often times in the course of a day we will hear something to the effect of I don't really
need to empty my dresser drawers of my clothing and launder them properly do I, I mean I'm
pretty sure we don't have bed bugs in our drawers well here's an answer to that question
and here we can see a bed bug right in a dresser drawer hanging our right there in the corner.
And that one is very much alive.
Hiding at the moment, so he thinks, or she, but we can clearly see him.
Now, we can see further evidence of bed bugs in this dresser drawer.
There are some cast skins right there, and there's a nice cast skin right there, do you
seem him?
Here we go, how about that one... sure!
There you go...
So this dresser drawer set, it is safe to say, has a big bed bug problem.
So this dresser drawer set is going to take quite a bit of work, so we're going to get
to it.
Ok, so, as I was making that video of the drawers I hadn't removed them yet and now
that I've removed them, a suspicion that I had has been proven right unfortunately.
So, look back here you can see there's where some of the drawers came out, look up here...
I don't know if you can make that out, but, right here, see all of the fecal matter?
Look in the corner here, lots of bed bugs up there too.
There's a bunch of baby bed bugs getting away from the light.
Now, if you look down here you're probably going to see more and, there we go... sure
enough a whole cluster of them right there with lots of eggs and fecal matter, all kinds
of stuff there...
so, more in the corner here and I can't get upside down here right now but I bet you there's
more up at the top and in the corner on my side as I'm filming this but I can't get it
with the camera right now...
There's one trying to crawl away, see they don't like the light, there's one right there,
more fecal matter, theres' some bed bugs up in the corner.
This whole dresser drawer set is completely infested which is something I suspected anyways
so that's not a big surprise.
Ok so, here we can see a very interesting thing and here what we can see is a beautiful
example of, Ok, so there we see a beautiful example of a harbourage because bed bugs don't
actually nest but they do take harbourage ok and here we see a cluster of eggs bed bug
eggs, those are the white things, and then sort of in the middle part there we can see
some cast skins so as they grow throughout their life cycle they cast off their excoskeleton
and they leave those things behind that's what those brownish things are around the
white things and you can see some fecal matter there as well.
So, that's a beautiful example of some bed bug eggs.
Ok so let's take a look at a mattress that is pretty infested with bed bugs.
Your first indication is obviously the fecal matter hopefully you can see that, all the
black dots there, that's all bed bug fecal matter, it's just processed blood so it's
protein and it comes out black so it stains the corners of the mattress.
There's more here in the piping.
Now look at this!
This is fantastic!
Look, these bed bugs are hiding right here, now can you see them with your naked eye here
as I'm filming it?
Maybe, maybe not, I don't know... but I'm going to show you where they hide, right here,
this is amazing... check this out!
Look at this...
They're hiding right, well, the light kind of messes up the filming a little bit but,
they're hiding right in here, let me just pull this away... and this is amazing!
Watch this!
Because they think they're going to get away but they are absolutely going to have a bad
day here in a minute when I start killing them let's see here... come out...
come on out...
there we go...
I don't know if you can see, see that?
There they are, now they think they're safe but they are so anything BUT safe!
I don't know if you can really see it, but, I just want you to be able to see how they
hide and if you're not really paying attention it's pretty easy to miss.
Can you see them?
Oh, there...
That's a good shot...
Right there...
See, there are three of them right there!
Right there, see them?
Now they're staying put because they are a little bit freaked out right now because I've
moved them around and there's light on them and they're thinking 'Whoa!"
I'm just going to stay here for a bit and I'm not going to move!
But..
there's more of them right there too, see so in this part of the mattress this is where
they've decided to hide.
And then here we can see there are more of them here.
OK, time to get to work!
Ok so let's have a look at the other part of the dresser drawer set.
So on it's face it looks pretty good, right?
Nothing obvious in the drawers you know, one would think on the surface "hey no big deal"...
However!
Let's have a look a little bit closer, as we come around here watch this...
Oh, look what we find...
Isn't that interesting!
So look here...
Look, eggs, fecal matter and there's a bed bug right there!
Hiding right in the corner right behind that drawer.
See that?
Isn't that amazing?!
These bugs are fantastic!!!
And in order to be able to kill them properly you have to know how they think!
It's kind of like military intelligence sort of without the security clearance.
So, there you go!
So now we know that this is infested to.
I bet you if we come right to the back, yup, sure enough...
there, look!
Right behind, oh boy... fecal matter, all kinds of it... look behind here, see that?
See it?
Look at that.
Lots of them.
Look at the corner here, this piece is really infested.
So as we start taking the drawers out of this unit I guarantee you one million percent that
we're going to find lots of bed bugs inside up and underneath so let's go ahead and do
that.
Ok here's another really good example of a bed bug being underneath a drawer in a bedroom
set.
Right there, see him?
Right there.
Ok so here I just want to quickly show you something that's very interesting.
I want you to look up here, right here, and I'm going to zoom in, and let me turn on my
flashlight, can you see that?
Right there?
There's all kinds of fecal matter and stuff up there.
Now that is at the top of the bedroom.
And what that means, Oh, there's more there too, Look at this...
See?
Lots of it right there...
So what that tells us is something very important from an entomological perspective.
What that tells us is that there's what's called Vertical Ambulation of the bed bugs
that in here and without going too much into the details, ok, what that means is that the
problem has been around long enough there the problem is multi-generational.
When the bed bugs mate, they mate by a process known as Traumatic Insemination.
Essentially, when a female bed bug is traumatically inseminated somehow that female realizes that
she didn't like that very much so what they do is, in fact, being traumatically inseminated
can actually be lethal for a female bed bug, somehow over the hundred thousand years or
so that they've been feeding on us, they've come to realize this somehow, and so what
the female will do is, after that happens to them, they will go up, that's why we call
it vertical ambulation, is just means they go up and they're moving, so they'll go up
and then they lay their eggs.
After the gestation period of roughly twelve days later, their eggs will hatch into new
little instar nymphs into essentially new little bed bugs and then have is a new harbourage
of bed bugs that's been started at the top of the room and if it's left long enough they'll
continue to do that.
That's one of the ways that bed bugs spread throughout an apartment building!