Adult bed bugs are usually a reddish-brown color and are fairly easy to see especially on most white mattresses and box springs. They may also be hiding in cracks and crevices of your bed frame and headboard, and are known to hide under loose carpet, on furniture cushions, or behind baseboards and electrical outlet covers.

Adult bed bugs don't crawl very fast. They are about the size and color of an apple seed and are usually very thin unless they have recently fed.

It is easy to misidentify a carpet beetle for a bed bug. Carpet beetles feed on materials such as dead insects, hair, furniture, clothing, or (surprise) carpet. They won't bite humans but hairs from their larva can cause an allergic reaction that looks similar to a bed bug bite. Carpet beetles often have alternating white and yellowish-brown scales forming stripes on their backs and are about half the size of a normal bed bug.