Despite their young age, newly hatched bed bugs can survive for at least a few weeks without feeding. Adult bed bugs can survive for about five months without a blood meal.
Bed bugs can survive without food (human blood) for 80 to 140 days while older stages can survive up to a year or longer without feeding than younger ones. Bed bugs usually feed every three to seven days, which means that most of the population is in the digesting state, and not feeding much of the time. However, because bed bug infestations can spread so rapidly in a home or apartment, it can feel like you are waking up with new bites every morning.
If you have bed bugs in your home, it's not as easy as you would think to starve out bed bugs by just leaving your home for a couple of weeks. In an apartment setting, research has found live bed bugs in vacant apartments six months after they vacated! How long they survive without a host also depends upon how active they are, the temperature in the apartment, and other environmental factors such as humidity that they may have been exposed to. The reality is that starving bed bugs is not a valid treatment option and when an apartment is vacant for a while the bed bugs will begin to search for food in the adjacent apartments.
If you suspect bed bugs are living in your home, please give EcoShield a call or fill out the form on this page for a free no-obligation estimate.