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By Root 855 0

can also refer to the equipment itself or a computer or technical glitch. Drinking “bug juice” means chugging an inferior grade of alcoholic beverage (except in ancient Greece, where the term was taken literally and seems to have been the equivalent of huffing down a bean-and-bug-flavored Alka-Seltzer). In any event, bug juice could leave the drinker “bug eyed” or as “crazy as a bed bug” and in no way capable of driving certain formerly ubiquitous German autos. Finally (and thankfully), the phrase “snug as a bug in a rug” first appeared in an eighteenth-century farce, The Stratford Jubilee, whereas “Sleep tight, etc., etc.” has two possible origins. According to columnist Cecil Adams (the Straight Dope), “sleeping tight” may refer to a time when many mattresses were made of interwoven strands of rope attached to a rectangular wooden frame. To sleep well, these mattress ropes had to be pulled tight and reknotted (lest they sag like a hammock under the weight of the sleeper). The alternative explanation is that in this case tight refers to the word’s archaic use as an adverb meaning “soundly,” “properly,” or “well.”

Why do bed bugs find living with humans so comfortable? And just as importantly, what are we doing that makes it so easy for them to thrive and spread from place to place?

Let’s begin with some housing and transportation issues.

Many ectoparasites (like the ticks, mites, and chiggers, which will be discussed elsewhere in this book) use an array of specialized appendages to cling or otherwise attach themselves to their hosts—sometimes for extended periods. Bed bugs and their relatives, however, spend a major portion of their lives hiding in close proximity to their hosts but not living on them.*107 Generally, bed bugs react negatively to light and actively seek out rough, dry surfaces that are at least partially darkened. They emerge from these harborages late at night (usually around 3 or 4 a.m.), climbing aboard their prey for short periods of time to feed.

The common bed bug, Cimex lectularius, generally feeds for five to ten minutes, often making three or four bites, roughly in a row (sometimes referred to as “breakfast, lunch, and dinner”) before returning to its harborage. After a feeding bout, bed bugs are ready to eat again within a week.

By the time a victim notices the bites, the bed bugs are long gone, leaving behind a cluster of itchy, red blotches, bumps, or welts that can occur on any exposed skin surface (e.g., face, neck, shoulders, arms, hands, etc.). Reaction to the bites can vary since it depends on the victim’s immune response to proteins in the bed bugs’ saliva, but generally, the more bites, the greater the level of inflammation. Unfortunately, bed bug bites are often misdiagnosed by physicians as mosquito or flea bites or, more commonly, as scabies, an itchy skin condition caused by the microscopic mite Sarcoptes scabei.

Since birds are parasitized by a wide variety of ectoparasites (including many species of bed bugs and their relatives), bird nests are often infested with tiny ectoparasites (like chiggers, lice, and ticks). Nests provide the miniature vampires with the perfect microhabitat for activities like breeding, hiding out, and waiting for the home delivery of their next meal.*108

Similar to cimicids that prey on birds, those that feed on bat blood spend the majority of their lives killing time in places where their prey hang out—in this case, literally. Bat roosts generally vary by species but they’re commonly located in caves, mines, attics, abandoned buildings, and tree hollows. There, the bat bugs hide in cracks and crevices—quietly digesting their meals and presumably catching up on the latest bits of misinformation about their hosts.

With this behavior in mind, it’s no surprise that bed bugs have made an easy transition from bird nests and bat caves to the vast heated structures created by humans and packed with potential hiding places of every conceivable shape and size.

“Clutter is the bed bugs’ best friend,” said bed bug expert Gil Bloom, during his presentation.