Although people are badly affected by an influx of bedbugs, the medical authorities proclaim that they are not a serious health hazard.
Tell that to people who are suffering from bedbugs! Bedbugs are not known to transmit disease, that is true, but they instigate paranoia and insomnia which can have far ranging consequences.
On top of this, bedbugs are very hard to eliminate from one's home.
The difficulty is that these bugs are almost completely impervious to insecticides.
This is because they have a thick waxy coat which prevents chemicals from attacking the insect.
Bedbugs are look like a cross between a beetle and a tick.
Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to get rid of an infestation of bedbugs on your own.
However these bugs are vulnerable to heat, so you can steam clean your house to get rid of them, but the only guaranteed method is to call in professional pest controllers.
If you think that you may have a bedbug infestation, there are a number of items that you must look out for.
Firstly, the bugs themselves.
If you have a lot of clutter in your rooms like piles of newspapers, heaps of ironing or clothes, move them and be on the look out for insects running for cover.
These bugs are really quite shy animals.
Look in your bed sheets.
Look for specks of blood - your blood - and excrement - the bedbugs' excrement, which looks like russet smears.
You may also see shed skins - skins that the bugs have shed as part of their growing process - they shed their skins like snakes do.
Bedbugs live in beds, clutter, clothing, cracks, torn wallpaper, damaged plaster, under carpets and anywhere that is narrow and safe.
They like to hide behind skirting boards, so sealing these up with mastic is a good thing.
The best method to be free of bedbugs is not to have them in the first place, but this is easier said than done, because there is a real epidemic of the bugs in the West.
Nearly all western cities are undergoing a plague of bedbugs and have been since the mid-Nineties.
Bedbugs do not just live in homes.
They live everywhere: not just in poor homes, not just in dirty houses and not only in houses even.
You can pick one up from anywhere where individuals congregate, because bedbugs move about by hitching a lift on a human carrier.
You can pick one up on a bus, in a taxi, at the cinema, in your doctor's waiting room or in a hotel.
This is fairly frightening, because it means that you can never be safe from bedbugs.
If you hang your coat up in a cloakroom or travel on public transport, you have a very high chance of picking up a bedbug and just one of them can lay 300 eggs.
Then you are definitely in trouble.
Not only that, but bedbugs can go without food for a year, like fleas can, so if you move into a 'new' apartment or house, these insects could be lying dormant waiting for you to give them a wake-up call.