What is this brown bug?
Location: Toledo, OH
June 19, 2011 2:13 am
A few months ago, a girl in my building bought a used couch and became infested with begbugs. A month after she moved out, I woke up with bites (my landlord didn’t bother to tell me she had them) Our building has since been sprayed 3 times since March and I believe they’re gone. But tonight I found a brown bug crawling across my livingroom floor. I googled pictures of bedbugs and I don’t think this is a begbug, but it’s similar. It’s brown, more oval shaped then round, (before I smooshed it) and has those ”lines” across its back but it seems to have more legs than the bedbugs pictured on the internet. Also, this bug doesn’t seem to have a ”neck” like bedbugs I’ve seen online. It has a white underbelly and a lot of legs in both front and back like a roly poly bug. In shape, it is very similar to the roly poly bugs, but it’s brown instead of gray. I just need a little reassurance that it’s not anot her bedbug. I’m about to have a panic attack over her. 
I’m sorry the pictures are not very clear. It was taken with my cell phone camera.
Signature: TK
What's That Bug???
Dear TK,
If it has more than six legs, it is not a Bed Bug. Alas, your photos are too blurry for us to be able to provide any identification and no amount of post production image manipulation will do any good. It also did not help that you smashed the critter before taking the photos. We hope that your letter will act to alert our readers that Bed Bugs can be transported on used furniture. We also heard a recent radio commercial alerting travelers to unpack suitcases in the garage and immediately wash all clothing before returning it to the closets, which we also find to be a helpful tip for keeping Bed Bugs from infesting a home.
Unknown Creature
Thank you so much for replying to my question! I feel much more relieved.. and yes, they definitely do come in on furniture. I used to be an avid garage sale browser and also thrift stores, but after this, not anymore. They say that is why it’s become an epidemic, because of people picking up curbside furniture or furniture found on craigslist. I live on the floor below the girl, so it is odd that they traveled down a flight of stairs to get to my apartment after she moved out, but she also left her mattress and baby crib upside the building for several weeks before and after she moved out and they were only feet away from my bedroom window. This happened in March, very cold weather, and they say that the bugs can’t survive the cold, but I think it’s possible that they came in through the cracks of my bedroom window. Unless of course they traveled down 2 flights of stairs, which just seems unlikely to me. Anyhow, thanks again for your help!
Do not discount the possibility that Bed Bugs can enter apartments from cracks in the walls.
True, but surprisingly, I was the only other person in the building to have been bitten. We live in a quad-plex, I live on the lowest floor, the girl who originally brought them in lived upstairs and across the hall from my apartment, not directly above. The woman who lives directly above and also the guy who lives across the hall from me, neither of them complained of being bitten but I read somewhere that some people don’t react to the bites at all, so they don’t realize they’ve been bitten.
Luckily, I caught it early enough. My case was really not that bad, I had most bites around my right elbow, then I had just a couple on my legs, stomach, and back, but very few. The most were clustered around my elbow from that first night I noticed them. My landlord had the exterminators out that same week, they sprayed 3 times and also gave each of us mattress covers
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