Where to look, in order
- Mattress seams and tags — the piping along the edge, especially at the head.
- Box spring — flip it; check the corners and the staples under the dust cover.
- Bed frame and headboard — joints, screw holes, the gap where the headboard meets the wall.
- Within six feet of the bed — nightstand drawer joints, outlet covers, the curtain hem, picture frames.
- Sofas and recliners, if anyone sleeps there.
What you are looking for
- Live bugs: apple-seed size, flat, reddish-brown; nymphs smaller and paler.
- Fecal spotting: clusters of black dots that bleed like ink when wet.
- Shed skins: translucent, bug-shaped, in the seams.
- Eggs: white, about a millimeter, glued in cracks.
What bites prove
Nothing on their own. Reactions vary from none to welts, and the pattern is not diagnostic. The Oregon Health Authority’s page says bed bugs “are not known to spread disease”; OSU’s factsheet says the same. Treat the search for evidence as the task, not the bites.
Catch a specimen
Clear tape onto a card, or a pill bottle. Bring it to the inspection or photograph it against a ruler. If it turns out to be a carpet beetle or a bat bug, you want to know that before anyone sells you a treatment.
Figures cited: Pacific Northwest Extension PNW 757 (Gouge & Stock, 2021,
Oregon State University co-publisher); OSU Extension “Bed Bugs, Cimex lectularius” (2013);
National Pesticide Information Center at Oregon State (updated April 2026); Oregon Health Authority
“About Bed Bugs”; Kells & Goblirsch, Insects 2(3):412–422 (2011). Not
medical advice.