Florida Pest Answers
"I keep waking up with itchy bites, and I have no idea what's causing them—help!"
The location and pattern of the bites are your best clues—and they differ quite a bit between these three.
Bed bug bites tend to show up on exposed skin while you sleep: arms, neck, shoulders, and face. They often appear in tight lines or clusters of three or more, remain inflamed for several days, and can take up to 72 hours to appear after the bite. That delay is part of why they’re easy to misread.
Flea bites are very different. They concentrate almost exclusively around your ankles and lower legs, because fleas live at floor level in carpet and pet bedding. If your bites are down low and your pets have been scratching, fleas are the likely culprit.
Mite bites tend to appear where clothing fits tightly—around waistbands, sock lines, and cuffs—and produce an intense, localized itch. Chigger bites follow the same pattern.
In Florida, all three are genuinely common, so don’t brush off persistent bites. If you’re waking up with marks every few days and can’t find an obvious outdoor explanation, it’s worth having a professional take a look. Finding shed skins, dark spots, or rust-colored stains in your mattress seams is a strong sign that bed bugs are the cause.
