What Home Pests Bite? | Pest Control

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My name is Jeff White and I'm the research entomologist for bedbug central and the host of bedbug TV bedbugcentral.com. I have no idea how I got into bugs and bedbugs and here I am 6 years later and having a lot of fun working with bedbugs. And I'll be talking to you about pest control. You're sitting in your home and you notice some bites which look like bug bites, on the surface of your skin, and you're wondering what's going on, do I have a bug infesting my house? The truth of the situation is that there are actually very few insects that can infest someone's home and bite them on a repetitive basis and what I want to do is provide you with some information on what it could be, and what it probably isn't. The first thing I can say is that if you are seeing a repetitive reaction on your skin, you may want to visit a dermatologist to see if they can give you any insight in regards to what is biting you. Because it may not be an insect, it may be a rash or something else. In terms of bugs that can infest your home, bed bugs are one example, everybody's seen them in the news, they're receiving tons of attention. If you're waking up with rows and clusters of bites on your skin that can be a sign that you may have a bedbug infestation. And I recommend contacting a knowledgeable professional to do a quick inspection of your house and your beds and couches, to see if they can identify a problem. If you're seeing bites around the ankles and they typically are associated with beds and other types of areas, potentially where your pet sleeps, if you have a dog or cat, that could be the sign of a flea infestation. You know, they will typically bite around the ankles and they typically are associated with pets. Now if don't have pets and you're seeing bites around the ankles, it doesn't mean that you can't have a flea infestation, because you don't have a pet. There are some isolated incidents where an animal could be associated with the house that's introducing the fleas. But bites around they ankles, pets typically going to be fleas. There are some rodent and bird mites out there that if you have birds nesting in the side of your house, or rodents nesting in the wall voids, you could have some mites that are running around and causing some sort of reaction. Removing those nests will quickly solve that problem. Mosquitoes, although they typically don't reproduce in the house could be getting in through an broken screen or a door that was left open or a window that was left open. And make sure all your screens are sealed properly and that will hopefully prevent mosquitoes from getting in and biting you while you're sleeping at night. And the last one are spiders, spiders do not typically bit humans and so any time someone receives something they can't explain, they always want to blame spiders. Oh, it must be a spider bite. That's not how spiders typically work, they're not going to come out at night and just randomly feed on you while you sleep in your bed. An isolated spider bite can happen but it's not going to be a regular occurrence and if you're getting , you know something regularly appearing, again it's probably not spiders and I would recommend seeing a dermatologist to see if you can identify the cause of that reaction it is. And that's a rundown of the different pests that may infest your home and what the sources of those bites may be.