Bed bugs: what they are, how to spot them, and where they hide
Bed bugs are small, flat, wingless insects that feed on human blood while people sleep. In Tagalog they are surot. By day they hide in mattress seams and bed frames, and they come out at night.
What bed bugs look like
Two kinds bite people. The common bed bug, Cimex lectularius, is the one in most temperate countries. In the tropics the dominant one is the tropical bed bug, Cimex hemipterus. The CDC treats them together as Cimex species, and everything on this page applies to both.
How a bed bug grows
A bed bug hatches from an egg in about 10 to 15 days at room temperature, then passes through five nymph stages, getting bigger at each one. It needs at least one blood meal before it can move to the next stage. From egg to adult takes anywhere from five weeks to four months, depending on temperature and on how easily it can feed.
Body length at each stage
Adults may feed every 5 to 7 days and live a year or more. They can also go a long time without feeding: UC IPM gives 20 to 400 days, depending on temperature and humidity. That is why leaving a room empty does not starve them out, and why small pale nymphs in the bed mean they are already breeding there.
Signs of bed bugs in a bed
UC IPM reports that about 85% of bed bugs are found in or near the bed, so start with the mattress seams, the bed frame and the headboard. They are about as thin as a card, so any crack a card fits into can hold one. With a torch, look for:
- dark spots of dried droppings that soak into fabric like a marker pen;
- rusty blood spots on the sheet or mattress, from bugs crushed after feeding;
- pale, empty shed skins, the shape of a bed bug;
- eggs and empty egg shells stuck in seams and wood joints;
- the bugs themselves, alone or in small groups;
- in a heavy infestation, a musty smell.
Bites are not proof. They look like mosquito or flea bites, they can take up to 14 days to show, and some people never mark at all. What bites look like, and why they cannot settle it, is in bed bug bites. Close-ups of the eggs are in bed bug eggs, and the droppings are drawn to scale in the droppings identifier.
What else it might be
Small brown insects in the kitchen are far more likely to be young cockroaches; baby cockroaches shows what those look like.
Where bed bugs come from
People carry them in without knowing. Bed bugs get into the seams and folds of luggage, overnight bags, folded clothes, bedding and furniture, and travel with them. Second-hand mattresses and furniture are a known high-risk source. They are also picked up on buses and trains and in places where people sleep one after another: dorms, boarding houses, shelters and hotels.
A dirty house is not the cause. The CDC is plain about it: how clean a place is does not decide whether it has bed bugs, and they turn up in five-star hotels.
Are bed bugs dangerous?
Bed bugs are not known to spread disease to people. The harm is the itch, the lost sleep, and skin infections when bites are scratched open. Reactions vary: some people show nothing, some get large itchy swellings, and in rare cases there is a serious allergic reaction. Get medical help at once for trouble breathing or swelling of the face or throat after bites.
What kills bed bugs?
Nothing you can buy does it at once. UC IPM notes that several products are sold over the counter for bed bugs, few have been shown to work, and resistance among bed bugs is increasingly common. It says aerosol foggers are not effective against them and could harm your health.
What households can do safely is mostly heat, cleaning and taking away places to hide: bedding and clothes bagged and run through a clothes dryer on high heat, seams vacuumed, the mattress sealed in a cover. The steps are in how to get rid of bed bugs, and in Filipino in paano mawala ang surot sa higaan.
Do not use kerosene, petrol, thinner or rubbing alcohol on a bed. The EPA warns they can harm the people in the house and catch fire from a spark or a cigarette.
When to get them treated
- You are finding eggs or small pale nymphs, so they are breeding in the room.
- More than one room shows signs.
- You have done the home steps for two weeks and new bites keep coming.
- You live in an apartment, boarding house or dorm, where they come through from the next unit.
We start by inspecting the mattress, the bed, the sofa and the cracks around them, because that decides where treatment goes, and we tell you before we start which product goes where. Read bed bug treatment, then send us your town and which room has the bites through the contact form. We cover Pampanga, Bulacan, Bataan, Tarlac and Olongapo.
Sources
- US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, About Bed Bugs, read 12 October 2026
- US Environmental Protection Agency, Bed Bugs: Appearance and Life Cycle, read 12 October 2026
- US Environmental Protection Agency, How to Find Bed Bugs, read 12 October 2026
- US Environmental Protection Agency, Do-it-yourself Bed Bug Control, read 12 October 2026
- University of California IPM, Pest Notes: Bed Bugs, read 12 October 2026
Tell us what you have found
Send the pest, the town and roughly how long it has been going on. That is enough for us to say what the treatment would involve and what it depends on.