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It's evening, you're just settling down for a drink in your new hotel, and your wrists, your ankles, your neck, start to itch, and red lumps appear. Now you know you chose last night's hotel badly; it had bedbugs.
Increased travel, heavily heated rooms, a ban on some pesticides, and the sale of second-hand and reconditioned mattresses have been blamed for the increasing spread and concentration of Cimex lectularius, the most common bedbug in temperate areas.
Adult bedbugs can be seen with the naked eye, but being nocturnal and generally hiding in crevices and seams, in light switches, radios and other crannies, are difficult to see.
Eradication usually requires the employment of a professional pest control company.
