Category Archives: Canada Bed Bugs

Summer is the perfect time for travel, but be careful about bringing home unwanted guests to the house, especially those that can crawl into the bedroom.

Bed bugs are extremely efficient hitch hikers. They can move easily across a room and climb onto luggage or anything left on a bed in just one night, Orkin Canada wrote in a release, warning travellers to be vigilant about the accommodation they stay in.

The pest control company has recently released its list of top 25 bed bugs-infested cities in Canada. The data was compiled from the number of residential and commercial bed bug treatments they performed annually until June 30 this year.

The itchy list puts Sault Ste. Marie at number 23, while neighbouring city Sudbury lands at eight.

The top five:

1. Toronto

2. Winnipeg

3. Vancouver

4. Ottawa

5. St. Johns.

In response to the Orkin list, Algoma Public Health says they dont track the number of bedbug infestations in the city, though they do encourage anybody who has issues with the bugs to contact APH.

We can provide them with advice. Well talk, assess the situation, and see what we can do, said Nicole Lindahl, a public health inspector with Algoma Public Health.

Regardless how the creepy bugs made their way in, the best way to remove them is to contact professionals.

We always encourage to contact a licensed pest control company for bed bugs treatment because theyre always going to provide you with the best service and treatment, she said.

Bed bugs, which are about the size of a sesame seed or an apple seed, generally feed off humans at night and hide during the day. They lay eggs in secluded dark areas and prefer fabric or wood hiding spots.

As unnerving as that sounds, in most cases they are merely a nuisance.

Theyre pesky, hard to get rid of, said Lindahl, adding that the small, wingless insects are not considered as a health hazard because they dont spread any infectious diseases.

However, the bites can potentially cause secondary infections from scratching or an allergic reaction and dealing with the issues can lead to stress and anxiety.

Its best then to seek the advice of a healthcare professionals, Lindahl told The Sault Star.

For tenants dealing with bedbugs, she suggests informing the landlord as soon as possible. If the complaints are not dealt with properly, the best course is to contact the Landlord and Tenant Board.

The board will provide them with advice regarding landlords roles and responsibility. Thats not our area of expertise, she said.

The APH website has resources on bed bugs, including some dos and donts, which include tips like de-cluttering the house. This allows people to reduce hiding places of the critters and make cleaning easier. Once cleaned, it's recommended to empty the vacuum outside in the garbage can or put the bag in a sealed container in the freezer.

The site doesnt suggest using bug spray, as most bed bugs are resistant to such treatment. It would also leave trails of toxic chemicals in the house and merely move the bed bugs to other areas and furniture.

For more information, visit http://www.algomapublichealth.com/inspections-environment/environmental-health/bed-bugs/.

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APH responds to Orkin's bed bug cities list - Sault Star

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."

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

Sudburians may be the happiest in Canada, as one survey found, but it looks like we are also among the itchiest.

A recent report from Orkin, a national pest-control company, ranks Sudbury eighth in the country for bedbug infestations.

That's behind Toronto -- the bedbug capital -- and a few other major centres, but well ahead of Sault Ste. Marie (No. 23) and other northern communities.

The rankings were based on the number of calls Orkin received in each centre over the course of a year (from July 1 of last year to June 30 of this year) for residential and commercial bedbug treatments.

The local Orkin outlet services a broad area of the North, but the city's placement in the Top 10 was based on calls specific to Greater Sudbury, which has experienced a bigger outbreak of the biters in recent years.

"A lot of it has to do with travellers," says Andre Briere, manager of the Orkin branch in Sudbury. "People travel a lot more, and if you look at the list, it's usually Toronto, Vancouver, wherever there's international airports, that are in first, second, third. That's where it stems from."

Briere says the bloodsucking bugs aren't indigenous and weren't a major issue a decade ago in Sudbury, but they've become more prominent as more people trot the globe -- or simply trot down the highway to Canada's bedbug capital.

"Seven or eight years ago Toronto was doing a lot of bedbug work, and we were just barely getting into it," he says. "It's nothing for people now in Sudbury to go down and grab a Jays game and come back. The hotel they're staying in may have some, and next thing you know they're bringing them back home."

The bugs like to "hitch rides in luggage and clothes," he says, and will pop out -- mostly unseen -- when people unpack.

Adult bedbugs are visible to the naked eye, Briere notes, but they tend to hide along the seams of beds and in other crevices, and may go undetected for weeks. The eggs of the insects, meanwhile, are "the size and colour of a grain of salt," he says.

Once established, the unwelcome guests are hard to evict, or eradicate.

"The reason it's causing such a problem is we don't have a magic wand where we can walk into a room and spray a chemical and they're dead," says Briere.

Rather, it's a three-step process to de-bug a household, or hotel room.

Orkin staff will go in first to blast an infested area with steam, he says, as only heat will kill the eggs. Then they apply a chemical treatment to kill the adult bugs. Finally they come back for another round of spraying to catch any nymphs that may have hatched from overlooked eggs.

"It's not walk in and walk out," says the pest control expert.

High-rise apartment buildings and big hotels are particularly susceptible to bedbug issues, he says, given the population density and the comings and goings of people toting clothes and furniture.

Briere advises against picking up a couch or mattress from a yard sale, and says travellers should leave their luggage in a garage or other outbuilding for a week or so after returning home. You should also put your clothing in the dryer and run it at the highest temperature for at least 15 minutes.

If you're checking into a room, meanwhile, "put your luggage in the bathtub," Briere suggests, or on an elevated rack, until you have a chance to inspect the premises for evidence of bedbugs, such as blood stains, droppings, dead bugs and eggs.

Unlike with some other pests, like cockroaches or ants, cleanliness isn't a big factor in whether or not a building will wind up with bedbugs.

"It has nothing to do with sanitation," says Briere. "You could have a five-star hotel where somebody has brought them in, while a one-star hotel won't have any."

People tend to flinch at the mere thought of bedbugs, probably because they inhabit beds, not to mention feed on blood. But they are not known to transmit disease, Briere says, and can't hop or fly about, like fleas, so in some ways are cleaner and more containable than other pests.

Still, they are definitely an unpleasant thing to have around, and can cause extreme itchiness, allergic reactions and insomnia.

Briere says the critters tend to peak in summer, or after Christmas, when people do the most travelling.

In a release accompanying its list of bedbug cities, Orkin Canada says it "expects this to be a bumper year for bedbugs."

Anyone detecting signs of bedbugs is advised to seek expert advice to prevent widespread infestation.

For more information about bedbug prevention and ways to counter an outbreak, visit orkincanada.ca.

You can also learn more about bedbugs and how to report them by visiting the Sudbury and District Health Unit's page on the insects at http://www.sdhu.com/health-topics-programs/housing/bedbugs.

jmoodie@postmedia.com

Top 10 Bedbug Cities

1. Toronto

2. Winnipeg

3. Vancouver

4. Ottawa

5. St. John's

6. Edmonton

7. Halifax

8. Sudbury

9. Scarborough

10. Calgary

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Sudbury on Top 10 list for bedbugs - The Sudbury Star

Complaints of bed bugs, stoves that turn on by themselves, break-ins and a landlord that tenants say ignores their cries for help led to a protest that saw dozens of residents demanding to speak with property management on Saturday afternoon.

Chanting, placard-waving tenants are accusing mega-manager,RealstarGroup, of failing to maintain the safety and livability of theirScarboroughbuilding complex in the Oakridge area.

They claim the company has createdan atmosphere of aggression in the process.

Mohammed Rokonuzzaman, a tenant representative of the building and member of advocacy group ACORN, has a list of grievances he says aren't being addressed. (Keith Burgess/CBC)

Residents say management has tried to charge them an air-conditioning fee, has notbothered to keep up with maintenance requestsand has failed to adequately address vehicle break-ins.

Realstar, whichmanages $6 billion in assets and operates hotel chains and residences in Canada and the United Kingdom,denies the charges.

"The problem is getting severe," said Mohammed Rokonuzzaman, resident of the building and a member of theAssociation of Community Organizations for Reform Now, otherwise known as ACORN.

One tenant said he felt Realstar had created an atmosphere of 'systemic fear' in the building complex. (Keith Burgess/CBC)

ACORN, which bills itself as "an independent national organization of low- and moderate-income families,"helpedRokonuzzamanand other tenants organize Saturday's protest.

Amongst the thefts and pest problems, tenants say they have been called "rude"and"racist"by property managers, Rokonuzzaman alleges.

It's an attitude he sayscreates "systemic fear" for those living at 30 Denton Avenue.

Rokonuzzaman pointed totenants who he says have been sleeping on couches to avoid bedbugs, calling the conditions "miserable."

Other tenants at the protest agreed, chanting slogans with ACORN organizers.

Some, likeMohammad Ud-doula, think the management's treatment of tenants stands in the way of a friendly community.

One tenant had belongings wrapped in plastic bags in an effort to fend off bed bugs. (Keith Burgess/CBC)

"The main problem is their attitude towards us as tenants," said Ud-doula, who has lived in the building for nine years.

"More communication, more listening, and a better attitude" is needed from management, he added.

Ud-doula says residents asked management to place security cameras in the hallways on each floor to fight vandalism and theft, but says management refused, citing privacy issues.

Realstarsenior vice president Mark Hales told CBC Toronto on Saturday the company has done all they can to prevent break-ins, including the installation of 30 security cameras and new lights, hiring night security patrol and adding an electronic access system to the main entrance.

But of break-ins, Hales said, "unfortunately they can happen anywhere and we take them seriously."

A few dozen tenants gathered outside their apartment complex Saturday in a protest organized by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. (Keith Burgess/CBC)

Hales added he isn't currently aware of any outstanding maintenance problemsat the property.

'We have investigated and aren't aware of any issues of significance," he said.

ACORN organizers pointed to new apartment bylaws in the city, whichcame into effect July 1, as impetus for Realstar to take protesters' concerns seriously.

The bylaws, collectively called "RentSafeTO,"imposestandards for rental maintenance on managers that would compel them to carry out regular pest inspectionsand respond to service requests within a set timeframe.

Halessays Realstarstands by their staff at 30 Denton Avenue, but said lines of communication with tenants would be kept open.

"The residents are entitled to voice their concerns and we respect that," he said.

Tenants with complaints, Hales added, are"welcome to approach management office to discuss that."

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From bedbugs to break-ins, Scarborough tenants demand change - CBC.ca

A Vernon, B.C. couple is warning others about their experience after uncovering "dozens and dozens" of bed bugs in their North Vancouver motel room.

Kerrie and Callum Stewart came to the city last week, part of a special trip with their daughter who was in B.C. on a break from studying in Australia.

They'd been driving through the day, and arrived at the Comfort Inn and Suites, on Capilano Road near Marine Drive, at around 8 or 9 p.m.

Callum was tired from the drive, so he turned out the lights and went straight to bed. Karrie went to pick up her daughter, who'd been visiting with a friend, and the pair went to bed when they returned.

Kerrie said her daughter has had experiences with bed bugs before, and normally checks hotel rooms for the pests first before going to bed, but because her father was sleeping, they did not examine the room.

"When we woke up in the morning, I noticed that there were blood streaks on the bed where I slept, and I thought, that's weird," she recalled to CTV Vancouver's David Molko this week.

Her daughter woke up and felt itchy, but thought the bites on her arm may have been from mosquitoes, as she'd been outside the night before.

"But then she realized this could be bed bugs, because she's had them before, and they just send you into a panic," Kerrie said.

Within minutes, bite marks started to show up on her neck, Kerrie said. When they noticed a bug crawling up the wall of the bathroom, Callum went to find the manager.

Kerrie stayed in the room, examining the beds and the corners of the mattresses.

"There was a lot of the black dot excrements and big bed bugs and eggs and it was horrifying," she said.

Having been through the situation before, Kerrie knew to put their baggage in garbage bags to contain the bugs. The family knew they shouldn't have put their baggage on the floor experts recommend putting luggage in the bathtub or leaving it in the hallway until the room has been inspected for bugs but they were tired the night before and weren't thinking of it.

The Stewarts said a shift supervisor met them and gave them a new room number, and told them they would not have to pay for their first night at the motel.

When they returned to the room to get their things, members of the motel's staff had just moved one of the mattresses, Kerrie said.

"There were just dozens of bed bugs running around on the top of the bed base that I saw with my own two eyes the three of us saw and they scurried away by the time I got my (camera) out so they must have just removed the mattress," Kerrie said.

"So there were dozens and dozens of bed bugs that you could see, and you never usually see a bed bug."

The family moved their bagged possessions into another room, then went to find the manager.

While they were initially told the manager wasn't in, the couple said they saw a man who later introduced himself as the manager in the building's lobby that morning. Not wanting the incident to ruin their vacation, they went into Vancouver for a while, then came back and met with the man. Kerrie said she was upset from the moment of their introduction, and felt like the manager had been dodging them earlier in the day.

Once inside his office, the couple asked for $1,000 in compensation for the items they'd have to replace, or that would be damaged by the high heat treatment that kills the bugs.

"If it's crawling up the bathroom wall, it's in our stuff. They're in our stuff. There were just too many of them," Kerrie said.

She said the manager said something to the effect that the bugs were a brand new problem, though she felt like there was no way that housekeeping hadn't noticed them because of the amount. There were so many, she said, that she thinks the infestation had been an issue in the room for a while.

"So I slammed the desk and said, 'That is not true.' And instantly he became enraged, and yelled at me, and yelled at my husband and said he wasn't going to deal with this and that there was a camera in the room and that we could do whatever we wanted and he wasn't going to deal with us anymore, and he stormed out of the room," Kerrie said.

The manager came back in the room and told her he wouldn't speak to her, but addressed her husband, she said.

Callum explained why they were asking for the money, and Kerrie said the manager told them, "'Then you can throw all of your things that are in the garbage bags right now, without opening them, without looking in them, without sorting them You put them in the garbage bin right now and I'll give you a thousand dollars."

The manager's account of the interaction was outlined in an email sent to Kerrie on Sunday and later obtained by CTV News.

The email, which appears to be sent from the general manager, said that the shift manager had upgraded their suite, and offered to have their clothing dry cleaned, but they refused.

"Your husband justified demand of $1000 because all your cloth's were from either Loui Vutton or branded outfits of Resorts (sic)," the email said.

The email goes on to say that the couple was not willing to give up their bags, but still wanted the money something the couple does not deny, but says that it was because they needed to sort through their things first. They said they had cameras, passports and other items in the bags that they did not plan to throw out, and they couldn't throw out their daughter's things without her permission.

The email continued: "I do not want to make any comments otherwise you will have another issue on my attitude. I only wish to say that 'Treat others as you want yourself to be treated.' Whatever we could do in that situation, we have done unable to do any more."

The Stewarts said that the manager "stormed away" again at the end of their conversation in his office, and they decided the compensation was not going to happen. So they left the motel, then contacted health officials and filed a complaint with Choice Hotels.

She also posted about the ordeal on Facebook, a move that she said was meant to warn others. As of Thursday afternoon, her post had been shared nearly 16,000 times.

Kerrie said the bugs ruined their daughter's trip, and Callum had to get antibiotics when his bites became infected. Neither has been able to sleep through the night because of their itching, he said.

About one-third of people do not react to bed bug bites, and Kerrie said if she'd been travelling by herself she might never have noticed them. Then she would have brought the bugs, through her clothing, on to other places, like loved ones' homes and other hotels.

Other than the email, she hasn't had contact with the motel's manager, but she said he'd written to other people saying that the family had staged the scene in an effort to extort him. Callum said he was disappointed that no one at the motel apologized for anything, "the simplest thing they could have done."

When contacted by CTV News, management issued a statement saying, "We want to express our sincere regret for the disappointment this family experienced during their stay with us."

Management wrote that bed bug infestations are a widespread problem, and that while staff try to control the issue, infestations are not preventable. Staff members are trained to inspect bedding, mattresses and box springs, the statement said.

Choice Hotels Canada also sent a statement to CTV, saying that incidents at individual franchised hotels are the responsibility of the local owners. However the company does provide training, coaching and third-party quality assurance for sanitation, maintenance and pest control issues.

The senior media relations officer for Vancouver Coastal Health confirmed that an environmental health official visited the motel for educational purposes on Tuesday, and added that an official had been to the site for bed bugs last year. The bugs that were the subject of that complaint were in a different part of the motel, VCH said.

The organization offers guides on how to control bed bugs, prevent infestations and what to do after seeing a bed bug in a hotel or in private home on its website.

Bed bugs are brought into hotels by other people, and can be found anywhere, even five-star accommodations.

The bugs do not discriminate, the B.C. regional manager of Abell Pest Control warned, and the first line of defence in hotels is the guests themselves.

Bola Fagbamiye said the best places to check are along the headboards, box springs and night stands, as well as the phones, clocks and lamps in hotel rooms.

"If you see black spots, then there's a concern," Fagbamiye said.

The Stewart family said they hope that changes are made to the way hotels handle bed bugs, but warned the public that ultimately it's their responsibility to check.

"You can look up online for the telltale signs and where to check and how to check," Callum said.

"They're not always as obvious as they were in this case, so it takes a little bit of digging and investigation, but it's well worth the few minutes before you actually take your bags into your room We were just lax."

With files from CTV Vancouver's David Molko

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'It was horrifying': Couple finds bed bugs in North Vancouver motel - CTV News