If you believe you have found bed bugs, immediately notify your Facilities representative at 203-432-6888 upon the first observation of bed bugs or evidence of bed bugs. Yale Facilities will promptly notify the pest control vendor for your campus location to respond to the report.
If you need assistance in identifying if the pest is a bed bug, take a photo of the pest and email it to Dr. Gail Ridge at The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station at gale.ridge@ct.gov so she can help verify that the pest is indeed a bed bug. Also, contact Yale Environmental Health and Safety at 203-785-3550.
Bed bugs are small, flat, parasitic insects that feed solely on the blood of people and animals while they sleep. Bed bugs are reddish-brown in color, wingless, range from 1mm to 7mm (roughly the size of Lincoln’s head on a penny), and can live several months without a blood meal. There are two species of human bed bug, the common bed bug, Cimex lectularius L. and the tropical bed bug C. hemipterus Fabr.
They are found across the globe from North and South America, to Africa, Asia and Europe. Although the presence of bed bugs has traditionally been seen as a problem in developing countries, it has recently been spreading rapidly in parts of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe. Bed bugs have been found in five-star hotels and resorts and their presence is not determined by the cleanliness of the living conditions where they are found.
Bed bug infestations usually occur around or near the areas where people sleep. These areas include apartments, shelters, rooming houses, hotels, cruise ships, buses, trains and dorm rooms. They hide during the day in places such as seams of mattresses, box springs, bed frames, headboards, dresser tables, inside cracks or crevices, behind wallpaper or any other clutter or objects around a bed. Bed bugs have been shown to be able to travel over 100 feet in a night but tend to live within eight feet of where people sleep.
