A PEST CONTROL expert has shared horrific footage showing thousands of bed beds that he found crawling around in a blind pensioner’s bed.
Stuart Halliday, owner of Kill and Cure Pest Control, decided to share the footage on social media yesterday to make people aware of how much the beasties can breed.
The 42-year-old from Essex befriended an elderly elderly gentleman, who was in his 80s, at a local sheltered housing complex two years ago.
The man was initially reluctant to allow anyone into his room but Stuart managed to gain his trust over time and was eventually allowed in.
However, when he entered the room he was shocked to find thousands of bed bugs crawling around the man’s bed, couch and radio strap.
Because the man was blind and struggled with a health condition, he was unable to see or feel the pesky intruders biting him.
Stuart found out that the man picked up a bedside cabinet that was left at the side of the road that was later found to be riddled with bed bugs that had spread.
The man was being bitten so often that he became anaemic from blood loss so Stuart arranged for him to get a new bed, quilt, duvet and blanket.
Unfortunately the elderly man passed passed away shortly after receiving the help in 2021.
Stuart described the finding as the worst he had ever seen in the 26 years he had been working in pest control.
He shared the video on TikTok yesterday, writing: “This elderly gentleman was sleeping with this horrific bedbug issue.
“He was technically blind and could not see what was going on, it was only when it affected other properties around him that his issue was discovered.”
The video has been viewed over 149,000 times and attracted comments from viewers who sympathised with the man’s living conditions.
One said: “How does he not feel that?”
Another wrote: “I’ve seen one in my life at my friend’s house and I thought that was bad not knowing other people’s situations, RIP to the man.”
A third added: “Bless him, seeing this makes me so itchy.”
A fourth commented: “This kind of stuff breaks me to see.”
While another person said: “That’s so sad.”
Speaking today, Stuart said: “Bed bugs can be dormant for a year but people think they only live in your bed.
“As this gentleman found out they actually live within four metres of where they start spreading.
“Bed bugs can tell when you are sleeping just by how many carbon dioxide your body is emitting or if your body drops by a degree or two.
“They go after the parts of the body they can get to but they are lazy which is why people end up with bites over random parts of their body.
“I was gobsmacked and speechless when I first went into his house. It was that bad.
“But we helped him out and made him bin the old stuff and I really had a soft spot for him and got him some new duvets.
“Bed bugs can be dormant for up to a year and that is what happened in this case.”
Bed bugs can survive in all temperatures from freezing to over one hundred degrees celsius.
