What Does Bed Bug Poop Look Like? 7 Tips
What does bed bug poop look like? First, they’re not solid and difficult to pick up – they’ll readily smear like toothpaste since it looks like a liquid.
Bed bugs will feed every 5 to 10 days and numb your pain using its anesthetic saliva (see bed bug images). You may notice eggs, feces, and skin castings on bed or old box spring.
In summary, bed bug poop looks like tiny-spot clusters that you’ll find on your bed. The feces are made up of digested blood – but they won’t be red because the blood has dried. The feces appear darker, black, or rust-colored. Check quality bed bug sprays below.
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What Does Bed Bug Poop Look Like? 7 Tips
When smeared on different surfaces, bed bug poop leaves some dark or pink-colored stains – mainly, it’ll go smooth and tiny drop when not absorbed by your fabric. Read too – bed bug look-a-like.
1. Dark-Colored
Bed bug feces will be dark-colored as it’s composed of the host’s blood that’s digested – hosts include human beings and pets like cats and dogs – check for bed bug nymphs.
Does old bed bug poop smear? The fecal matter of the bed bugs leaves some dark marks when smeared. Once bed bugs suck blood, bed bugs combine into clusters in mattress seams (crevices, furniture, & carpets.
You’ll rarely get bed bug feces on your sheets. The bugs won’t digest their blood meal fast – even a few days. After feeding, bed bugs hide under the mattress where they’ll digest the blood and poop.
Bed bugs don’t catch illnesses from the bed bug poop, and hence they’ll drop their feces everywhere – particularly on areas that they digest on under mattresses.
2. Smooth – What Does Bed Bug Poop Feel Like?
Further, the fecal matter is smooth – compared to the cockroach waste that feels very granular. The feces will smear very quickly and thus stain chairs, sofas, furniture, drapes, bed sheets, mattresses.
The bugs will drop their poop, eggs (hatched or live), and skins in their hiding places in the clusters. Further, the bugs collect into a big cluster that’ll be easy to identify.
You’ll mainly find the bed bug feces and also bed bugs around mattress seams. The mattress tufts will be an excellent concealing area for the bugs to molt and breed, waiting to suck blood.
Therefore, I would recommend using bed bug mattress encasements to prevent and treat the bugs – besides treating crevices and cracks plus box springs.
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3. Does Bed Bug Feces Smell?
Bed bug feces will be different from fecal matter from various animals – considering their smell. But the poop will have a musty smell due to having a large amount of digested blood.
It is comparable to the smell you feel to the scent of blood when you cut your skin. However, the scent of bed bug droppings will be overtaken by other bed bug smells.
Bed bugs use the harsh smells to get them around different objects – the smell will come from their harbor-age. You’ll feel the rusty smell like coriander from the bed bugs – including under mattresses.
Further, some humans consider moldy & wet smell that would occur when you leave wet clothes in the washer for a long time. You’ll notice the rusty smell like that of blood.
However, you’ll notice the smell when you get near the bed bug feces or disturb the bed bugs like if you get under the mattresses’ sheets – check flea spray for yard.
Can you Pick Bed Bug Feces?
It’s relatively impossible to pick up bed bug feces since they’re liquid and not solid like human feces or droppings. The wastes are soft and liquid and hence will only smear on surfaces.
Bed bug feces will smear like toothpaste and soak into the sheets or mattress fabric to leave a tiny stain. Further, the droppings are about the size of small crumbs, and thus it’ll be challenging to pick them.
But any of the droppings that’ll be allowed to lie around for a long time will dry up and thus may be easy to sweep them off. The droppings need to be resting on some non-absorbent surfaces such as wood.
However, it won’t be essential to pick bed bug feces to control the bugs from your house. You’ll need to use a cleaning solution to clean them off after soaking.
Bed Bug Feces on Mattress
A bed bug will drop their feces, particularly under your mattress – and they’ll have the same appearance as those on the bedsheets. Hence, the feces, if wet, will smear over the mattress.
However, dried bed bug feces will get absorbed into the mattress fabric. Further, they’ll occur on fecal matter clusters – particularly under the mattress.
You’ll find most of the fecal matter around the bed bug’s harbor-age – this as noted above the sheets and mattress – they’ll signify that bed bugs are around their living areas.
However, you’ll also find the bed bugs around zipping, buttons, or mattress piping. You may notice bed bug shells that drop when the bugs molt.
Are Black Spots or Stains on my Sheets from Bed Bugs?
Have you seen some black spots on your bed – well, these don’t bed bug feces? Sure, bed bugs will leave tiny and bright stains – but they’ll appear in a line.
The tiny bloodstain is from hosts’ blood – the bed bugs drop the blood from their mouths as they move from harbor-age. Thus, the blood is undigested and hence will be brighter than bed bug feces.
You may also notice more significant bright red stains (equally on the sheets) that’s irregularly shaped. These stains occur when you crush the bed bugs after they’ve taken their fresh blood meal.
Further, some blood spots may happen when you crash the bed bugs as you turn and twist in your sleep. However, any other tiny black spots on your sheets may be from fleas.
Further, flea dirt or bed bug feces may equally have some black spots if they’ve dried – so conduct the right searches to ensure that you have or don’t have bed bugs in your home.
How to Clean Up Bed Bug Droppings
Hydrogen peroxide further uses hydrogen peroxide as it’ll work like an oxidizer or bleaching agent to clean the bed bug feces and remove stains on your fabrics.
Using the dilute hydrogen peroxide will, besides bleaching the mattress fabric, help loosen the feces stains, and thus it’ll be effortless to wipe them off.
Dish soap – the all-time good dish soap would be an appropriate remedy for cleaning bed bug feces. Soak the fabric with feces – this will loosen the fecal matter, clean, and remove mild stains.
Let feces dry – Besides, you may let the bed bug feces to rest on the surface for some time and dry. So, you’ll only need to wipe them off before encasing the mattress finally.
Conclusion
So, what does bed bug poop look like? In summary, the fecal matter is brown or rusty-dark colored in color – NB – something that’s dark than the color of fresh blood.
Also, bed bug feces will soak in your fabrics to leave a regular and tiny stain. This will look anything like you dropped some ink drop on your bed sheet.
Finally, bed bug poop will smear on your sheets to form a shape like that created by ink stains. Read Also: Best mole traps.
