Yes, There Are More Bed Bugs. But Most Were Probably Here Already

Bed bugs are taking over our lives. Even if we haven’t seen any ourselves, we’ve seen the viral videos, we’ve seen the headlines, and we’re undoubtedly stricken with fear that they’re coming for us. But before we all fork out for the doomsday bunker and barricade ourselves in, we thought we’d check how credible this French bed bug migration to Britain really is. Could this all turn out to be a classic case of doom-mongering? We thought we’d speak to the brave folks fighting on the ground: the pest controllers who get the call and actually do the exterminating.

Nick Sims, a 34-year-old area manager at London-based Empire Pest Control, says he’s seen an uptick of roughly 50 percent in calls for bed bugs in homes over the last couple of months.

“Over the last few years, we used to get maybe three or four a week. It’s now gone up to about ten to fifteen a week, since 2022,” Sims says.

Part of the reason, though, is down to newfound awareness following the startling news stories, he adds. Apparently, this leads people to actively seek out evidence of bed bugs or assume bite marks they’ve got are from them and not mites or other things. 

“There’s definitely been an increase in bed bugs, though,” Sims continues. “We've had quite a few calls from people that’ve travelled to France, come back, and have managed to come into contact with them.”

But it’s not so clear cut as bed bugs hitching lifts from France to the UK. All the pest controllers VICE have spoken to say they’ve actually been on the increase for years, rising sharply since the pandemic.

“Bed bugs in the UK have been on a steady rise. In the last 50 years, there’s been a climb in bed bugs, and in the last two to three years, there’s been an even larger climb,” says Richard Barrie, a 62-year-old Glaswegian pest controller specialist for UK-wide company Bed Bug Experts.

“Since the story broke last week, I’ve had about 30 phone calls from people who’ve come back from France terrified of bed bugs. But in reality, you can book into a hotel in the UK and get them.”

So have there been more infestations, and therefore exterminations, of the little nocturnal guys since all the media panic started? It’s a hard no from Barrie. “Nothing. Nothing at all,” he says on the French bed bug explosion leading to more infestations over here. Barrie does concede that his men are constantly busy doing jobs across the country, though, making it difficult to notice a discernible change.

Gareth Purnell is MD at British Bug Control, a Peterborough-based pest control company that covers England and Wales. The 57-year-old says his company saw a 25 percent increase in fumigations and heat treatments this summer. 

“Bed bug treatments fell off a cliff” during lockdown, he says, given the main way to catch them is by travelling (whether in the UK or abroad) and acquiring secondhand furniture. Obviously, that all stopped in 2020, as nothing was happening – unless you were partying at Number 10, of course.

As normal life returned, though, so did the insects – and then some. “We’re having an extremely busy summer with bed bug treatments, partially as a result of people travelling and moving about again, and car boot sales – stuff like that,” Purnell says.

If the infestation has been less than three months, Purnell’s company advises opting for the insecticide treatment – where the residue is put in places where the bed bugs might live or travel over to get to their food (humans). If they’ve been there longer or are a particularly “heavy” bunch, he recommends going down the heat treatment route – using equipment to superheat the air within a property at 55-60 degrees. Every pest controller VICE spoke to has noted an increase in customers going straight to heat treatment.

But this doesn’t necessarily mean infestations are heavier across the board, just that people are increasingly more inclined to go for the more effective, relatively new option – if they have the means.

“Bed bugs have been here forever, really. It's not like the bed bugs have come to the UK from France,” Purnell says. The foreign bed bugs might present a problem if they’re a “different strain”, though.

“There are multiple different strains of bed bugs out there from all over the world, and some are more resistant to the best products we have than others,” he says. “You don't know whether the best treatments are going to work until you try with bed bugs, it can be a bit hit and miss.”

For Barrie, the proliferation of bed bugs since the 80s – with the accessibility of cheaper air travel – is clear.

“I worked for Rentokil previously, and in my first 20 years, I probably only done one bed bug job,” he says. “The trouble is bed bugs are hitchhikers because they climb into your suitcase and climb into your pockets.”

That’s that, then. Still, it’s a good time to be working in bed bug control. To exterminators, these really are the glory days.

“It's absolutely brilliant for us,” says Barrie. “I really can’t complain.”

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