for them.

But now, there are dogs specially trained to sniff out these pests, which are no bigger than an appleseed. People normally can't see bedbugs. CBS News went along as one company offering such services, New York/New Jersey-based Bell Environmental Services, used dogs to search for bedbugs.

And, once you find you have an infestation problem, getting rid of it won't be easy -- or cheap. A carbon dioxide spray treatment, which freezes the bed bugs to kill them off, can cost you hundreds of dollars.

So here's what you can look for: Usually, the first sign of bed bugs is small red and brown spots on your sheets.

If you think you may have a problem, check your mattress. They can hide in mattress seams and behind your headboard.

They can live anywhere in your home, but most prefer to hang out in the bedroom.

When you stay at a hotel, be sure to pull back the sheets and check out the bed, mattress, and headboard just like you would in your own home. And just to be 100 percent safe, it is a good idea to check your luggage and clothes before you unpack when you're home from vacation.

[snarlah]

We have had an outbreak that no one is talking about. The winged insects leave behind shapes that do not look like any kind of bug, but they start as an insect smaller than a fruit fly and quickly take on other shapes and sizes. Our food supply has been poisoned at the same time, especially with Libby's canned fruit and Lay's potato chip. One of the chips had what looked more like fungus but I had already eaten some, so whatever they are they's gotten me. I'm extremely tired because I'm doing all the cleaning of the bugs and their forms, as my boyfriend tells me that they're not bugs and refuses to help me in the apartment. Signs of this infestation are everywhere and it started in about September. Earlier we had an outbreak of fleas like we've never had before. In my 62 years in MA, mostly in Medford but now in Fall River, MA near the water and closer to livestock farms.

Our canned, packaged, and cheap sandwiches are all tainted. This also gives me a bad sore throat that goes away, a cough and a sneeze but no other signs of a cold, although I had a couple of several hour attacks of a cold-like disease. Also, I am extremely tired and quite sure that I have maggots in my blood. I had scratched the flea bites, and everywhere that they were there are now maggots. It is not bed bugs, because they are larger and don't fly. It is some kind of fly or biting moth. I feel like I might be dying if I don't get treatment right away and there's only a few specialists available to me, one of whom refused to see me and told me to go back to Mass General Hospital, where I have previously found the head of the tropical and infectious diseases hard to reach and hostile when reached. I will go there to a doctor who I think has more pull than this other man and will force him to look at the samples I've brought.

I think that when I had the worst of the fleas I developed a tapeworm, because I have those symptoms too. But I did not go back to him because he yelled at me and told me there was nothing wrong with me, and there may not have been in the spring but there definitely is now. Why is no one talking about these flies. My neighbors deal with them by sweeping them out into the hallway, which only makes them come in greater numbers through our doors, as they are quite small, as I said. They're sweeping what they must consider to be dust or dirt because it doesn't look like bugs, but it is a stage of the bugs that is dormant. These kinds of bugs can go a year without food so they'll be back next year. At this point, with the landlord hostile because he already had to have the place professionally fumigated for the fleas, and he doesn't want me to mention it ever again.

The potato chip (Lay's unsalted) had little bubble shapes on it and then I found one with an incredible series of growths on it--a large green horn-like one and a bunch of brown extrusions were growing on it.

[davidk1229]

Bed bugs are very annoying and it is quite scary finding an infestation of them in your home.. most people have different methods on <a href="http://www.pestexterminator.com/bed-bugs-states/">how to get rid of bed bugs</a>, but I found the best one is to just call a pest exterminator.

[Loubugdr]

Unfortunately, most news reporters are also to blame for not helping to fully explain the bed bug issue. They don't understand what they are reporting. Here Susan Koeppen didn't understand information that I spoke about in my video interview and didn't point out exactly what I was showing during the interview. She made the classic mistake about explaining that bed bugs are as small as apple seeds. The nymph first hatched from the egg is 1/32 inch or 1 mm long: quite a deal smaller than the large apple seed and also not colored reddish brown like an adult bed bug, but pale or straw-colored. I showed various bugs while they were feeding on my hand, but there was no narration at that point to explain the bug sizes only to say that they hide on our clothes and luggage. Telltale droppings are not necessarily red or brown either, but may very well be pale straw-colored as she explained at the end of her presentation.

[teknafob]

Bedbugs are hell. We've had them in our home for the past 10 months. Both my husband and I work in healthcare....either I brought them home from one of my home care clients homes, or my husband did from one of the hotels he stays at during his job induced travels. Doesn't matter....having bedbugs has a terrible stigma of 'unclean', which is far from the truth.

It took about 7 months to actually figure out what was biting us. I literally was losing my mind....it's an actual dilemma called 'delusional parasitosis'. You start to feel bugs crawling on you all the time, you lose sleep due to being bitten anytime you go to bed. And worst of all, you carry them from your bed to the living room when you get up in the middle of the night, so now your couch, recliner chair, sofa bed etc are infested.

The first bugs we found were literally the size of a 'walking grain of sand'. Impossible to find without reading glasses.

We have been diligently fumigating our house ourselves on a biweekly basis, spraying our furniture, for the past 3 months. Slowly we were winning the battle, and I'm almost confident to say we have won the war now.

It has been costly, and time consuming to do it ourselves, but it is possible. The major exterminators will tell you that it's impossible and that it will cost between $1000 and $2000 depending on the size of your house, NOT INCLUDING the bed barriers you will have to purchase additionally. We've done it for about $600, including the costs of the bed barriers.

If you'd like the names of the products we used feel free to contact me at [e-mail]

I wish whoever is reading this sweet dreams. And to anyone who sings that stupid song "good night sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite" in my presence....I am not responsible for any bodily harm I may invoke on you. :-)