Bedbugs There are two main types of bed bug. The most common bed bugs are the Common bed bug, found in dwellings, and the Martin bug, which normally lives in birds' nests but can bite people. Common Bed bugs are oval wingless insects, approximately 5mm long, with six legs and two antennae. They are red-brown in colour and flat in shape. Their colour turns to red/purple after a blood meal and they become more rounded in shape.

Bed bugs hide themselves in mattresses, within bed frames, under bed bases, within bed headboards, behind loose wallpaper, within paintings, wall sockets, and telephones. Also behind wall partitioning, suspended ceilings, skirting boards, on clothing or furnishings, and anywhere with a dark crack/crevice/seam providing harbourage. They like to stay close together. With frequent feeding, adults can live for up to 18 months. They breed by laying eggs that usually hatch after about 10 to 20 days. The bugs then grow through a series of stages. At each stage they need to feed on blood, until they become adults after about nine to 18 weeks. A female can lay between 150 and 345 eggs in her life.
The presence of bedbugs in a room can be detected by the following:

• blood spotting on bedding
• brown excrement spots close to where they live and on bedding
• whitish/opaque un-hatched and hatched eggs
• in heavy infestations, a sweet almond smell is common
• bed bugs are not normally seen during the day

Fleas Adult fleas are normally 1-4mm long, brownish in colour, without wings but with powerful legs adapted for jumping and piercing, sucking mouthparts. Their bodies are covered with backward projecting spines that help them move between the hairs on the host animal. Cat and dog fleas are usually found together and are similar in appearance. Female fleas can live up to two years, during which time they can lay up to 1000 eggs each. The female cat flea’s head is twice as long as it is wide. Both cat and dog fleas have a row of very heavy spines on the front of the head (genal comb) and on the back part of the first body segment (pronotal comb). Cat and dog flea larvae are ¼inch long when fully developed and look much like fly maggots. They have 13 body segments, are a dirty-white colour with backward projecting hairs on each body segment. They also have a pair of hook-like appendages on the last abdominal segment.

Adult fleas live exclusively as parasites of warm-blooded animals.  The females lay their eggs close to or on the infested animal.  Wall – to - wall carpeting and soft furnishings also provide a relatively undisturbed environment for fleas to develop.  They can also live in cracks and crevices in bare floors. 

Larvae feed on debris and adult flea droppings. Adult fleas feed solely on blood with their piercing and sucking mouthparts. Cat and dog fleas prefer feeding on cats and dogs, but also feed on humans. Cat and dog fleas go through complete metamorphosis. The females lay four to eight eggs after each blood meal. The eggs fall into the nest of the host animal or wherever the animal happens to be at that time. The eggs hatch in about 10 days.

Cockroaches are quite large insects. They vary in size from 10mm-23mm in length with long antennae and two sets of wings. The two main species of cockroach found in the UK are the German cockroach and the Oriental cockroach.

Cockroaches are nocturnal by nature being visible often only at night. They spend the day hiding in cracks around areas like sinks, drains, cookers and the backs of service ducts. If at night you suddenly turn the lights on you may see them. Where they are present in large numbers they may give out an unpleasant almond-like smell. The female cockroach can produce up to eight purse-like egg cases each month each of which can contain up to 30 eggs. Cockroach nymphs emerge from their eggs after 2-4 weeks (up to 6-12 weeks for oriental cockroaches). The nymphs are like the adults but smaller and lighter. The nymphs take some months to mature. Cockroaches will feed on almost anything including faecal matter.

Germs can be spread from the body of a cockroach or from their droppings. They can carry dysentry, gastro-enteritis, typhoid and food poisoning organisms. Contamination occurs when the cockroaches come into contact with our foodstuffs

Ants The ants found indoors are usually worker ants, which are foraging for food for the queen and the grubs. They have found that buildings inhabited by humans are a good source of provision, particularly sweet or sugary items. Because of their eating habits, they can contaminate food by wandering over it.

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