How to tell if you have bed bugs

Confirm it first - this one really matters

Bed bug treatment is involved enough that you don't want to run it on a guess, and a lot of suspected cases turn out to be fleas, carpet beetle larvae, or a skin reaction to something else entirely.

It matters in the other direction too: acting on a wrong assumption with a supermarket product is how a contained problem becomes a whole-house one.

Where to look

• Mattress seams and piping, especially at the head end
• Bed frame joins and screw holes
• Behind and inside the headboard
• Skirting behind the bed
• Behind anything fixed to the bedroom wall - pictures, switch plates

What you're looking for

• Small dark spots on sheets or mattress seams - digested blood
• Tiny blood smears on bedding
• Shed skins, which look like translucent empty bed bugs
• Live insects - flat, oval, reddish-brown, apple-pip sized
• A sweet, musty smell in a badly affected room

Bites are a weak signal on their own

Bed bug bites often appear in a line or small cluster, typically on skin exposed while sleeping. But people react very differently - some don't react at all - and other insects produce similar marks. Physical evidence on the bed is far more reliable than what's on your skin.

Don't treat it yourself

This is the pest where DIY most reliably makes things worse. Bed bugs hide where surface sprays don't reach, and consumer products push them into adjacent rooms and wall voids. Moving an infested mattress through the house does the same thing.

If you think you have them, stop, confirm, and get advice before spraying or throwing anything out.