What Do Bedbugs Feed On in Richmond?

This is one of the most useful facts about bedbugs, because it clears up a lot of unnecessary guilt and a lot of wasted effort. People who find them often start scrubbing, throwing food away and cleaning out cupboards. None of that touches the insects.

Blood and Nothing Else

Every stage of a bedbug’s life after hatching needs blood to move on to the next. A young one feeds, grows, sheds its skin and feeds again; an adult feeds to produce eggs. They are drawn to a sleeping person by warmth and by the breath, which is why they gather in and around beds and sofas where someone rests for hours at a time.

They will bite pets if people are not around, but a household with a cat or dog is not a separate problem: the bugs still prefer the places where people sleep.

How Often They Feed

When someone is sleeping nearby, a bedbug feeds every few days, for a few minutes at a time, then goes back into hiding to digest. It does not stay on the person. In between, it sits in a seam, a joint or a crack, which is where treatment has to reach.

When nobody is there, they slow right down and wait. Adults can go a long time without a meal, well beyond a holiday or a stay at a relative’s house. That is why leaving a room empty for a while does not starve them out, and why the guide on why bedbugs reappear after treatment warns against relying on it.

Why Crumbs and Dust Make No Difference

Because they never eat food scraps, a crumb in the bed is not a cause and cleaning it away is not a cure. The same goes for dust, pet hair and skin flakes. Clutter is a different matter: piles of clothes and boxes near the bed give them more places to hide, and make them harder to treat. So the helpful jobs are practical ones:

• Clear the floor round the bed and under it, so there are fewer hiding places close to the sleeper.
• Hot-wash and dry bedding and nightwear from the affected room.
• Leave the bed and mattress where they are rather than taking them out.
• Skip the deep clean with bleach or steam until after we have been; it can move insects around and remove the signs we look for.

What This Means for Treatment

Since they live next to the person they feed on, treatment focuses on the bed, the furniture close to it and the edges of the room. With chemical treatment, a residual insecticide is put into seams, frames and skirtings, and bugs coming out to feed walk across it; the eggs are not reliably killed, so there is a follow-up visit, sometimes two, about 10 to 14 days apart. For this to work, the room has to stay in use: keep sleeping there so they keep coming out. The borough page on chemical treatment explains the course.

With heat, the whole room is raised to a temperature bedbugs cannot survive, eggs included, in one visit that takes most of a day. It does not depend on the bugs coming out to feed, which suits a room the household would rather not keep sleeping in. See heat treatment in the borough. Either way, treatments start from £220 and the price depends on the number of rooms.

Moving to Another Room Does Not Help

If they need a person to feed, it is tempting to move that person. In practice the bugs follow, either on clothing and bedding or by walking, and a second room ends up affected. Stay in your own bed and get the room treated. If you are not sure the bites are from bedbugs at all, the London guide on bedbugs or something else is a good place to start.

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