What's Bugging You? Blood-Suckers Between the Sheets

Bed bugs thriving in South Florida and beyond

By ARI ODZER

Updated 7:30 AM EDT, Thu, Nov 19, 2009

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Just the mention of bed bugs makes your skin crawl. There's nothing creepier than an insect that sneaks up on you while you're sleeping and sucks your blood.

"The good news is they don't transmit diseases," says entomologist Bill Kern of the University of Florida.

What's the bad news? They're spreading -- in South Florida and beyond -- because they've become resistant to regular pesticides. "It started out to be more of a problem in hotels but now it's almost a universal problem," Kern said.

The bugs look a little smaller than a lady bug, but a lot uglier, and they live in the cracks and crevasses of your bed, your couch, really in any dark, tight spots in a house or even an office.

"The name itself connotates something that"s not exactly savory. They're blood-feeding ectoparasites," explains Dr. Rudi Scheffrahn, also an entomologist at UF's research facility in Davie.

Now here's the part that really gives you the creeps: "They're essentially miniature cockroaches that come out at night and feed but instead of eating in the kitchen they feed on you," Scheffrahn said, with apparently no sense of how totally gross that sounds to the non-entomologist public.

So what do you do about bed bugs? UF's experts are teaching pest control professionals from around the world a simple way to deal with the problem that any of us in South Florida would recognize. Basically, tent your house like it has termites, but pump in three times the gas that would be used to kill the wood-eaters. That kills the blood-eaters.

Fumigation, experts say, is the best way to rid a building of all bed bugs plus the eggs they lay. How do you know if you've got the bugs? You'd have the itch. Bed bugs leave bites that look like mosquito bites. You can also look under your mattress, in your box spring, in the cushions of your couch, and you may spot them.

If you don't mind the itchy bites and sharing your blood, you could just live with them. They really like to cuddle up under the sheets.