Check the sheets tonight, and don’t let the bedbugs bite.

The little bloodsuckers are back.

They’ve wriggled into at least one Lawrence apartment and two Manhattan apartments this year, according to the Kansas State Research and Extension Office.

But Lawrence pest control professionals say the bugs, which DDT insecticides virtually wiped out in the 1940s, have infested even more area living quarters than what’s been reported.

“It’s a growing problem and it’s not going to go away,” said Peter Haley, owner of Haley Pest Control and an exterminator for 27 years.

Bedbug calls to Haley are still “sporadic,” but they’re on the uptick, he said.

And they’re nasty.

“It’s like having little ticks all over you, except instead of the ticks being out in the woods, they’re living with you,” Haley said.

The broad-spectrum pesticides of the past, which killed all insects in their vicinity, have been replaced by safer, more specialized sprays. Instead of sweeping through a room and killing everything alive, bedbugs must now be found on targeted search-and-destroy missions, said Ludek Zurek, assistant professor of medical entomology at the K-State Research and Extension Office, which logs statewide bug identifications.

People haven’t thought of the bugs since their near-demise, so most populations go unnoticed until they’re a problem, he said.

While the bedbug population began to subside in the United States, it thrived in other countries where DDT was not used. And just as DDT was discovered to be carcinogenic, international travel began increasing, Zurek said.

Bedbugs can consume up to three times their body weight in blood.

So the bugs hitched a ride in suitcases and into hotel rooms. Bedbugs, which engorge themselves on amounts of blood three times their body weight, can wait in suitcases and live for several months without feeding, Zurek said.

You’ll know

Bedbug bites typically generate red bumps surrounded by pink rings, Zurek said. Before this year, paranoid callers often cried “bedbug” as soon as they developed a rash. They assumed bedbugs were too small to see.

But if you can’t see any other evidence of the critters besides a rash, it’s likely you’ve developed an allergic reaction to something else, Zurek said.

Even if there bugs are in the barely visible nymph stage, their quarter-inch adult parents will stain your sheets with tiny blood spots and darker brown spots of their feces, Zurek said.

K-State Research and Extension: Bedbugs: They’re B-A-A-C-K (5-21-04 K-State Research and Extension: Bedbugs return (8-1-03)

Oh, and the smell. The marked sheets will reek of eau de bedbug — a slightly sweet but sickening smell of caked soda syrup.

Esau Formusoh knows. The owner of Eagle Pest Control, 903 N. 2000 Road, and doctor of entomology hasn’t seen them yet in Lawrence, but bedbugs are rampant in his native Cameroon. There, pesticide technology is hard to come by.

“People burn the mattress and just start from scratch,” Formusoh said.

The bugs have been confirmed in more than 40 states, but officials at the Douglas County Health Department said they haven’t received any calls.

“We really don’t deal with them because they don’t transmit disease,” said Kim Ens, disease control program coordinator for the health department.

The travel bug

The case documented in Lawrence was possibly in a student apartment, Zurek said.

The tenants had itched and scratched their ways into doctors’ offices, but the topical creams doctors had prescribed for their rashes didn’t work, said Bruce Chladny, county extension agent for horticulture.

Then they found a little bug.

Chladny had never seen anything like it in person. It was flat, wingless, about the size of an apple seed, with a pointed end. The rash had developed when the bedbugs crept out of their hiding places at night, injected a numbing chemical and clamped down without the hosts even knowing it.

When the residents brought a specimen to Chladny for identification, he only recognized the bug because he’d seen it printed in newspapers recently. He ordered them to bring more to be sure.

After he saw the bedding, Chladny had no doubts about his initial identification.

“In the bed skirt, just about every fold had some sort of bedbug — eggs, nymphs or adults,” Chladny said. “I would think that’s pretty bad.”

It’s not surprising that a town like Lawrence would see cases of bedbugs, Chladny said. They hide in the cracks of the walls, under the rugs, in the crevices of the mattress. The transient nature of college towns breeds bug problems.

“You move out and the next person moves in, and they move in with all your problems,” Chladny said.

And that’s why they’ve also been showing up in dorms, prisons and hotels around the country.

Bye, bye, bedbug

No matter how clean the tenant, the bugs won’t go away without pesticide.

Don’t try to treat them yourself, Zurek said. Pesticides available in household stores won’t kill the critters, he said. Only certain pesticides are approved, and they have to be approved for use on mattresses, he said.

Zurek advises people to try to identify the bug before having someone treat it. With a positive identification, you can ensure that a pest control operator will be sure of the bugs at hand.

If you’re a traveler, it doesn’t matter if you’re staying in a four-star hotel or a drive-up economy joint. Bedbugs don’t mind if the room is clean or dirty.

Some advice:

Pull back sheets at night and look for movement. If you see spots, call for another room.

Vacuum suitcases before you bring them inside from a trip.

Don’t hesitate to call a professional as soon as you notice signs of bedbugs.

You’ll be happy when you do, Haley said.

“There’s different things we can do to kill them,” he said. “But you see these little things and you see them in action, they do give you the willies.”