Bed bug biology does not stop at a state line. What is decided locally is who arranges treatment and who pays for it. What we cannot source, we do not print.
Do bed bugs work differently from state to state?
The biology does not.
Almost everything that decides a treatment. The temperatures, the timings, the reason for the follow-up visit, the federal position on disease, and what to expect from a company are national findings, and none of them has a state-level version. The answers section carries them in full; this is the short list.
None of those figures moves when you cross a state line, and no source in our research reports a state-level variant of any of them.
In two places, and neither of them is a state ranking.
Reported nationally and at population level — no state or city figure exists in the source.
Leading causes: over-application, unwashed treated bedding, inadequate notification — not the states themselves.
What you will not find here is a list of the most bed-bug-infested cities. Those rankings are published by pest control companies from their own job counts. They are marketing rather than measurement, and there is no federal or extension prevalence figure to check them against — CDC and EPA say plainly that even the national economic cost is not known.
Every figure on this page traces to one of these. Ranges are reported as ranges.
Who pays, and who arranges the work, is decided locally rather than nationally.
A homeowner, a tenant and a building manager are not in the same position when bed bugs turn up, and the rules that decide who does what are set state by state. Pick your state to see where its page sits, then use the answers section for the treatment itself.
Four steps, nothing booked until you say so, and no obligation at any of them.
Bites with nothing visible, marks on the sheets, and specks along a mattress seam are different findings that point in different directions.
Where you found it, how many rooms are involved, and whether this is a house you own, a rental, or a unit in a shared building.
Heat, steam and chemical work are different jobs with different preparation. Knowing which one is being quoted matters before you agree to the number.
A licensed local company, their own quote, their own schedule. We do not carry out treatment, so nothing here is a sales call.
Bites with no insect found, specks on a seam, and marks on the sheets are different findings. Which one you have changes what the treatment should be.
No countdown, no talk of the problem racing through your home while you read. It is a real problem and it is a solvable one.
We do not treat anything, so we have nothing to gain from steering you toward the bigger job. Licensed local companies do the work and quote it themselves.
If a figure is not in our research, it does not go on the page. That is why you will find questions here that other sites answer with a confident number.
We do not know, and we will not guess. Landlord and tenant responsibility for bed bug treatment is set state by state and sometimes at city level, and none of it has been through our research process yet, so none of it appears on these pages. Your state's housing or public health agency, or a local tenants' advice service, is the right first stop. What we can tell you is what a treatment involves and what it depends on, so you can read a quote properly whoever ends up paying for it.
No source in our research supports a state ranking. The largest resistance survey covered 394 populations across 38 states and reports its findings nationally, at population level, with no state breakdown. There is no federal or university prevalence figure for the United States or for any state. The "most infested cities" lists that circulate every year are compiled by pest control companies from their own job counts, which makes them marketing rather than measurement.
No. The lethal figures are properties of the insect, not of the climate: 113 °F sustained is the minimum wherever the room is, and the target is the coldest hidden spot inside that room rather than the outdoor temperature. The same holds for cold treatment — 0 °F for at least 3.5 to 4 days is the sourced figure for infested items, and a mild winter outdoors does not change it.
It changes the practical situation, and we can say why without saying what the rule is. CDC and EPA state that control in multi-family homes is much more difficult than in single-family homes, because bed bugs travel between units on people or through voids in the walls. CDC also identified inadequate notification of a pesticide application as one of the three leading contributing factors in acute illnesses linked to bed bug insecticides. Who has to notify whom in your building is a local question we do not answer.
They are navigational. They give each state a stable address so that per-state research has somewhere to land once it has been done to the same standard as everything else here — a named source and the date it was checked — and so that you can be routed to a licensed local company without a national page pretending to know your local rules.
Tell us what you found and where you found it, and we will put you in front of a licensed local company. No obligation either way.
