Do Bed Bugs Live On You? Hair, Clothes And Pets

No. A bed bug feeds and then leaves. Ohio State University Extension puts a full grown bed bug's meal at 10 to 15 minutes, with a young nymph engorged in about three, and says the insect then crawls away to a hiding place to digest it. Bed bugs live near where you sleep. They do not live on you.

That answer is easy to type and hard to believe at two in the morning, when something feels like it is moving in your hair and a shower is the only idea available. The useful part is what the biology rules out, and what it does not.

Can Bed Bugs Live In Your Hair?

No, and the feeding routine is the reason. Lice and scabies mites are parasites that stay on a person. A bed bug is a visitor. It walks to a host, feeds for a few minutes, and walks back to a crack it can fold itself into. The EPA describes bed bugs as readily traveling 5 to 20 feet from an established hiding place, which it calls a harborage, to reach a host. That is the distance the problem usually sits at: across the mattress, not on your scalp.

One can still end up in your hair the same way one ends up on a sleeve, by crossing you on the way to skin or by riding in on a pillow. It does not stay there. Washing your hair deals with that insect and changes nothing about the room.

If something really is living in your hair or under your skin, that is a question for a doctor or a pharmacist. No treatment of a house will answer it.

So Where Do They Spend The Day?

Close to the bed, inside something with an edge. The National Pesticide Information Center says bed bugs hide near areas where people rest for long periods, mostly on and around the bed. The EPA gets specific about which parts: the piping, seams and tags of the mattress and box spring, and cracks on the bed frame and headboard. In heavier infestations it adds the seams of chairs and couches, the space between cushions, the folds of curtains, drawer joints, electrical receptacles and loose wallpaper.

Read down that middle column and the shape of a bed bug treatment makes more sense. The target is the room and everything with a seam in it, which is also why a product aimed at your body or your pet has nothing to work on.

What About The Clothes You Are Wearing?

Clothes that sit still are the ride. NPIC describes bed bugs hiding in the cracks and seams of luggage, furniture, clothing, pillows and boxes as those things get moved between apartments, homes and hotels. A bag parked on a floor, a coat tossed onto a bed at a party and a laundry pile nobody has touched in a week all fit that description. The shirt on your back, moving around all day, does not.

When clothing does need dealing with, heat does it rather than the wash. University of Minnesota Extension says washing kills some bed bugs but that the heat of drying kills the ones that are left, and puts the threshold at hotter than 122 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes to kill all life stages. Ohio State's bed bug program gives the home dryer version: once a load is no longer damp, keep it running another 30 minutes on medium or high. Shoes, bags and stuffed animals that cannot go in a washing machine can take the same dryer run.

Two details decide whether any of that holds. Bag items before they leave the room and keep them sealed until they go into the machine, and bag the clean laundry for the trip back, which is what the EPA advises anyone using a laundromat to do. Clean clothes folded on a table in an infested room are clothes in an infested room.

Do Bed Bugs Live On Dogs And Cats?

They will bite a pet. They do not live on one. University of Minnesota Extension describes bed bugs as feeding on humans and also on animals, including dogs, cats and other pets. The Companion Animal Parasite Council, which writes parasite guidance for veterinarians, fills in the rest: unlike fleas and ticks, bed bugs do not live in pet fur, bites on an animal tend to show up where there is less hair such as the belly and legs, and a pet is an unlikely way for bed bugs to reach a house in the first place, since luggage, clothing and used furniture do that job far more often.

There is a practical consequence the council spells out. Flea and tick products for pets are not labeled for bed bugs, so treating the animal does nothing to the infestation. The pet bed is the thing to look at, since a soft bed on the floor beside a sleeping spot is exactly what the EPA list describes.

When something really is living on an animal, fleas are the usual answer, and they behave in the opposite way: the problem rides the pet. We went through the version of that story where there is no pet at all in fleas in a house with no pet.

Then Why Does It Feel Like They Are On Me?

Because the schedule belongs to them. NPIC says bed bugs feed when their host is sleeping, usually at night, and that they normally try to feed every five to ten days. The EPA adds that they are primarily active at night but will go looking for a host in full daylight when they are hungry enough. Bites can turn up after a quiet week, in a made bed, in a room that looks spotless, and none of that points at anything living on a person.

What it does point at is a hiding place within a few feet of where you sleep. That is a search rather than a mystery, and a short one in the right order.

What To Do Tonight

• Leave the room the way it is. Moving to the couch or the spare bedroom turns one room into two.
• Strip the bed and work the mattress piping, the tags, the box spring, the frame joints and the back of the headboard, which is the order the EPA gives.
• Keep whatever you find. A bug in a sealed bag or a clear close up photo settles identification faster than any description of a bite.
• Bag anything that leaves the room and run it hot, including what you were wearing if it makes the night easier.
• Have the room inspected before anything is sprayed in it.

Our guide to checking a bedroom covers the same search with a flashlight, including what counts as evidence and what does not.

Getting It Settled In Stark Or Summit County

If the search turns up live insects, cast skins or dark spotting along a seam, the next step is an inspection rather than a product. ThermaLock heat treatment is our lead method: it kills every life stage including the eggs, typically in a single day, and leaves no chemical residue behind. A bio chemical treatment is the second option when heat is not the right fit for the building. The inspection fee is waived when you go with us for treatment.

Schedule an inspection through our request page or call 330-494-6199, and we will start with what is actually in the room.