Understanding COVID-19 Lockdown and Bed Bugs

The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated widespread shelter-in-place orders and lockdowns in an effort to keep the virus from spreading. It’s needed, but no one enjoys it—except, perhaps, for bed bugs. Bed bugs have an opportunity to spread during the COVID-19 lockdowns in Alaska, since more people are staying at home.

The good news is that bed bugs are not known to carry disease, and they won’t spread the coronavirus from person to person. The bad news is that a bed bug infestation is a pretty miserable situation for everyone involved.

Here’s how bed bugs are spending their time in lockdown.

Hotels and hospitality

For the most part, hotels and other hospitality services have been greatly impacted by the pandemic. Fewer people are traveling, thanks to the virus, so hotels have been standing mostly empty since March 2020. When it comes to bed bugs, that means there’s an absence of hosts.

Bed bugs can live a long time without food sources. They’re able to conserve their resources, and the colder it gets, the less active they are. Temperatures of 55 degrees Fahrenheit and under send them into hibernation mode, where they can survive for up to a year. However, they’re able to detect heat and carbon dioxide when hosts return, which causes them to spring back into action. At temperatures above 86 degrees, they can spread rapidly.

This means that if you had a pre-pandemic bed bug problem, chances are, they’re still lurking around your hotel—and the empty rooms and cold temperatures won’t get rid of them. There’s a chance that warm summer temperatures may have woken them up, and the lack of hosts caused them to starve, but don’t bank on it. You’ll need professional extermination measures before guests start showing up again—and potentially bringing bed bugs back home.

Homes

While hotels are likely dealing with less of a bed bug problem, especially if the heat is off in unoccupied spaces, private homes are a different matter entirely. Since people are staying home more during lockdowns in Alaska, bed bugs can easily spread.

When you stay at home all day, every day, enjoying your central heating and air, bed bugs see it as an opportunity to feed. The temperatures are warmer, thanks to your heater and body heat, which kicks their reproduction instincts into overdrive. Since they lay eggs widely, which hatch in a matter of days, you might find yourself with a brood of bed bugs that gets bigger by the day.

Spotting bed bugs

Bed bugs and their evidence are actually easy to find if you know what to look for, and where. The most common signs of a population presence are black spotting or the bugs themselves around mattress edges, or under or on top of box springs, bed frames and headboards. If you see see them, or evidence of them, call an exterminator right away.

Pied Piper Pest Control can help you take care of your bed bug problem in Alaska during COVID-19. We specialize in getting rid of bed bugs for good, so you won’t have to worry. Call us today to get started.

Categorised in: Bug Control

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