The bags are unpacked. Your stuff is all unpacked, and the memories of your vacation are still fresh in your mind. As you sit on your bed thinking of all the fun stuff you did, you notice something crawling across the sheet. It’s tiny. Really tiny. So you have to get in real close to look at it. Is it a bed bug? It sure looks like one. But how did you get bed bugs?

Vacations are when most people pick bed bugs up. These are hitchhiking bugs that travel into and out of hotels, motels, resorts, and other places where people spend the night. Here are a few of the reasons bed bug infestations have risen dramatically in the last 15 years.

• Bed bugs are about the size of a pen tip in their first instar.

• Most people don’t pay too much attention to bugs, especially tiny bugs. Living with bugs is part of living on earth. It usually isn’t until an infestation is discovered that any action is taken.

• Most people don’t understand how bed bugs spread. This lack of knowledge is one of the largest contributing factors to the rate of spread.

• Not all countries in the world have the same pest control we have here in the United States, and world travel has made the earth a much smaller place. Someone can travel from practically any third world country and be here in Kansas in a day.

• Many people still believe that bed bugs only live in dirty places, so they don’t take precautions when staying somewhere nice. The truth is that bed bugs can be in the cleanest and most well-kept places. These bugs aren’t attracted to filth, they are attracted to blood.

• Most people don’t think about bed bug prevention until they’ve had to live with the nightmare of an infestation.

• Bed bugs don’t just hop onto people where they spend the night. These bugs can be found in planes, trains, buses, taxis, and other public transportation.

All of these factors and many more have allowed bed bug infestations to go from practically zero in the 1990s to where now, in 2016, there is no place in the United States these bugs haven’t infested. They’ve even made their way to Alaska.

If you’re finding bed bugs in your Kansas home, or you want to make sure you never do, Schendel has the answer. We employ bed bug sniffing dogs to quickly locate areas of infestation without disturbing the areas they inspect. These gifted animals help our educated specialists outsmart these clever bugs. Reach out to us today and learn more about how canine bed bug inspections can make getting rid of bed bugs fast and effective.