What Are the Signs of Bed Bugs?





Bed bugs go to great lengths to stay out of sight, something they excel at thanks to their tiny size and flat shape. When they’re not sucking your blood—usually at night, but they can adjust to daytime sleepers—they prefer to hide in dark spaces where they can digest their meal, mate, and lay eggs. Even though you might not see the creatures, you can see evidence of them: These are the bed bug signs entomologists use.

Watch for bed bugs

If you’re sharp-eyed, you might spot the insect itself: They’re about the size of an apple seed. That’s why they creep up on you while you’re sleeping because they don’t want to be disturbed while feeding or when they are digesting their blood meal, mating or laying eggs in their harborage, hidden out of sight. They’re also quick and will scatter when you enter the room. Here’s where you can get a better sense of what bed bugs look like.


Watch for bed bug bites

bed bug rash
Courtesy National Pest Management Association


A clear bed bug sign is a bite—which you’ll wake up with when they’ve been feeding on you at night. If you wake up feeling itchy and have red welts or bumps in a line or in several zig-zag clusters, that’s a good indication you’re dealing with bed bugs. The bugs have a numbing agent in their saliva so you don’t feel the bite, says Brittany Campbell, PhD, an entomologist with the National Pest Management Association (NPMA). The itching that most people feel stems from a mild allergic reaction to the numbing agent. The good news, she says, is that bed bugs are unlikely to spread disease, unlike other biting insects like mosquitoes.



Bed bugs are stealthy by nature—you'll rarely see them scampering around your house. Here are the signs you have an infestation