Is Bed Bug Poop Hard

Bed bugs poop in different ways: liquid, sticky and sometimes in black spots. They leave their poop or fecal matter stains on your mattress or sheets and sofas as well. The fecal matter stains of bed bugs look dirty and unhygienic. Bed bug poop like any other feces of other insects looks hard so that it may be stressful to clean it yourself. You need additional help to get rid of these stains when you find them. But is bed bug feces hard or not? This article will talk about this matter at length.

Is Bed Bug Poop Hard

If you fear bed bugs and have done research you may know that they leave behind fecal matter, also known as bed bug droppings. Having a fear of bed bugs may have caused you to google them, nevertheless, one of the pieces of information you will often find is about the bed bug fecal matter. There is a lot to know about bed bugs and learning about their droppings will help you identify them.

Bed bug droppings are one of the number one things I find as far as bed bug evidence goes when performing my bed bug inspection. We may discover bed bug fecal matter during our visual inspection for bed bugs.

Moreover, finding fecal matter will confirm the presence of bed bugs. Sometimes a person will find a male vs female bed bug and they do not see any other signs of bugs. If you find one male bed bug, it is best to search your entire bed looking for bed bug fecal matter.

 

 

What Does Bed Bug Fecal Matter Look Like?

 

It looks like black ink stains. If you find it on your mattress, bed frame, or box spring, you can take a wet Q-tip and try to smear it. If the dot smears, then it may be bed bug fecal matter. The next best thing you can do is keep searching the area for a live bug.

 

 

How to Identify Bed Bug Droppings

If you find one of the common bugs that look like bed bugs, a proper ID of the bed bug stains is an important step in helping you figure out if the bug you found is a bed bug or something else.

• Color – Is the color a dark blackish color? If not, then what you see is probably not bed bug fecal matter. This black poop is partially blood that they digest; it turns black when it is excreted. Often people will text me photos of light rusty colors that they find on their sheets. Bed bugs do not leave marks that are a light rusty color.

• Size – About 1mm, give or take a little. Take a ballpoint pen or an ultra-fine point sharpie and make a dot. This is about the size of bed bug fecal matter.

• Area – Bed bugs will usually leave their dropping close to where they are feeding. You will not find bed bug droppings across the apartment in the kitchen away from the bed unless you have many bed bugs roaming your place. Typically bed bugs eat, sleep, have sex, and poop all around the host.

• Shape – Fecal matter will be circular if it does not bleed into the fabric. If it seeps into cloth, then it will make the same crosshair type of lines on the side of where it is soaked in. The same way a Sharpie marker would look when you touch it to the fabric.

• Consistency – Does your spot smear when you wipe it with a wet cloth or Q-tip? Moreover, bed bug droppings do not flake off. To clarify they are a liquid black poop. The bed bug droppings are NOT something you can pick up and collect into a bag.

• Photos – Take some clear zoomed-in photos of your suspected fecal matter and email them to a bed bug specialist or entomologist in your area.

• Smear Test – Firstly, this test is good to let you know that the spot you saw is NOT from a bed bug. Additionally, just be aware that many other types of suspicious marks may smear as well, but they still may not be bed bug fecal matter. In short, if it doesn’t smudge, then it is probably not from a  bed bug. Another thing to keep in mind is that if the spot you are testing has soaked into a sheet or blanket, then you won’t be able to do this smear test on it.

However, Other black spots that will smear can be from the following items: mascara, paint, pens, chocolate, certain types of mold, and various foods.

 

• Bed Bug Blue Fecal Test Kit – Use a test kit like Bed Bug Blue to test your suspicious dots. When I am searching for bed bugs after the K9 alerts, I often use this test kit on suspicious black marks I find. I am glad that it exists because using it gives me factual accuracy.

• Set some paper harborage monitor traps. If you take a plain white piece of paper and make it into fans you can place these around your mattress. – instructions are below under “what to do”-

 

 

Bed Bug Fecals Will Smear

 

Primarily bed bug fecal matter will be anywhere there are bed bugs. If the fecal matter is on a hard surface, it will smear. On the other hand, if it’s on a fabric surface, it won’t smudge because the liquid poop gets soaked into the fabric. Bed bug fecal matter, along with shed skins, and just born baby bed bugs, are all signs that you have an infestation.

 

 

Smear Test For Bed Bug Fecal Matter

 

• Take a Q tip or a rag, wet it. Make it damp but not soaked.

• Next, take the wet Q-tip or rag and wipe the fecal matter.

• If the spot smears and the Q tip or damp rag turns a brownish rust color, you may want to further investigate.

If the bed bug droppings are on a hard surface like the bed frame, we can test them with our kit called Bed Bug Blue. Likewise, this is a scientific test that confirms or denies the presence of bed bug fecal matter by turning a developing strip blue if you pick up bed bug fecal matter.

 

Bed bug droppings are ink-like permanent stains. For example, look at some comparison photos below. Most importantly they do not go away over time and usually do not even wash out. When a sheet gets a bed bug stain on it, the stain does not wash out.

To illustrate what will happen is that it gets lighter and fades with each washing, much the same way that a mark from ink would. For instance, it is hard to tell the difference between a magic marker stain and a bed bug stain on the fabric.

Is Bed Bug Poop Hard

Bed bugs are tiny insects that feed on human blood. They have six legs and long antennae, and they can be any color (including red, brown, black, and yellow). Bed bug poop is a dark-colored liquid that comes out of their anus when they’re feeding.

It’s important to differentiate between bed bug poop and other kinds of insect feces, because some types of insect feces can cause skin problems or other illnesses in humans.

Bed bug poop is usually very hard when it dries out. It can also be sticky if it’s fresh; this would make it different from most other kinds of insect feces. Bed bug poop is usually black or dark brown in color; other kinds of insect feces may be white or greenish-yellow in color.

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