Pest Control .co.uk

The number of bed bug infestations is increasing nationally, continuing the trend which has been going on for several years.  The reason for the increase is not clear, however there have been suggestions that it is due to an increased amount of foreign travel.  The theory goes that as people from abroad come here and sleep in our hotels they bring bed bugs with them and leave them at the hotels.  Then, we sleep in the same bed and take them home with us.  Or we sleep in foreign hotels and bring bed bugs back with us from there.  They should really be a declarable item.

Bed bug bites from staying in hotel

Unfortunately, however, it is hard to tell when you have a bed bug problem.  That is, until the morning and you feel all the bites.  The reason for this is not, as a lot of people seem to think, that bed bugs are too small to see with the naked eye.  Its true they are small but if you see one you can see it.  The problem is that they are very good hiders.  They will hide in any crack around the bed.  The headboard.  The skirting board.  Under the mattress.  Then they come out, usually just before dawn, in order to have their meal for the day.  The problem is that you are the only thing on the menu.

An actress staying in a hotel in Exeter recently suffered from a very bad case of bed bugs.  She awoke to itching and found over one hundred marks on her body.  Going along with the foreign travel theory, the hotel managers blamed other guests.  The hotel did do the right thing, though, and hired a pest control company to come and take care of the problem while moving the actress to another room.  You might be wondering who the actress is, but it is nobody famous.

Another very bad case has broken out at a residential home in Bournemouth.  One of the problems with bedbugs is that they can quite easily pass between walls, especially if they are not very thick, so in a residential home this can be a real problem.  The Council called in pest controllers to treat all sixty one rooms for bed bugs.  With an infestation that large it is a real job to get rid of them all.  Again, the person in charge blamed increase travel for the problem nationally.  He also mentioned the other main cause of an increase in bed bugs, and that is their increasing resistance to insecticides.  Every time a chemical solution is used to deal with an insect problem, a proportion may survive.  That proportion will continue to mate and produce more resistant insects so that, eventually, all insects will be resistant to insecticides.  That is a long way off and more insecticides can always be manufactured, but it is not a good race to be in.

If you do think you have a bed bug problem then you should call a pest controller to get it sorted out as soon as possible, and in the meantime wash your bed sheets and any clothes close to the bed regularly.  And especially if you are about to go and stay in a hotel.

Tags: bed bugs, foreign travel, infestation, pest controllers

Written by Paul Simmons

Paul has been working in the pest control field for 6 years and enjoys writing about contemporary events relating to pest problems and solutions in the UK