If you’re looking for bed bugs and want to identify their hiding location, looking for their faces can help. Bed bugs do not lay eggs, lose their exoskeletons, or poop far from their preferred habitat. Bed bug poop/droppings/feces/excrement.
Finding any of these items can assist you in tracking them down, but if we don’t have enough information about what we’re looking for, we may mistake them for something else and conclude that our search was futile.
Consider bed bug poop, which resembles ink stains and might easily be mistaken for a stain or dirt and ignored. Patches of dark red, brown, or even black could be present. Finding bed bug poop is a sure sign that you’ve got a problem on your hands. But how can you tell which stains are from bed bugs and dirt or ink? Below is a clear description of bed bug droppings and how to indicate them.
How to identify Bed Bug Droppings
One of the first things to notice about bed bug droppings is that they come in clusters, just like their bite. You will rarely see only one fecal matter patch at a time, even if it was done by one bed bug, because bed bugs poo while on the move, so you will still find a cluster of poop patches closely together in a particular spot that isn’t too far from where they live. But in order not to mistake it for some stain, you should take note of the following:
The color of the poop
Bed bug poop is a dark crimson color, so dark that you can mistake it for black if you don’t look closely. Because blood is their only source of nutrition, their poop is red. What you’re seeing is the blood that has been stored in their bodies for a few days. It won’t come out the same way it went in, but there will still be blood. A smear test can be done if it’s very dark and you’re unsure if it’s red. Apply a smear test on the poop by rubbing it once with a wet towel; if a bed bug leaves it, it should leave a red stain on the towel.
The texture of the poop
Bed bug excrement is like a patch on the ground that can’t be picked up, and if a bed bug poops on a cloth, the fabric will quickly absorb the poop. Their poop is in the form of liquid patches that appear in clusters. If left on a solid surface, it will dry out and can be wiped away with a wet towel.
The shape and size of the poop
Bed bug poop is circular and very small in size, about the size of a dot stain formed by a marker. You can expect to see a series of dark red dot stains at a certain location, which should raise your concerns.
Where to Find Bed Bug Poop
Knowing where their poop is most likely to be can help you narrow down your search and make your job easier. To begin with, you should be aware that finding bed bug poop on a pillow, mattress, box spring, or a wooden surface in the open is almost impossible. Bed bugs tend to conceal everything about them. Anything that you want to locate in your search will be hidden.
So, to search for and detect bed bug poop on a mattress and box spring, you need to look at the top hidden spots. This includes the corners of the bed, under your mattress, in the mattress folds and seams, and other hidden places around furniture that are not visible at first glance.
Bed Bugs Stains on Sheet
Apart from bloodstains, there should be no other stains on sheets, as bed bugs cannot purposefully leave any other stain on your sheet. However, bloodstains are very likely because bed bugs grow in size after feeding and become slower in movement, so you might squish them before they escape. Stains such as poop will be found close to their hiding place, so the blood patches you find on your sheets result from bed bugs you squished unknowingly in your sleep.
If you find a stain, you may ask, do they wash out? Yes, they do because these stains are simply blood from bed bugs. However, blood is like ink, and washing it out will require more effort than normal washing.
To remove them from the bedsheet, apply chemicals such as rubbing alcohol to the stains and allow them to soak in for a few minutes before washing. This should help break down the stain and weaken it so that your regular detergent can remove it.
Since you’re dealing with bed bugs on your sheets, it’s a good idea to wash your sheets with laundry detergent that was made for killing bed bugs. It works just like regular detergent and contains natural ingredients that are capable of killing bed bugs and their eggs.
Fly Poop Vs. Bed Bug Poop
House flies poop frequently, and their poop resembles bed bug poop (tiny black dots). They also leave clusters in a specific area, similar to bed bugs. In fact, without proper knowledge and possibly a test, it would be impossible to tell the difference between fly poop vs. bed bug poop. However, despite their close resemblance, some subtle differences can be used to distinguish them. They are:
Where They poop
Bed bugs do not release their droppings far from their hiding location on purpose, but flies are so filthy that they like to deposit feces. Fly dung can be found almost anywhere, even on metal and plastic surfaces that bed bugs avoid. So, when you locate those tiny black dots, take a step back and examine the area where you found them; this should indicate if a bed bug or a fly left the stain.
A smear test
While both poops may look like little black dots on the surface, a smear test can help you determine which insect is to blame. A bed bug’s poop will turn red after a smear test, while a fly’s poop will turn brown. They are both of different colors, but the amount of time they spend on the surface and the mode of digestion change their colors and cause them to darken, almost blackening them.
Conclusion
Bed bug excrement is readily confused with that of other pests, but with enough knowledge, you can detect bed bug feces and even use them to track them back to their hiding location. With the information in this article, you will be able to find bed bug poop on wooden surfaces and more.