Paris has been battling a bloodthirsty bedbug infestation for months.
Roughly the size of a Tic Tac, bedbugs typically emerge at night and feed on unsuspecting people as they slumber. But in Paris, they've been reported in movie theaters and on the metro.
Bedbugs aren't just a problem for people in Paris. According to a 2023 paper published in the "Annual Review of Entomology," there's a "global resurgence" of bedbugs. Just the idea alone is enough to make anyone itch.
But with all the news of bedbugs, there's also been an increase in bedbug anxiety.
"I've never seen a panic like this," Thibault Buckley, who works at the French bedbug canine detection agency ATN, told the New York Times. According to Buckley, up to two-thirds of calls placed to ATN have ended up being a false alarm.
While strange marks on your body, spotting an insect in your bed, or feeling extra itchy in the morning could, understandably, make you think you have bedbugs — these signs might not be bedbugs after all.
Here are ten signs that your problem isn't actually bedbugs, and what it could be instead.