Bed bugs measuring upto 5mm in length thrive in warm surroundings and usually take up residence in mattress seams, in bed frames, behind headboards or skirting boards, and within furniture and electrical fittings usually emerging at night to suck the blood of a host creature.

The bed bugs can be transferred from clothes, furniture and its widely thought that these bugs can be picked up from public transport where they can be brought home and quickly spread..

The tiny blood sucking insects can survive without food for over a year, but when conditions are right and food is plentiful numbers can quickly spiral allowing infestations to soon set in.

A person who has been bitten by a bedbug can develop a swollen bite that itches, although the bugs do not transmit diseases.

Airports have been deemed the likely root of the new upsurge in bed bugs as holiday makers unwittingly bring them back into the country from definitions where the problem of bed bugs has not yet been dealt with.