Can bed bugs fly or jump?

It is one of the first things people ask after a bite: did something fly in through the window? With bed bugs the answer is no. They cannot fly and they cannot jump. That sounds reassuring, but it also explains why they are so good at spreading: they rely on us to carry them.

No wings, no jumping

Adult bed bugs have two small, flat pads where wings would be on related insects. They are leftovers and cannot lift the bug off the ground. Bed bugs also lack the long, powerful back legs that fleas and grasshoppers use to jump. Their legs are built for walking and for gripping rough surfaces like fabric, wood and paper.

What they can do is climb. They manage fabric, bare wood and textured walls easily. Smooth, polished surfaces such as glass and clean metal are much harder for them, which is the idea behind the plastic interceptor cups some specialists put under bed legs as monitors.

If something in your bedroom is flying or hopping, it is not a bed bug. Fleas jump and are smaller and narrower; mosquitoes and midges fly. Bites from all of these can look alike, so the insect itself, or the signs it leaves, is a better guide than the bites.

How fast they walk

Bed bugs are quicker than people expect. On a surface they can grip, an adult covers roughly a metre a minute. They come out mostly at night, find the person by the warmth and carbon dioxide of their breath, feed for five to ten minutes, and walk back to a hiding place within a couple of metres of the bed.

They do not need to travel far, which is why most are found in the mattress seams, the bed base, the headboard and the furniture right next to the bed.

How they get from place to place

Since they cannot fly, almost every new infestation starts with bed bugs being carried in. The British Pest Control Association points to the usual routes:

• Luggage and bags. Hotels, hostels, holiday lets, coaches and sleeper trains are classic pick-up points. Bugs hide in seams and zip folds and walk out after the bag is unpacked at home.
• Second-hand furniture. Beds, mattresses and sofas taken from the street or bought used. In a student city this is a common source each autumn.
• Clothes and laundry. Shared laundry baskets and bags moved between rooms.
• Visitors. Someone staying the night from an affected home.

Once inside, they can also walk from one home to the next, which matters a great deal in Bristol.

Moving between flats in converted houses

A large share of Bristol’s flats are in Victorian and Georgian houses split into several homes, especially in Clifton, Redland, Cotham and Montpelier. These buildings are full of routes for a walking insect: gaps under skirting boards, floor voids between flats, boxed-in pipes and cables, and old fireplaces sharing a chimney breast.

When an infestation is treated, or when it gets large, bed bugs often move along these routes. That is why bites can appear in a flat whose owner has never travelled, and why a treatment that ignores the flats around it can fail. If you live in a converted house or a block, tell the specialist which neighbours have had bites, and if you rent, tell the landlord or managing agent too. Our page for landlords and HMOs covers how whole-house treatment works.

How long they can wait to be carried

Part of what makes hitchhiking work is that bed bugs can go a long time between meals. Adults in a cool room can survive for months without feeding, and the University of Kentucky’s guidance notes that they live longer in cooler conditions because they use energy more slowly. A bug that climbs into a suitcase in a hostel can still be alive weeks later when the case comes out of the loft.

That is also why leaving a flat empty for a few weeks does not starve them out. In a warm home the gap they can survive is shorter, but still longer than most people are prepared to stay away. Treatment, not waiting, is what clears them.

Signs they have travelled to a new room

When bed bugs spread inside a home, they usually show up first where someone spends a long time still: a sofa used for evening naps, a child’s bed, a spare room used by a visitor. Look along seams and joints for the same signs as in the first bedroom: small dark spots, pale shed skins, eggs and live bugs. Bites starting in a second person in the house are often the first clue that they have moved.

What this means for stopping them

Because bed bugs walk and hitchhike, the useful precautions are about luggage and furniture rather than windows and doors:

• After a trip, unpack straight into the washing machine where you can, and keep the case off the bed. Hot washing at 60°C and a hot tumble dry, as the NHS advises for bedding, kills all stages.
• Look over second-hand beds and sofas carefully before bringing them in, especially seams and joints. Avoid furniture left on the street.
• Do not move into another room to escape bites. The bugs follow, and you end up with two infested rooms.
• Do not use shop foggers. They tend to scatter bugs into wall gaps and neighbouring rooms rather than kill them.

Getting rid of them

Because they hide in cracks and seams close to the bed, bed bugs are best dealt with by a professional spray course with steam, or by heat treatment, which kills every life stage in one day. In a converted house, a residual product along shared walls helps stop them coming back from next door.

If you have bed bugs in Bristol, the heat treatment page explains how the one-day method works, and you can book a visit for a fixed price from a local specialist.