Bed bugs are blood-drinking insects known for inhabiting beds, furniture, and other crevices in homes and businesses. The pests can be introduced into any environment, most often through used bed materials, second-hand furniture, or luggage after traveling. They can also travel between units in hotels and apartment buildings. Bed bugs are usually found harboring in small crevices, such as along mattress piping or tags, inside bed frames or headboards, behind wallpaper, in picture frames or light fixtures, or in floors.
The oval-shaped bugs are relatively flat, so they can easily crawl into a variety of crevices in close proximity to humans. Bed bugs are typically less than a ¼” long and are brown or reddish-brown in appearance. The bugs’ unusual coloring comes from their consumption of blood, and the brown-black or reddish-brown stains they leave behind on objects is from this same digested and excreted blood.