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Gnat What You Expected: Hoarding Leads to Bug Infestation!

Hoarding must not be confused with a fancy collection of designer bags, top-shelf branded shoes, or bookcases flooding with beautiful hardback copies of your favorite titles.  

It is a psychological disorder that manifests itself in the form of compulsive behavior. The obsession with hoarding can escalate to a point that material things consume a large part of your living space and affect your life.

It might also lead to consequences that you may gnat have expected. Hoarding is a primary cause of bed bug infestation and this is why and how it happens.

Bad Bug Behavior

Bed bugs feed on the blood of hosts which can either be humans or animals.  They can travel 5-20 feet from their harborage to feast on a host. Considering their microscopic size, this really is a long distance to cover!

Bed bugs are more of a nocturnal creature because they hunt more during the night. But if they want, they can even latch onto you during the day.

They can be done with their meal in about 3 to 12 minutes. Even though their size helps them hide, they are not always this discreet. Your bed linens may contain tiny blood spots which are proof of the fact that these bugs have feasted on a host.

Mating and Growing Generations

Biologically, bugs don’t need a lot of nutrition to grow to the next developmental stage. The most they require is one blood meal to move a level up on their 6-step growth chart. Both male and female bed bugs need a fortnightly meal to reproduce.

These tiny critters can lay up to 3 eggs in 24 hours and at most 500 eggs in a lifetime! With this rate of reproduction, it is no surprise that bug infestation spreads like wildfire once it aims for your territory.

Living Environment

Bed bugs can adapt to really low temperatures; they are able to survive even at 7 degree Celsius. However, high temperatures are dangerous for bugs because they die if their body heats up to 45 degree Celsius. This is why to kill bugs, the average temperature of the infested place must exceed this mark so that the heat reaches every hiding place.

Bed Bugs Hideout

When not feeding, bed bugs hide in a variety of places. Their hideouts can range from pipes, seams, folds of mattresses and headboards. Here is a more exhaustive list of all the bug hideouts:

  • In between cushions and couch seats, and folds of curtains
  • Seams of chairs
  • Furniture joints
  • Kitchen appliances and other electrical devices
  • Tapestries and wall papers
  • Crevices in the walls and ceiling
  • Cleft of a screw head’

This is where the problem arises.

A house which contains hoarded furniture, old newspapers, racks full of books, overloaded kitchen utensils and a brimming storeroom, offers little to no chance of cleaning.

Bed bugs are literally as slim as a credit card so they can adjust in the tiniest of cracks and fit in the finest of folds. Not only does hoarding make indoor environment unsanitary but also creates a conducive atmosphere for pest infestation.

People with abnormal cases of compulsive hoarding have been recorded to collect unnecessary items for over 20 years! One such case of two New York residents is newsworthy because the woman had living bed bugs infested in her eyebrows! The hoarded material filled up 3 dumpsters when the house was cleaned.

Another 90+ year-old lady had parasitic bugs feeding on a surgery wound which required immediate medical attention. Her scar was infested with nymphs and full grown adult bed bugs which were feasting on her wound.

Such cases accurately gauge the extent of damage hoarding can cause to your house and health.

Want to get rid of hoarded material?

We prepare your home for the exterminators. Our experts identify the point of highest infestation and do everything we can to contain the problem before the professionals arrive.

Based in Edmonton, RTM Cleaning Solutions provides professional sanitary services to prepare for pest infestation, deal with hoarding and commercial cleaning. They serve private and business clients based in Edmonton and adjacent areas like Sherwood Park, Wetaskiwin, and Spruce Grove. Their bed bug control and treatment procedure will help reduce the nuisance!

Contact us at (780) 953-2922 as soon as possible for a free on-site consultation.