Bedbugs: Fact or Fiction Quiz

Bedbugs can nest anywhere you spend a lot of time. If that's in your favorite recliner, bedbugs may shelter there. Although they can travel up to 100 feet a night, they like to stay within 8 feet of their favorite meal -- you.

A mature bedbug can survive a year or more without a blood meal, and mature nymphs can go months without eating.

Bedbugs hitchhike from place to place on clothing and objects like luggage. Once relocated, they can hang out in carpeting, upholstery, drapes and other clothing or furnishings waiting for a free ride to your house.

Although their bite can cause skin reactions, bedbugs aren't known to transmit any diseases.

The experts aren't sure, but it's probably a combination of factors. Changes in the way pesticides are used (baiting instead of widespread spraying), increased international travel and a lack of awareness about bedbugs as pests can all contribute to the growing problem.

Bedbugs are a variety of blood-sucking external parasite that nests near their hosts. Because they're small and relatively flat, they can conceal themselves very effectively in mattress seams, behind headboards, in baseboard cracks, in and under carpeting and behind wallpaper.

When bedbugs bite, you don't feel it because they inject you with an anesthetic. They also inject you with an anticoagulant.

Although it may happen in a few hours, for some people it can take up to two weeks to have a reaction to a bedbug bite.

There's a good chance you have bedbugs if you see reddish spots on your mattress or bedding and can smell a sweet, musty odor. Another indicator is the presence of discarded bedbug exoskeletons that look like desicated bugs.

Although it may help reduce pet odors, sprinkling baking soda on carpeting is not considered an effective treatment for combatting bedbugs.

Although nymphs (immature bedbugs) can be much smaller, an adult bedbug is about a quarter of an inch long, oval, flat and reddish brown.

A female bedbug can lay about 500 eggs in a lifetime.

Although they may live a little longer under special circumstances, your average bedbug lives 10 to 11 months.