Daily Archives: August 3, 2017

World, Bed Bug Registry Map Friday 27th of September 2024 14:18 PM
Max. Incidents:	Hotel Residence Location
Zoom In on the above map using the map controls for more detail, and select an incident by clicking on it for address details.
Use the field below to search for incident reports around an address - it will also auto suggest up to 10 incident addresses as you type.
Latest Bed Bug Incidents and Infestations Incident Radius: 30000 Miles Edgewater Apartments 8525 106a Ave, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T5H0K1 (2024-07-24) New Cambridge Lofts 10024 Jasper Ave NW, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T5J 1R9 (2024-06-21) #12 14504 108th Ave Nw, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T5N1G8 (2024-04-22) Fern Lodge 460 E Fern Ave, San Bernardino, Redlands, California, United States, 92373 (2023-11-20) 143 Eighth Street, Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada, MV83C9 (2023-11-20) Underwood Senior Living 4850 Underwood Ave, Douglas, omaha, Nebraska, United States, 68132 (2023-11-02) 550 Westwood Drive South West, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, t3c3t9 (2023-10-29) 125 550 westwood drive southwest, calgary, Alberta, Canada, t3c3t9 (2023-10-29) BOB 550 WESTWOOD, WESTWOOD, CALGARY, Alberta, Canada, T3C3T9 (2023-10-29) 15 Three Mil eLane, Salmon, Montana, United States, 83467 (2023-09-25) We cannot vouch for the truthfulness of any report on this site. If you feel a location has been reported in error, or want to dispute a report, please contact us.

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St. John’s is Canada’s 5th most bedbug infested city, says extermination company – CBC.ca

Posted on August 3, 2017 by admin Click Here For Article

St. John's has made it to the top of another list, but this time it's not for the colourful houses or oceanfront location.

The most easterly city in Canada is also housing a host of unwanted guests bedbugs.

Pest control company Orkin Canada released data gathered from the number of treatments it performed at both residential and commercial properties throughout the country from July 1, 2016, to June 30, 2017.

Toronto topped its list of bedbug ridden cities, followed by Winnipeg, Vancouver, Ottawa, St. John's, Edmonton, Halifax, Sudbury, Scarborough and Calgary.

Bedbugs rely on humans for more than just lunch.

Orkin released its list of the 25 most bed bug-ridden cities in Canada. (Orkin Canada)

"They're great little hitchhikers, and unfortunately we're a great mode of transport," said Ken Penney, service manager for Orkin in St. John's.

"From our luggage, purses, bags, wallets, cell phone casesthese are all the ways we have confirmed bed bugs navigating from one place to the other."

Penney points to the oil boom and a reliance on the tourism industry for St. John'shigh ranking among much bigger cities on the list.

"In recent years we've become an oil-based society and we rely heavily on tourism, hence we inherit the trends that come with those industries," Penney told CBC Radio's St. John's Morning Show.

"Increased tourists means increased hotel capacities, [workers] travelling between job sites, shared quarters, carpooling and disposable income, which also means vacationing, so all of these things are part of the bed bug equation.

"So it has increased, but that's the cost of our lifestyle."

The parasitic insects tend to live and hide in the areas where we sleep, but they aren't limited to hotels and apartment buildings, Penney said. They've been found in buses, taxis, theatres, food courts and offices.

Some people get red, itchy spots when bitten by bedbugs, some show no signs at all, Penney said, so it isn't always obvious there is a problem.

Penney has seen infestations so severe they had to tear out the walls and flooring in a home and throw out all the furniture.

"And the occupants are just there stood up saying, 'I had no signs, I didn't know that this happened,' and we're finding hundreds of bugs in behind almost every obstacle."

This fed, adult bed bug is no bigger than an apple seed. (Sudbury & District Health Unit/www.bedbugsinfo.ca)

Bedbugs can thrive in a spotlessly clean room, and one female bedbug can lay one to five eggs per day, so vigilance is key.

Penney's best advice is to thoroughly inspect the area around your bed, including linens, creases in mattresses and furniture, the box spring, headboard and framed pictures.

Look for insects adults are reddish-brown and about the size of an apple seed eggs, blood stains and fecal matter.

"St. John's is a small city, but it's also one of North America's oldest cities, hence we shouldn't believe we should be impervious to one of North America's oldest pests."

Originally posted here:
St. John's is Canada's 5th most bedbug infested city, says extermination company - CBC.ca

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Halifax 7th on list of top bedbug cities – TheChronicleHerald.ca

Posted on August 3, 2017 by Pest Controller Click Here For Article

Halifax has made an unpopular top 10 list, ranking seventh on Orkin Canadas top Canadian bedbug cities.

The top 10 cities are:

1. Toronto

2. Winnipeg

3. Vancouver

4. Ottawa

5. St. Johns

6. Edmonton

7. Halifax

8. Sudbury

9. Scarborough

10. Calgary

Summer travellers seeking to avoid the tiny, biting, hitchhiking critters might do well to take precautions in public places, said Orkin Canada Halifax branch manager John Zinck.

A tip for travel is not to unpack clothes at the hotel and avoid using hotel clothing storage such as dressers. Put your suitcase in the bathtub or on the coffee table, Zinck said.

When you return from travels, leave your suitcase in the garage and launder all your clothes.

Bedbugs arent just for those bitten by the travel bug. Urban areas are often hardest hit but the company does get reports from towns around Nova Scotia also.

On the average day in Halifax, there could be 75 treatments by various pest control companies, Zinck said. Most bedbug treatments are going on in multi-story apartments or condo buildings.

Dwellings and structures frequented by students and seniors may be more likely to be afflicted with bedbugs. Social habits of visiting friends can lead to inadvertently importing the common bedbugs that arent picky about where they land next, he said.

If the population gets big, theyll go to your apartment if theres an adjoining wall, he said.

The problem with bed bugs is they dont have a preference.

Despite their name the bugs can go where people go: offices, cinemas, transit, even medical clinics. They can easily hitch rides on clothing, books and in bags.

Oval-shaped insects measuring 6-10mm, they swell after sucking blood. One pregnant female can spawn tens of thousands of offspring in six months.

One of biggest things that leads to a problem is people picking up furniture, especially upholstered furniture, off the side of the road.

Clutter is the friend of bedbugs, giving the creatures ample places to avoid detection.

Elderly residents may be particularly vulnerable, with bedbugs spreading quickly from apartment to apartment, to laundry room to taxi and even the ambulance.

He recalled a few Halifax buildings where multiple apartments had bedbug issues.

One couple didnt realize their home was infested despite blood-like stains on the walls left by bedbugs. In another incident, a lady came to the door and said she didnt have a problem.

They were literally crawling down her face. We got in the apartment and there were tens of thousands in there, he said.

Bedbugs are a nuiscance for taxpayers also. A year ago, the province pumped $1.6 million into pest eradication in Metro Halifax.

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Halifax 7th on list of top bedbug cities - TheChronicleHerald.ca

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Bedbugs and Mars: Graphics Winners of the 2017 NC State Research Image Contest – NC State News

Posted on August 3, 2017 by admin Click Here For Article

This image of a taxonomic network of bacterial diversity on bedbugs comes from Michael Fisher, who won first place for graduate students and postdocs in the graphics category. Click to see a larger version on Flickr.

First place for graphics and illustration among faculty and staff goes to a Mars map from Paul Byrne, an assistant professor in the Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences who specializes in planetary geology.

The planet Mars has fascinated humanity for thousands of years, Byrne says. Recent spacecraft missions have returned an unprecedented view of the Red Planet, equipping us with new information with which to understand Mars geological history. Here, topographic data for the entire planet show the vast, low-lying plains to the north, enormous impact basins in the southern hemisphere and, to the west, the largest volcanoes in the solar system the tallest of which, Olympus Mons, towers 21 km above its surroundings!

Mars is very like our own world in some respects, yet vastly different in others, Byrne adds. Exploring the Red Planet in three dimensions that is, with both photographic images and topography we can start to investigate questions impossible to tackle with images alone. As a result, data sets like this one (global topography from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter instrument, flown on NASAs Mars Global Surveyor) enable us to understand when and where volcanic activity was prevalent on Mars, for example, which in turn tells us when the planet was geologically active, and possibly why its no longer active today.

The first place winner for graduate students and postdocs is Michael Fisher (for the image at the top of this post), a Ph.D. student in the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, whose image shows an Operational Taxonomic Unit (OTU) network that illustrates the diversity of bacteria among bed bug populations around North Carolina. Each colored dot in the center represents a different sample location around the state. The sand-colored dots on the periphery correspond to an individual OTU of bacteria connected by the blue lines, shedding light on the relationships. The bed bug gut microbiome remains poorly understood, including bacterial species abundance, diversity, and dynamics. This project examined the gut microbiome of the common bed bug Cimex lectularius from 15 populations around North Carolina.

Bed bugs have not been largely implicated in the epidemiology of disease transmission, but they can acquire a myriad of pathogens from their hosts, and may be important vectors of bacterial pathogens, Fisher says. Additionally, several species of insecticide-degrading bacteria were discovered, which may suggest a newly-discovered mechanism of insecticide resistance in bed bugs yet to be investigated.

The second-place submission among faculty was Rich Spontak, Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. His image, which he calls Plates on Lava, is an unedited confocal laser scanning microscope gif of a polymer film composed of a special type of Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxane (POSS) solvent-casted with PEO (Polyethylene oxide).

Note the segregated plaque-like phase domains (purple-blue colored), formed by POSS crystals, Spontak says. This is the first observation of plaque-like phase domains produced in a polymer film by non-covalently bonded POSS. We are beginning to understand the driving force(s) behind these plaque-shaped domains. Besides the thermodynamic relation between POSS and polymer, the main influence comes from the solvent. The solvent molecules help POSS molecules to interlock themselves like LEGO pieces. Thus we observe the POSS plaque formations on the polymer, which seem like continental plates floating on lava.

Spontak notes that the related research is important because POSS is a unique 3D hybrid molecule that fuses in organic as well as inorganic chemistry. Since it improves thermal and mechanical properties of polymeric materials, it is applicable in a wide range of industries from electronic to biomedical applications. In particular, this study shows how plaque-like POSS domains can be formed on polymer films as a protection shield without making any chemical reaction between POSS and polymer molecules. This approach is an easy way to protect polymeric materials against oxidation, X-rays, UV-light and thermal radiation.

The second place submission among students was from Dheepak Nandkishore Khatri, a masters student in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, for a sound localization image.

This picture shows the universal response of an array of microphones designed and signal-processed to receive sound only from desired locations, Khatri says. The red and black zones are zones of destructive interference, i.e., no sound is recorded from these zones, thus receiving sound only from the white pillars you see in the image.

Localization of sound is beneficial in many engineering applications, where sound from only certain locations is desired, Khatri says. Localization can be achieved using an array of microphones, making it a simple and cost-effective solution.

Note: You can find the work from winners in all of the research image contest categories here.

See the original post here:
Bedbugs and Mars: Graphics Winners of the 2017 NC State Research Image Contest - NC State News

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Toronto has biggest bedbug infestation in Canada – Canoe

Posted on August 3, 2017 by admin Click Here For Article

Nelson Branco, 24 Hrs-Toronto Aug 1, 2017

, Last Updated: 9:29 PM ET

TORONTO - Toronto is tops again but this is one creepy list wed prefer not to be on.

Orkin Canada claims The Six has the largest bedbug infestation problem in Canada.

The problem seems so bad that Toronto was mentioned twice: Scarborough also made the top 10 at No. 9.

The pest and termite control company released the data because summer travel is in high gear, which means bedbugs might be doing a lot of free travelling this season.

Tracy Leach, a Toronto Public Health manager, assured the Toronto Sun that the bedbug problem hasnt gotten worse than when it exploded in North America roughly 10 years ago.

I cant speak to the overall number of bedbugs in the entire city because theyre not reportable. But what I can say is were on track to receive the same number of complaints this year as we did in 2016, Leach said.

She added no one is immune from the seemingly indestructible parasite that can invade any no matter what neighbourhood or community you live in.

(These nocturnal crawlers) do not discriminate, Leach stressed. Bedbugs are not a reflection of sanitary conditions. (Unknowingly,) people move bed bugs from one place to another location in the city thats how they survive. Of course, an area with a high concentration of people increases the bedbug risk.

So what about the TTC? Can bedbugs survive on the subway? Or is that an urban myth despite a handful of recent eyewitness reports?

TTC spokesperson Brad Ross has maintained that transit vehicles are an inhospitable environment for bedbugs and wont survive long on their own.

However, Leach put the issue to, er, bed, saying: Its possible to see a bedbug anywhere. Again, if someone has an extreme infestation at home, gets on the subway, certainly, they could drop one there. Theyve been found in many public places. But were not aware of any sightings on transit because the TTC isnt a residence.

But dont fret if a bedbug happens to jump on you on the transit system, you wont be dinner right away.

They dont latch on and stay on a person, Leach explained. They harbour in a space usually in a sleeping area because they feed on a (dozing) person for a blood meal. If a person acquires a bedbug in a public place, the bedbug will hitchhike to find a new person to feed on at night.

If we can put a man on the moon, surely well be able to eliminate bedbugs forever, right?

Bedbugs were never extinct before their recent comeback. They were under control because of the pesticides that existed at the time, but the chemical was banned because they were extremely harmful to human health, she said. Insects are very adaptable so I cant comment. Control is our goal not elimination at this time.

Top 10 cities:

Toronto

Winnipeg

Vancouver

Ottawa

St. Johns

Edmonton

Halifax

Sudbury

Scarborough

Calgary

Read the rest here:
Toronto has biggest bedbug infestation in Canada - Canoe

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Bedbugs gone wild! – St. Thomas Times-Journal

Posted on August 3, 2017 by vancouver Click Here For Article

TORONTO-

Toronto is tops again but this is one creepy list wed prefer not to be on.