Bedbugs are blood-sucking insects who infest your home and breed frequently, and they're notoriously difficult to get rid of. This is because they are excellent hiders who breed prolifically and live in your home's nooks, crannies and upholstery, and because pesticides don't kill their eggs. This means you'll need to have an exterminator pay you repeat visits to kill the bedbug eggs that hatch after the initial treatment.
Gestation and Maturation
These creatures, which feed on human hosts as they sleep, lay plenty of eggs. A single female can lay up to a dozen eggs every day. The eggs take one to two weeks to hatch, at which point the young bed bugs, called nymphs, can immediately begin feeding. That does not, however, mean they can immediately begin breeding. Under ideal conditions, bedbugs reach adulthood in about 37 days. This means that you'll have to have an exterminator visit once every few weeks to treat your home with pesticides -- in a best-case scenario, your infestation will be completely eliminated in about three weeks, but you may have to undergo a few more treatment cycles to catch all of them.
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Writer Bio
Tom Ryan is a freelance writer, editor and English tutor. He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in English writing, and has also worked as an arts and entertainment reporter with "The Pitt News" and a public relations and advertising copywriter with the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.
