What’s Lurking Underneath Your Bed? The Difference Between Bed bugs and Lice

You wake up one morning to find a tiny brown-colored bug crawling lazily on your silken pillowcase. You freak out at first, but then, you take deep breaths to calm yourself down. Peering closely, you try to figure out what the bug is. Is it a bedbug that came out to turn you into its blood-meal? Mites? Is it lice? If you ever find yourself in such a position, here’s how you can spot the difference between bedbugs and lice.

1. Difference in Shape

So you have a tiny bug on your pillowcase. The first thing to do is to assess its shape. Bedbugs and lice differ vastly in terms of their shapes. While a bedbug’s more flat and oval in shape, lice have more oblong-shaped bodies.

2. Difference in Size

The differences between these two parasites don’t just end at their shape. Rather, lice and bedbugs fare differently in terms of size as well. So while a louse only measures up to one-eighth of an inch long in length, a bedbug’s a quarter of an inch. This makes bedbugs much bigger, on average than lice.

3. Difference in Color

Is the bug whitish in color or is it leaning toward the brownish color spectrum? Perhaps one of the easiest ways to spot the difference between the two is through their color. If the bug possesses mahogany or reddish-brown color, it’s a bedbug.  But you should also know that bedbugs are notorious for color changes. So while they’re brown before feeding, their color changes to purple after feeding. In contrast, lice are more whitish or grayish in tone.

4. Difference in Location

Bedding, beds, curtains, couch cushions, cracks within walls and furniture are the best living spots for bedbugs. This is where they love to hide, only sneaking out during the wee hours of the night for a blood-meal. Lice, on the other hand, live on their human host. They cling tightly to the hair with their microscopic claws, feeding on blood throughout the day. Lice tend to firmly lodge themselves to their host unless deliberately removed or they wandered on a sofa when their host was sitting down.

5. Difference in Treatment

Bite marks on your body aside from your head can be both painful and uncomfortable. If you ever find yourself waking up with these itchy bites, know that you don’t require treatment since you’re not the host. This means it’s your bed frames and other tight spaces that’ll have to be sprayed using an insecticide to get rid of the bedbug infestation in your home. With lice, the irritation and itchiness on your scalp can increase ten-folds with every feeding. If it ever gets too painful and unpleasant, don’t worry. There are many safe and effective options available to get rid of lice. While going for DIY solutions and lice shampoos that are readily available on the market might seem like a great idea, it’s not without its risks. Many over-the-counter lice treatments contain insecticides, and can only be used with extra caution. In fact, we recommend skipping them altogether, since they can cause a lot of damage. How to Go For a Safer Lice Removal Treatment Lice Troopers is a lice removal and treatment company; we specialize in treating our clients with only safe pesticide free products to help get rid of lice. If you’re in Kendall, Florida, call us at 800-403-5423 or email at info@licetroopers.com, to get your lice problem taken care of