One of the biggest frustrations with bed bugs is that it is hard to know if you have them. You can be bitten quite badly for a long time before ever finding a bed bug. Bed bugs, bed bug cast skins, fecal spots and fecal specks can all be hard to find.

The best thing to do if you suspect bed bugs is to have a qualified pest control operator (PCO) search your home for them, carefully. You may have a PCO who searches and finds nothing. I assume you have already had a doctor rule out scabies, folliculitis, and other medical causes) and that your PCO has ruled out fleas and other biting pests.

While I do not recommend self-treatment for bed bugs, I do recommend trying to locate a sample yourself, especially if a pest control operator has looked but has not yet found evidence, or if the PCO wants to treat without evidence (this may seem great to you at the time, but you really should find out if bed bugs are the cause of your troubles before sinking in your money and time into getting rid of them).

We now have some ideas for bed bug traps to detect a problem. A few caveats:

• These methods are not foolproof. They could take time and having more traps out more frequently increases your odds of catching a culprit.
• This does not significantly reduce your problem, not by a long shot, and is not in itself a treatment option. But detection is the first step in solving your bed bug problem.
• This is not about capturing a live bed bug, but one for identification purposes. Live bed bug sampling can be done with what the British call a pooter, but you have to find a bed bug first. To read about these methods, see this forum thread.

The following are some do-it-yourself methods for getting a bed bug sample.

First, many Pest Control Operators will suggest or use glue traps, designed for mice, to catch bed bugs. Yes, bed bugs will be caught if they walk across them. But getting them to walk across such a trap is tricky. They could walk around it. And you may have no idea what routes they travel.

In a forum thread, PCO/Entomologist Sean, of the Bed Bug Resource, suggested adding an activated hand warmer to the center of the trap:

Take a mouse glue board (sold by pest professionals) and place an activated hot shot (hand warmer) in the centre. There are several brands of hot shots out there and to my knowledge they all should work. These give off both heat and carbon dioxide.

These are NOT 100% effective in every case.

I have never had it not work in a badly infested area, but surely there is the possibility that it may not work in a light infestation.

Keep in mind that bed bugs feed about once per week. Hot shots last about 12 hours. This means that you may have to put one out every night for a week before catching anything. Obviously multiple locations increases your odds.

Putting these traps in the room you think you’re being bitten in, at night, when you’re not (yet) there sleeping, might be good. Doing it when you are away for some reason might be even better (though we don’t recommend you sleep elsewhere in another room or building, as a general rule, since it can spread bed bugs). Remember to put them where pets can’t go, or to keep pets out of the room–they really are very, very sticky.

Hand warmers are sold under many brand names and used by outdoorspeople and people with medical problems (which should give you some idea where to find them). Glue traps are in the pest control section of a home store or available online. These are examples of glue traps and air activated hand warmers:

air-activated hand warmers:

Fourt, in another forum thread, described a rigged-up trap that worked:

I am setting up a crazy little trap up tonight. It’s really not a trap but rather a thing to lure them from returning to their hiding spaces. I have 2 pieces of old wood, not very large, I have drilled several shallow holes on one. Then Im going to cover the holes with the other piece of wood. Placing it close to the head of the bed. My theroy is they will check it out on their way back to where ever they are living. And decide this looks like a nice place to hang out and lay eggs. Then when they least expect it, I will lift off the top peice of wood and get them with my handy dandy garment steamer. My husband thinks I’m crazy, but I tell him to catch a bed bug you need to think like one. I will let you guys know how this works. I know I will not get rid of a infestation this way. But it may work as a monitoring tool.

And here’s the follow-up:

Well, my little wood trap worked. Found an almost mature bug bed in one of the holes. I steamed it with my garment steamer. It died in a instant. I steamed all of the wood incase there were eggs on it. I have set it up again and will wait and see what else happens.

And some tips:

The bed bug trap worked very well to catch them if they were around. If I was to do the trap all over again I would have used a slightly larger drill bit. One last thing regarding the trap. You must use real wood not plywood or MDF. Place the wood near the bed and see what happens. Make sure you have a way to catch them when checking the wood for BB. They can trot at a good clip.

Fourt’s trap reminded me of this trap idea hopelessnomo found. I was impressed by Fourt’s ingenuity, and happy it worked, though I have to stress that I think that luck plays more of a role in this method than Sean’s. There’s nothing to attract the bed bug in this case, except that it’s a form of wooden clutter with holes for hiding out, and it’s in the bed (no doubt to some degree appealing to bed bugs).

The bottom line is that Sean also has experience with his trap working again and again, and if I had to rig up a trap, I would try his glue trap/hand warmer method (and try it a number of times).

Another method of detecting (but not trapping per se) gets around the fact that bed bugs may be less likely to come towards you in bed with the lights on, and involves using red LED light to see bed bugs at night. NotSoSnug, resident “Cimex Hunter,” had great results with this. You can read about his methods here. They are effective, though their effectiveness depends on your ability to stay up (possibly most of the night) as well as your level of infestation. If you are not being bitten by lots of bed bugs, or being bitten elsewhere than the bed, or you simply would like to sleep, this is not such a great method. Since NotSoSnug was not able to sleep during this period, and did appear to have lots of bed bugs, it was very effective for him.

A red LED light was part of NotSoSnug’s toolkit for detecting bed bugs at night in bed.  They can be quite useful. Here’s a thread about this (including advice about obtaining useful red LED lights).

I welcome reports in the comments below from those who use one of these methods and find it successful.

Future prospects for bed bug traps?

My understanding is that a glue trap involving bed bug aggregate pheromones is in the works, but has been for years, and we should not hold our breath.

Simple glue traps are beginning to be marketed as bed bug traps. Don’t get excited at the simple mention of a bed bug trap for sale.

John F. Anderson at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven is working with a rigged-together bed bug trap that is not commercially available. You can see glimpses of it near the end of this WTNH News 8 video Paula shared in the forums. We can hope something like it–or the plans for how to make one– is soon available to all of us.

Remember, too, that bed bug dogs are an option as an aid to finding a bed bug or detecting their presence. Dogs and their handlers cannot always help you find an actual sample, so if you do go this route, discuss with your landlord/PCO the necessity of a visible bed bug sample (and whether they will take the word of the bed bug dog handler), and discuss with your bed bug dog handler before hiring him/her the possibility of locating one if needed.

• Good news: bed bug aggregate pheromones
• Another bed bug trap in the works
• University of Florida tests bed bug dogs
• NotSoSnug: killing bed bugs one by one

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This is NotSoSnug’s comparison of a nymph and adult bed bug (perhaps one of our entomologist friends could confirm the life stage of the nymph for us?)

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Originally uploaded by NotSoSnug

After having the landlord get a pest control operator (PCO) in to treat his apartment for bed bugs, NotSoSnug did not simply go about his business while the bed bugs died. Yes, he did stick around and sleep on his air mattress, on a tarp surrounded by double-sided tape. (A common strategy, I am nevertheless skeptical about how often people trap bed bugs this way.) Just as others do, he kept sleeping in his room, if not in the actual bed.

NotSoSnug went further, though. He made it his personal mission to wake up every two hours and hunt bed bugs with a red light, which he informed us does not disturb them as a normal light would.

Here’s what NotSoSnug had to say about his methods:

I sleep on a tile floor isolated by tape/vaseline about two feet from my retracted murphy bed. The bed when retracted looks like a big cedar tongue in groove closet against the gyprock wall in my bachelor suite. This is their harbourage, hopefully their only one as there is alot of tongue in groove in this place and it all wasn’t treated! So far I’ve only noticed activity associated with the treated murphy bed and one treated lounge chair. I am unsure but I may have received a bite from an isolated, untreated, upholstered computer chair.

Yes: murphy bed, built into a wooden tongue-in-groove structure: are you getting worried? This is, unfortunately, a bed bug paradise.

Even with the isolation I am not sleeping well, partly out of anxiety and partly because I am incessantly curious. So I wake up at intervals all night. At first I was using my white LED camping light when they were limited mostly to being active in early morning before treatment and before they got really hungry from my isolation. But I could see the white light alarmed the critters and I had to be furtive with it. Even so I caught 25 one night with the white light a few days before treatment! Then I realized from reading somewhere a red light might work and I had my red LED tail light from my bike. So out it came and me and my trusty sticky tape were ready.

The red light does not alarm them but movement does. I have to lay still on my air mattress and sweep the murphy bed with the red light to spot them. They may be moving or still. If I sneak slowly I can tape them before they realize I’m upon them. I use a piece of 2″x2″ sticky packing tape cut to size. Since I don’t have to move far it’s not hard to sneak up on them even with their speed. Sometimes I have to wait until they have crawled away from a groove or crack sufficiently so I can nab them. Sometimes I can clumsily and groggily nab them half into a crack. I’ve nabbed 2nd instar nymphs up to adults this way. Some 1st instar nymphs were inadvertently retrieved during taping the older bugz as well.

Any ones I’ve seen I’ve nabbed, with patience. Even if they disappear for a bit they inevitably come out as they are looking for a meal and unwilling to leave with a fresh bod nearby.

I’ve noted that they seem unwilling to venture out on the tile preferring to lurk on the wood. I’ve only caught very few out on tile, two adults and two nymphs before treatment and since treatment I’ve only seen two adults venture onto the tile, and then only close to furniture. And I’ve only seen 2 (adults) out during the day, on the floor, pre-treatment and none on any walls or the kitchen or bathroom or closets. Of course the 1st instars are virtually invisible to me on any surface so I may have missed some. But I am thankful for having the tile, it makes looking for them easier and seems to limit their excursions somewhat!

I’ll add that it embarasses me I didn’t notice this many critters in the months preceeding my discovery. I had bites but thought it was my seasonal excema. I wonder that so many bugs have remained limited to one area. Lots of nooks and crannies I guess.

NotSoSnug had bed bug bite reactions for two months before discovering the problem. There are clearly a lot of bed bugs here. This is the tally for the bed bug hunting he has done after treatment began on November 11th:

Date/Number of Active Insects Caught
Mon. Nov 12 - 2
Thurs. Nov 15 - 25
Fri. Nov 16 - 2
Sat. Nov 17 - 7
Sun. Nov 18 - 1
Mon. Nov 19 - 12
Tues. Nov 20 to Nov 23 Free from visible activity so far

In an email, NotSoSnug mentioned only one dead bed bug was found in the last five days. It is important to note that there were probably many more bed bugs (these are just the ones NotSoSnug caught while on his regular “hunts”) and there are likely still bed bugs there now. Bed bugs take 3-10 minutes to feed, from what we understand, and anyone getting some shut-eye, even if it’s once an hour or two, will miss some of the action. This surely represents only a sampling of the real total population. And some of these bed bugs likely crossed pesticide and would have died anyway, but no doubt at least some of them would not have.

Nevertheless, I thought this was an interesting experiment, and even if this sampling represents a wider population, it gives us some idea of the arc of the treatment’s effectiveness. A downward-moving number is a very good thing.

NotSoSnug caught and categorized the bed bugs according to when he found them, then scanned the results.

And here is NotSoSnug’s pictorial record of his “finds” (you can click on the photos and then choose the largest size for better viewing):

bugz5_FE

Originally uploaded by NotSoSnug

bugz6_FE

Originally uploaded by NotSoSnug

bugz7_FE

Originally uploaded by NotSoSnug

This is one way that someone with no evidence of bed bugs could obtain proof they were being bitten by bed bugs, for their landlord or PCO. It’s surprising how often people and their PCOs have trouble finding a bug, and the red light strategy seems promising. Remember that if you have a smaller infestation, it could take longer to find a sample.

I don’t encourage others to try and do this long-term, to the degree NotSoSnug has. Sleep is hard enough to come by when you have bed bugs, and waking at 1-2 hour intervals is murder on your system. I do think we can learn from this experiement, though. I also hope NotSoSnug gets some sleep.

The downside of NotSoSnug’s story is that his landlord is not willing to do a follow-up treatment, so clearly necessary, with a strong infestation like this. And NotSoSnug is going to be moving, a daunting prospect with bed bugs. We wish him well.

You can read the forum thread where NotSoSnug originally posted his story here. And you can look at his flickr collection here.

• recent bites from bed bugs (photo)
• Lou Sorkin: bitten on the hand by 30 bed bug nymphs and 2 adult bed bugs
• World exclusive: Bedbuggers experiment with being bitten, on purpose! (Part 4)
• Booklice vs. bed bug nymphs

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