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In the last month, reports of bed bugs have multiplied and social media is full of photos and videos of these blood-sucking insects.
Now data has revealed the UK hotspots with the biggest infestations.
Using Google search data, researchers at Merlin Environmental determined which areas of the UK have the biggest bed bug problems compared to population size.
Of the UK’s 20 largest cities, four were considered to have a “very high infestation”, with London claiming top spot as Britain’s “Bed Bug Capital”.
However, the results show that it is not just the largest cities that have the highest levels of infestation.
Is your city on the list? This map reveals which of the UK’s 20 largest cities have the worst bed bug infestations for their population size.
Following in the footsteps of Paris, London appears to have been caught up in the bedbug boom, with images of the bloodsuckers on the subway and on buses.
Which areas of the UK have the worst bed bug infection rates?
Researchers examined search trends on Google for the 12 months leading up to January 2022 to find out how frequently the terms “bed bugs” or “bed bug treatment” were searched.
These figures were then divided by the number of people in the area to determine what percentage of the population the searches represented.
The analysis revealed that London had the most searches per capita with 266,400 searches, equivalent to 2.97 per cent of the population searching on Google for bed bugs.
Second place went to Leicester, just behind with 2.95 per cent of the population, a surprising result considering it is only the 13th most populous city.
Manchester came in third, with 2.8 per cent of the population feeling compelled to look for bed bugs.
Meanwhile, Wakefield residents will be relieved to discover that their town had the lowest rate of bed bug problems of any the researchers examined, with just the equivalent of 0.46 per cent of the population searching for bed bugs.
While an infestation of blood-sucking insects may seem too grim to be true, the situation in the UK is a growing public health problem.
How infected is your city?
Name of the city or town
Search rate per aapita
Greater london
2.97%
leicester
2.95%
Manchester
2.82%
Bristol board
2.67%
Birmingham
2.51%
glasgow
2.49%
Liverpool
2.42%
Newcastle upon Tyne
2.36%
Nottingham
2.14%
Edinburgh
2.06%
leeds
1.97%
SheffieldEdit
1.81%
Wolverhampton
1.78%
belfast
1.73%
coventry
1.57%
plymouth
1.46%
SunderlandEdit
1.12%
bradford
1.07%
Cardiff
0.61%
WakefieldEdit
0.49%
Are bed bugs really a problem in the UK?
This week, Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, said the possibility of bedbugs on the London Underground was “a real source of concern”.
Khan said he was in contact with officials in Paris after the French capital was overwhelmed by a massive infestation.
A viral video even appears to show a bedbug crawling up a passenger’s leg on London’s Victoria line, while bedbugs have also been spotted on Manchester bus services.
Dr Richard Naylor, etymologist at the Bed Bug Foundation, told MailOnline that the recent spread of bed bugs was due to several different factors.
‘Bed bugs were once much more common. “In the 1930s, almost every house in London had bedbugs,” Dr. Naylor explained.
However, after World War II efforts were made to improve living conditions and the numbers decreased.
Bed bugs continued to become increasingly rare until the late 1990s, when, around the world, their numbers began to increase rapidly.
Only the Covid-19 pandemic was able to briefly reduce the number of bed bugs, as travel restrictions limited their spread.
Due to repeated exposure to pesticides, the remaining bed bug populations have become extremely resistant to the chemicals used to treat infestations.
Dr Naylor told MailOnline: ‘There are multiple factors that contribute to the success of bed bugs. They thrive wherever human population density is high because this makes it easier for them to spread.
“In apartment buildings and sheltered housing complexes, they can easily walk through hallways and under doors, gradually infesting the entire building.”
The entire life cycle of bed bugs is highly dependent on temperature, meaning the warmer it is, the faster they spread.
‘They benefit from good central heating and a warm climate. “The warmer they are, the more they feed and the faster they reproduce,” Dr Naylor added.
“Warmer weather due to climate change could make the bed bug problem worse.”
And, as central heating and warmer weather have made life easier for bed bugs, bed bugs themselves have adapted to be harder to get rid of.
Bed bugs are perfectly suited to hiding in our homes, as they need the heat of central heating to reproduce and can hide in even the smallest cracks or crevices.
How to get rid of bed bugs
Bedbug infestations used to be treated with chemicals such as DDT, which has now been banned because it was found to have caused the deaths of many British birds of prey.
Pest control now uses chemicals called pyrethroids to treat infections; However, bed bugs have become highly resistant to these chemicals.
Dr Naylor said: “When an insecticide application is less than 100 per cent effective, the survivors will tend to be the most resistant individuals in the population.”
“If they flee and establish new infestations in the neighboring apartment or hotel room, the resulting population will be the offspring of the most resistant individuals.”