14 DAY TRIAL // Many people don't acknowledge the fact that the perfect Christmas tree may not be that perfect at all, and that besides the pretty festive decorations, it can host as many as 25,000 different kinds of crawling and creepy bugs just waiting to awake.
Scientists revealed that the trees could bring lice, moths, mites, spiders, wasps, spring-tails and many more pests into people's houses.
The insects lay dormant in the tree during the winter, reawaking in the spring, but once their reach the inside heat they awake from their hibernation and spread indoors, notes Daily Mail.
“Research on Christmas trees has found as many as 25,000 individual creepy crawlies live in some of the trees. They hibernate for the winter and usually empty their bodies of fluids, produce a chilled liquid and become completely inactive,” Bjarte Jordal, professor at Norway's University Museum of Bergen told Daily Mail.
The heat from the living spaces where people set their Christmas trees is mistaken for spring and sends them a stimulus that brings them back to life. These insects can prove to be incredibly dangerous to people who suffer from allergies, some may assume the allergic reaction is caused by the tree itself, but it can more likely be caused by one of the pests brought in the house with the evergreen.
To prove their theory, researchers recommend pounding the tree on a white cloth after a few days of staying indoors, as it will reveal a varied collection of bugs. The trees brought from woods will hold even more pests than the ones from tree farms, where they are usually sprayed with different chemicals that can kill the insects.
But the tree is not the only way to bring pests into homes, most plants that come in pots hold their own collection of crawling creatures that can spread indoors. In order to avoid gathering an insect collection in homes, it is best if the plants are properly inspected and bought from farms instead of the wild.