Bed Bug Inspection Guide

How to Do a Bed Bug Inspection

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• Check areas near the bed, including upholstered chairs and sofas, including seams, tufts, skirts and crevices.

• Typically, bedbugs like to stay as close as possible to their human hosts. So look for dark fecal spots — digested human blood — or even the bugs themselves on bedsheets, in the seams of a mattress, between the mattress and boxspring, in the crevices of a boxspring, and in the corners of the mattress by the headboard.

• To thoroughly inspect your bedding, dismantle the bed and stand all of the components on edge so that upper and lower surfaces can be examined.

• Nightstands and dressers should be emptied and examined inside and out, then tipped over to inspect the woodwork beneath. Often, the bugs will be hiding in cracks, corners and recesses.

• If you're staying in a hotel that has a headboard, lift it up and inspect the area between the wall and the headboard. Hotel managers won't like that, but if an exterminator were to go in, that would be one of the first places they would look.

•Heavy infestations may have a musty or "buggy" smell, but the odor often isn't apparent and shouldn't be relied on for detection.

• Also be sure to look in the crevices of a couch and on carpet edges. When staying in a hotel, don't put your luggage on the floor, where bedbugs can easily crawl inside. As bedbugs grow they molt their skin, which is light brown and also can be found in the same crevices of bedding, couches and carpet.

For products mentioned in this guide and for more information please see our Bed Bug Control Products and Bed Bug Kits.


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