USBedBugs contacted David Cain, Managing Director of Bed Bugs Ltd, London and author of Bed Bug Beware to get an expert opinion on why bed bugs surge in the summer and early fall months. Since bed bugs are an indoor pest, they do not die off in the colder months. It is believed that increased humidity, however, may have some effect at increasing bed bug activity levels in the warmer months and an increase in travel in the summer will result in an increase in infestations. However, these factors alone do not seem to account for the huge increase in the summer as David Cain explains below:

"For years we have been recording the duration and level of infestations so we can work out when people became exposed. Although we get a drop in calls during the winter months we have noted that over 50% of the cases have still been present for 2 or 3 months before people started to respond to the bites. This would support one of our long standing theories that some people do not initially respond to bedbug bites and that there is often a need for either a threshold number of bites to be reached or a secondary environmental influence to come into play. As air quality is generally greater in colder weather we have long suspected that this can also play a role in some bedbug cases."

David’s data suggests when bed bugs are present in the winter that many people will not notice the bed bug bites as quickly as they would in the warmer months as our bodies. It takes weeks for many people to react to the bites in the summer, but it may take months in the winter as our bodies’ natural detection device, itchy bites, just doesn’t seem to work as well in the winter. This is why it is so essential for people to check for signs of bed bugs not only when traveling, but at home. Vigilance is the key. One bed bug can multiply into 30,000 in just six months. Early detection is essential and prevention measures are becoming integrated into how we live and travel. See our Home Prevention page for more information on early detection for bed bugs.