When I was a little kid, my mom would always say "good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite!" to me right before I went to sleep. Because of that, it never really occurred to me that bed bugs were actually a serious danger to people in certain living conditions. They were always kind of a joke threat, like the boogie man or the hound of the baskervilles or something. Bed bugs were right up there with unicorns or elves or other fanciful creatures that didn't actually exist.
After all, if they were real creatures, they'd have real names. They wouldn't just be bed bugs - they'd be a particular type of bug that was associated with cloth (presumably, anyway). What were these bed bugs - a type of mosquito? A gnat? By the time I was four or five years old, I knew enough to ask these questions. I knew that bees and hornest and wasps didn't bite - they stunt, so that ruled those out of contention. Mosquitos and gnats bite, but those clearly weren't bed bugs since they'd already been named. Spiders I ruled out, mentally, as well, since spiders are generally harmless and don't travel in groups. So bed bugs very clearly couldn't be spiders, because "bed bugs" is plural.
And so I put the idea of bed bugs out of my mind almost entirely. Never bothered looking them up, never bothered tiving them a moment's thought.
But it turns out they're real, they're back, and they're actually quite dangerous.
Bed bugs are paracitic insects of the cimicidae family. Like ticks, they feast on the blood of warm-blooded animals, such as humans, and can attach themselves to a host and gorge themselves while going unnoticed. They are largely though not completely nocturnal, and since sleeping humans are easier to prety upon, bed bugs tend to be found in or around beds primarily.
After being eradicated - or nearly so - by the early 1940s, their numbers have surged over the past decade and they're now reaching almost epidemic proportions in urban areas in the united states. New York City in particular has seen a three thousand percent increase in the incidents of bed bugs being reported, thanks largely to the amount of international travelers the city receives.
If you're concerned that you may have bed bugs, some of the best places to check are in cracks, crevices, nooks and crannies. The space between your wooden floorboards, or in among your carpeting, or in bed frames are good places to start. If you do find bed bugs, make sure that you call an exterminator first thing.