Natural Health
Bed Bugs
By Cathee Mabry
Apr 21, 2008

BEDBUGS – LITTLE VAMPIRES OF THE INSECT WORLD have invaded homes even five star hotels with a vengeance and at lightning speed. These grisly little bugs only come out at night searching for a blood meal. Their residence is our beds and bedrooms.

These creepy crawling night stalkers feast and feed by sucking human blood. They pierce the skin with their elongated beak -like a hypodermic needle. Bed bugs inject their victims with their saliva, which contains a numbing agent, like Novocain. They drink until they become engorged with a person’s blood - crawling away satisfied – until the next night.

BED BUG FACTS

• Bed bugs are annoying and persistent. Getting rid of them requires persistence.
• Bed bugs hide in extremely small cracks, crevices and corners (including mattress, box springs and bed frame), making it difficult to locate breeding sites.
• They are nocturnal - venturing from their hiding spots at night.
• Life Span! Bed bugs can live a year or longer without food (blood) and thus stay in their hiding places.
• Bed bugs can travel long distances and survive in suitcases, clothing, vehicles, aircraft, and cruise ships.
• Bed bug females lay about 200 eggs (life span is 36 – 128 days).
• Bed bugs hatch from eggs in 10 days.

WHERE TO THEY HIDE?

• In early infestations the bedbugs are found only about the tufts, seams, and folds of mattresses and daybed covers; later they spread to cracks and crevices in the bed and mattresses.
• If allowed to multiply, they can be found behind baseboards or woodwork, window and door frames, pictures, and moldings, and in furniture, loosened wallpaper, and cracks in plaster and partitions.
• OTHER HIDING PLACES: Mattresses Box Springs, Wall Sockets, Old Books and Papers, Behind Wallpaper, Clothing, Dresser Drawers, Behind Curtains and Drapes, Cracks, Crevices or Corners of Floors or Walls, Upholstered Furniture, Day Beds, Behind Pictures, Covers and Bedspreads.

THEY FEED ON HUMANS!

• While bedbugs feed primarily on humans, they also feed on other mammals, poultry, and other birds. Their host range is confused by the fact that the insect family Cimicidae, of which the common bedbug is a member, has several closely related species with similar habits and appearance.
• They are spread mainly by clothing and baggage of travelers and visitors, secondhand beds, bedding materials, furniture, laundry and even moving company blankets. Nesting birds, rodents, squirrels, poultry can be carriers and can enter through open windows.
• The mature bedbug is a brown-to mahogany-colored, wingless insect. Its size depends on how recently it has eaten a blood meal. An unfed bed bug is between 1/4 and 3/8 inches long. The upper surface of its body has a papery, crinkly, flimsy appearance. When engorged with blood, its body becomes elongated and swollen, and its color changes from brown to dull red. The color, size, and shape change from an unfed to a full bug is remarkable.
• Bedbug eggs are white and about 1/3-inch long. Under favorable conditions the female bedbug lays about 200 eggs at the rate of 3 or 4 per day. Eggs have a sticky coating and stick to objects where they are laid. It usually takes the eggs 6 to 17 days to hatch and the newly emerged nymphs will feed immediately. A bedbug goes through five molts (shedding of its skin) before it reaches maturity. Depending on environmental factors and the availability of food, there can be considerable variation in developmental rate.
• Bedbugs may live for several weeks to several months without feeding, depending on temperature.

BLOOD SPOTS ON SHEETS AND OFFENSIVE SICKLY SWEET ODOR

Heavily used hiding places are evident by black or brown spots of dried blood excrement on the surfaces where the bugs rest, like your bed. Eggs, egg shells, and cast skins may be found near these places. Usually there is an offensive sickly sweet odor where bedbugs are numerous.

Kleen Green Naturally, a nontoxic enzyme remedy, provided by Natural Ginesis, www.naturalginesis.com - is successfully removing these uninvited intruders by the millions for its customers. The fast acting product can be safely sprayed on beds, mattresses, box springs and furniture. Because Kleen Green is nontoxic, no one is displaced from the home, and it is safe for use around children and pets.

Kleen Green is a concentrated enzyme based product. Naturally occurring enzymes of protease, lipase, amylase and cellulase, derived from food grade sources, are the primary ingredients. Environmentally friendly, this all natural alternative to harsh chemicals and pesticide poisons has produced near miraculous results, says Cathee Mabry, founder of Natural Ginesis. Enzymes are extremely versatile – from cleaning any organic matter on most any surface (including grease, dirt, blood, vomit, urine, feces, germs and bacteria) to inadvertently cleaning away insects. The product is superior for cleaning away bed bugs.

But how does this work? Insects have a protein based coating that can be degraded. When Kleen Green is introduced to the insect, the protease enzyme can digest the outer layer of the insect (their exoskeleton). This causes premature molting. Registered pesticides poisons attack the nervous system of the insect, and are not always effective. These products are also known neurotoxins to humans.

More information can be obtained by visiting www.kleengreen.com or calling 800-807-9350 or 615-790-6122.