Signs of Bed Bugs: How to Check Your Bed, Mattress and Hotel Room

The early signs of bed bugs are itchy bites in a line or cluster after sleeping, small rust-colored or black spots on sheets and mattress seams, and tiny pale bugs, shed skins or white eggs tucked into the bed's seams and joints. To know for sure, you need to find one of those physical traces — bites alone can't confirm bed bugs.

The good news: a careful 30-minute inspection usually settles it. Here's how to do it the way pest professionals do.

Signs of bed bugs, from earliest to latest

1. Bites after sleeping. Often three or more in a row or a tight group, on skin exposed during sleep — arms, shoulders, neck, legs. Not everyone reacts, so one partner may have marks while the other has none. See bed bug bites.
2. Spots on sheets and pillowcases. Small rust-red smears (a recently fed bug crushed in your sleep) and dark dots. Switch to plain white or light sheets for a week and the dots become obvious.
3. Fecal spots on the mattress. Black-brown dots, like marker tips, that bleed into fabric. Typically in clusters along seams, piping and under the tag.
4. Shed skins. Hollow, pale, bug-shaped casings left after each molt.
5. Eggs and eggshells. About 1 mm, pearly white, glued into seams and crevices — see bed bug eggs.
6. Live bugs. Adults look like flat, reddish-brown apple seeds; nymphs are smaller and pale until they feed.
7. Odor. A sweet, musty smell — usually only noticeable once the infestation is large.

Show photoclose-up of an insect or bite, you can hide it again

How to check for bed bugs: step by step

You'll need: a bright flashlight, an old credit card or putty knife, a magnifier (or phone macro mode), clear tape and a zip bag for specimens. Wear light gloves if you like.

1. Strip the bed. Inspect the sheets and pillowcases under bright light for spots before they go in the wash.
2. Mattress, top side. Run the card edge along every seam, piping and tuft, folding the fabric back. Check the tag and handles closely.
3. Flip or stand the mattress and repeat on the bottom and sides.
4. Box spring. This is where bugs often concentrate. Check the top seams, then turn it over; if the thin fabric underneath is loose, peel back a corner and shine the light at the wooden frame inside.
5. Bed frame and headboard. Joints, screw holes, slat supports, and the back of a wall-mounted headboard. Pros consider frame joints one of the top hiding spots.
6. Nightstand. Pull drawers out, check the joints and the underside.
7. Around the bed. Baseboards and carpet edge behind the bed, outlet plates, picture frames, loose wallpaper, curtains.
8. Anywhere someone sleeps or naps — couch, recliner, kids' beds.

If you find something suspicious, lift it with tape and keep it. Compare with our bed bug pictures and look-alikes — carpet beetle larvae, bat bugs and spider beetles often get mistaken for them.

Bed bugs on a mattress: what you'll actually see

Most people expect to see crawling bugs. Far more often you'll see the "map" they leave: a line of black dots along the piping, a few skins, maybe one or two flat bugs wedged deep in the seam. In a heavy infestation, seams and corners can be lined with spots, skins and clusters of bugs of all sizes.

Dark spots that brush off are likely lint or dirt. Bed bug feces soak in. A quick test: dab a spot with a damp cotton swab — fecal spots smear reddish-brown.

When you can't find anything

Light infestations can be hard to find. If bites keep appearing:

• Put interceptor cups under each bed leg and pull the bed slightly off the wall. Check them every few days; most light infestations show up within 1–2 weeks.
• Inspect before dawn. Bed bugs are most active roughly 2–5 a.m.; a quick look with a flashlight can catch them out.
• Consider other causes: flea bites, mosquito bites, mites from rodents or bird nests, or a skin condition. If nothing turns up and the rash persists, see a doctor.
• Hire an inspection. Many pest companies offer inspections, sometimes with a detection dog. Ask the handler to show you a visual find.

How to check a hotel room

Takes five minutes and can save months:

1. Put luggage in the bathroom or on a hard luggage rack away from walls — never on the bed.
2. Pull back the sheets at the head of the bed and check the mattress corners and seams with your phone light.
3. Look behind the headboard if it lifts off, and along the box spring top.
4. Check upholstered chairs and the luggage rack seams.

If you find signs, ask for a different room not adjacent to or directly above or below the first. At home, unpack outside the bedroom and put clothes through a hot dryer cycle.

Found them — what next

Don't panic and don't move to the couch. Start with the steps on how to get rid of bed bugs, and if you rent, notify your landlord in writing — many US states and cities have rules on who pays for treatment.