Can you see bed bugs with the human eye easily? People with normal vision can see adults and sometimes babies and eggs. It can be difficult to see bed bugs on skin because they are small, and their bites do not hurt. It is much easier to see signs of bed bugs than the bugs themselves. Bites and bed bug droppings are easier to see than the insects.
What Do Bed Bugs Look Like?
What Do Bed Bug Eggs and Babies Look Like?
Babies look like miniscule versions of adults. They go through five molts, so you may see some strange pale flakes wherever you find bed bugs. These flakes are shed exoskeletons of the babies. When newly hatched, the babies are white with black eyespots and a black dot in the middle of their backs. They are a mere one and a half millimeters long. As they grow, they get darker and easier to see with the naked eye. You can find detailed pictures comparing babies, eggs and adults at the website of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Can You See Bed Bugs on Skin or In Hair?
At first, you think that you could see bed bugs as they bite you and drink your blood. After all, a mosquito bite hurts. Bed bugs are much sneakier than mosquitoes. Their saliva contains a numbing agent that makes the bite itself painless. This means they can take their time feeding while you lay still, fast asleep. The only time you would feel the bites would be if dozens or hundreds are biting you simultaneously.
What Do Bed Bug Bites Look Like?
The main characteristics of bed bug bites are:
- Redness or brick-pink
- Round or round-ish
- Many bites often form a zig-zag on your skin or are in a straight line
- Bites may cause bumps or hives
- These bumps may be red or brick pink with a dark center or a pale center.
Warning about Bed Bug Bites
- Have problems breathing
- Have your tongue swell up
- Get blisters
- Get a fever
- Get nausea with or without vomiting
- Have body aches as if you have the flu
- Develop an irregular heartbeat.
What Do Bed Bug Droppings Look Like?
When you are considering purchasing a mattress (new or used) or before you settle down to relax in a hotel room, check it for drops or smears of blood, especially along the seams, any cracks or crevices in the headboard and the box spring. If the infestation is heavy, you won't need to check very carefully. The droppings will appear on the sheets.
Other Places to Look for Bed Bugs
- Seams, crevices and the undersides of hard furniture like desks
- Inside the crack in the screw heads on furniture
- Inside mirror or picture frames
- Under carpeting, especially around baseboards
- Behind electrical outlets
- Any tears in wallpaper
It is very easy not to be able to find bed bugs but still find other signs of them like droppings and bites. This is why you need to hire a professional exterminator to find them for you. Since bed bugs may get into walls and floors, the exterminator may use a beg bug sniffer dog, so your walls and floors suffer minimal damage.