"Of course, lots of times. We have a laboratory set up with bedbugs and it happens now and again so it is not a big thing," says Dr Klaus Reinhardt of Sheffield University.

He's just written a paper which says that nine out of ten Britons wouldn't know a bedbug if it bit them.

His students put live bedbugs in glass vials and went around the country – well, South Yorkshire, Norfolk and Sussex – asking people if they knew what they were.

They didn't. Teenagers hadn't a clue but more older people did – probably because they had seen them in the war and post-war years.

"I thought 10 per cent was quite high. I thought the number of people who wouldn't know would be larger," he says.

Your mum probably told you as a kid: "Sleep tight and hope the bugs don't bite," but what happens if they do?

"People vary in their response. Some get a red swelling, others a walnut shaped lump and a few a bullious eruption, like a liquid filled bubble," he says.

And he adds: "I bet you're feeling a little itchy!" Too right, doc.

In most cases it doesn't last long but he's concerned that people won't know what they've found if they discover the flat, tea-brown, half-lentil sized bloodsucker strolling across their sheets.

"Some people might pick up and throw it out of the window. They're easy to catch and then you should call pest control because there's an infestation," he advises.

People have always associated bedbugs with dirt and insanitary conditions but Dr Reinhardt, aged 40, is convinced that is a bit of a myth.

"There is no scientific evidence that the bedbug infestation rate is correlated with hygiene standards.

"If you have some, don't worry. You can be in a five star hotel and get them."

One of the reasons for the study – the research findings have been published in the Journal of Medical Entomology – is that there are more bugs about but he's keen to keep things in proportion.

Bedbugs are nowhere near an epidemic.

In fact, "South Yorkshire has a low prevalence."

No one knows quite why there are more of them but the little blighters can travel by plane or train, may well be more resistant to insecticides and few people recognise them for what they are.

Alongside the study – over 350 people did the bedbug test – he's also doing one of hotel staff. All the results are not in but it seems they don't know either.

So far, he's not accidentally taken any bugs home with him.

"I quite like them. But I don't think my wife would be too pleased!"

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