Bed bugs, mosquitoes or something else?

HopAlong

Hi guys,

I've recently moved house and about a week or two after the move both me and my wife started getting bitten, mostly around our ankles and feet and then a few further up our legs, one or two around our waist line and on my wife a cluster on her neck and back of shoulders. The problem is we haven't been able to find any actual bugs or other evidence of them.

Through a process of elimination we came to the conclusion it was happening in bed at night and all of the locations of the bites correspond with parts of the body that were at some point outside of the covers (i.e. exposed to the air) through the night.

The swelling from the bites can be quite large, angry and itchy and my wife says they are exactly the same as when she gets bitten by mosquitoes - we have noticed a few of them in the garden and some have gotten into the kitchen/living room but I've dealt with them quickly, and we've never seen them up in the bedrooms.

Our first thought was bed bugs or fleas but we have white sheets on the bed and haven't found evidence of either (although I haven't checked underneath the mattress - will do that tonight).

Does anyone have any suggestions on things to look for? We have a baby due in the next 3 weeks and don't want it to be eaten at night!

Thanks in advance!

vax2002

could be nats, like a micro machine version of house fly, they keep you under observation all day, then at night, eat you, unlike mosquito they bite every night

cherylsurrey

I had the misfortune to have bedbugs after staying in a hotel for work. I got 3 bites in a row on my leg after staying there, but just thought it was mosquito's. I took them home in my suitcase with me and had to get a pest controller into sort it out. I now thoroughly check hotel rooms out before I unpack my case and never put anything on the bed.

You have to look for black dots on your bedding or blood spots. You can google images of this, but it looked like I had taken a black biro and dotted my mattress. I mostly found these in the corners of the bed on the mattress protector and under it. If in doubt, call a pest controller who can check for you. If you have them, which I hope you don't, please don't try and treat the problem yourself it needs a professional.

fwor

Do you know anything about the previous occupants? Specifically whether they had any pets?

If they had cats/dogs it may just be from them. A bad reaction often suggests critters that aren't well adapted to human hosts.

If it's that and you have no pets yourself, they should die off fairly quickly.

Yorkie1

What is the flooring - carpet or hard flooring?

s_b

sounds like bed bugs to me
we got them last year from a hotel
they prefered the wife to me but they certainly made us scratch and come up in red lumps
you do need help i suspect as has already been mentioned by cherylsurrey

Errata

As cheryl Surrey writes, bedbugs tend to bite in three places close to each other It,s known in the trade as "breakfast, lunch and tea. " Mosquitos don,t bite in this manner. Look for black dots of faeces in the bedding.

HopAlong

Thanks for the replies.

We haven't found any traces of blood or black dots in the bedding (or at least nothing that we weren't sure was just fluff), and I lifted up the mattress and had a good look at both sides of it and the slats and frame and couldn't see anything there either.

The previous owner did have a dog so I suppose it could be something left behind (we don't have any pets) - it's been over a month since we moved in though.

The flooring is all laminate with no gaps in between the strips, however the skirting board hasn't been attached very well and there are big spaces between it and the wall all the way along, perhaps that's where they're hiding?

The bites have been mostly random single ones apart from a couple which were 3-5 clumped together around our hips and shoulders.

We're going to have a thorough clear out of the whole room once our hoover's fixed and after that will contact our local council who do free pest control, hopefully we can deal with it before baby arrives!

Cheers,
HopAlong