As it turns out, you really don’t want to let the bed bugs bite. While they are not carriers of harmful diseases or parasites, they can affect you in other ways. Not only can their bites cause rashes, scars and lesions, but they can have serious psychological effects.

Bed bugs are exactly that, bugs that live within the woodwork of your bed. Infestations are very hard to get rid of and can take a long time to destroy, leaving you to sleep in an itchy, pest-ridden bed for extended periods of time. The result of sharing your bed with these bugs can cause anxiety, stress, sleep deprivation and depression. Not only does it cause these psychological problems, but these bugs push their hosts to do whatever it takes to get rid of them. This often leads to property damage, inhalation of dangerous chemicals, and even fire hazards as sufferers resort to burning infested furniture and flooring in pure desperation.

Fleas

Fleas are flightless, but they have powerful legs and can easily jump onto your pet’s fur when they are running through an infested area, such as long grass. These tiny blood drinkers will attach themselves to anything living, including you. While their bites can give you an allergic reaction, and even cause a severe and dangerous anaphylaxis in some people, fleas can have a nastier side if accidentally swallowed. Although this is rare, mostly occurring in children, the fact they are so small means it is easy for them to become ingested. The result of ingesting these minuscule insects is a far more disturbing and harmful infestation, a tapeworm. Tapeworms are large parasitic worms that live in the intestines, munching on your food and growing up to 50 feet long.

You’re not only living creature in your home that fleas, and their potential friends, can affect. While many pet owners use some kind of flea prevention, less commonly known is that animals acquire tapeworm the same way humans do, by ingesting “infected” fleas. Any flea that has eaten tapeworm larvae and is then swallowed by your pet, typically while grooming, can turn suddenly become a far more serious problem.