Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (drugs) a drug addict.

2000		J. Baker Chinese Girl (2001) 122: Half the bedbugs were on snot-balls and luck charmz.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 2: Bed bugs — Fellow addicts.

2. (orig. US black) an unpleasant and/or insignificant person [identification].

1928		M. Bodenheim Georgie May 72: Sparking with Emmy, and his woman near death, the bed-bug.
1936		W. Holtby South Riding (1988) 96: Who’s the little bed-bug?
1942		N. Algren Never Come Morning (1988) 46: This bedbug was getting too big for his shoes.
1968		K. Brasselle Cannibals 104: There’s certain guys that you just know are bedbugs.

3. (US black) a black Pullman porter [among their other duties the black porters turned back beds for their (mainly white) passengers].

1940		F. Cottrell ‘Railroad Terms’ AS XVIII:3 (1943) 162/1: Bedbug. Pullman porter.
1942		Z.N. Hurston ‘Story in Harlem Sl.’ in Novels and Stories (1995) 1006: Go ahead, Bedbug! Touch me! And I’ll holler like a pretty white woman!
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
1966		‘Railroads have “Slanguage”’ in Newark (OH) Advocate 21 May 3/3–4: bedbug — Pullman porter.