The Top Ten Bedbug Myths

It's official, the United States is grappling with a resurgent "bed bug" epidemic. The feisty little critters can wedge themselves into the smallest of spaces and reportedly can live for a year without eating. When they do eat the result can be nasty little bites on the flesh of humans who are unlucky enough to have a bed bug colony growing in their house. According to article on time.com, some residents of New York are so sick of the bugs that they have opted to sleep in the streets instead of in their bedbug infested apartments. However, much of the information about bedbugs may be outdated and based on urban legend. Ten popular, but totally untrue, bedbug rumors are listed below.

1. Some children believe that Spiderman gained his superpowers after he was bitten by a radioactive bedbug. This is not true as it was a member of the arachnoid class of insects that caused this miraculous transformation. If you are bitten by a radioactive bedbug, most likely you will turn into a gigantic slime spewing maggot for a couple of days and then return to your normal state, . . . assuming your normal state is not that of a gigantic slime spewing maggot.

2. Many people say that bedbugs are even more intelligent than humans and dolphins. While bedbugs are not believed to be highly intelligent, some large groups of them have been known to spell out odd sentences by forming letters on the wall. Some of these messages appear to taunt humans such as, "we'll keep on biting", and "we eat pesticides for breakfast."

3. Wild bedbugs do not carry the plague, a small percentage, perhaps 0.3 to 0. 5%, do carry Zombie Virus Type A, and if you are bitten and infected there is a 40% chance that you will turn into a zombie.

4. While bedbugs are not tough enough to eat through solid steel beams, as has been widely reported in the press, bed bugs are one of the only creatures living which are able to eat and fully digest old fruitcake.

5. While bed bugs spend much of their waking hours in beds biting people and eating dead skin, they don't actually sleep in a person's bed as their name would suggest; rather bed bugs sleep upside down attached to the ceiling by their feet. Maybe they should be called bat bugs instead!

6. Despite what you may have seen in a James Bond film, bed bugs cannot be fired from the barrel of a gun and be used to assassinate people. Even a bedbug is unable to stand up to the high pressures and forces inside a gun which more often than not decapitates the bug. However, it is true that bedbugs are tough enough to be used as a replacement steel ball bearings.

7. The bite of a female bedbug is worse than that of the male bedbug. There is absolutely no truth to this as bedbugs are all male, the female of the species are actually lightening bugs. Lightening bugs enter your room and lay their eggs underneath your bed which are then fertilized and raised by the male bedbugs.

8. Bedbug venom is used as a hallucinogenic drug in India. There is absolutely no truth to this whatsoever, however, it is true that that bedbug excrement is used in the production of flash drives as it is composed of carbon nanotubes.

9. Bed bugs are a delicacy in Persia. Actually, chocolate covered bedbugs are sold for rock-bottom prices in a variety of candy stores around the world stretching from London all the way to New Zealand. Chocolate covered bedbugs were considered a pricey delicacy, however, concerns about contamination with Zombie Virus Type A has caused the price of this once expensive delicacy to plummet.

10. Contrary to a popular belief held by the public, bedbugs are not a manifestation of the end times. Though Catholics can pray to the patron saint of bedbugs, St. Aidan, in an effort to rid themselves of this infestation.

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Sources:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2011937,00.html