How Bed Bugs Travel Between Apartments

They hide during the day on beds mattress seams box springs bed frames headboards and in cracks and crevices of walls floors and furniture.

How bed bugs travel between apartments. Understanding movement and dispersal of the common bed bug cimex lectularius l under field conditions is important in the control of infestations and for managing the spread of bed bugs to new locations. Once in the walls bed bugs can easily travel along electrical wires and plumbing pipes to reach other rooms or even other apartments. If one apartment is infested adjoining units left side right side above and below should be assumed to be infested unless shown otherwise through inspection or. Bedbugs can walk or catch a ride from one apartment to another and they are doing it more and more frequently.

Bugs were also spread through the building when infested furniture was discarded without wrapping it in plastic by neighbors visiting infested apartments or infested common areas and by an infested wheelchair used in common areas. Since bed bug eggs latch onto clothing neighbors are another avenue of infestation. The minnesota bed bug control experts at plunkett s would like to share some advice on what to do if your neighbors have become infested with bed bugs. It s this ease of spreading that makes apartments such vulnerable targets for bed bugs.

Bed bugs frequently walked out of the front door of one apartment and into another on the same hallway. The environmental protection agency alarmed by the rising incidence of bedbugs in the united states called a national summit on bedbugs in 2009. Bed bugs often travel through ducts and false ceilings across an apartment complex. Apartment buildings provide bed bugs with a perfect combination of a reliable food source and convenient nearby harborage.

We investigated bed bug movement within and between apartments using mark release recapture m r r technique combined with apartment wide monitoring using pitfall style interceptors. Bed bugs readily move from apartment to apartment with many people unaware that they have a problem so chances are that you will not eliminate a bed bug problem by yourself. Bed bugs harbor in spots cooler than the ambient temperature in the room such as mattresses box springs behind wooden headboards in couch cushions or among personal belongings in an apartment. When anne from next door comes over for a cup of coffee bed bugs may come with her inadvertently infesting the apartment.