World Travel Brings United Kingdom Bedbug Dilemma

LONDON, Sept. 23, 2008 — -- Next time you're heading home from a relaxing vacation, it might be wise to double check to make sure a group of freeloading bedbugs hasn't decided to hitch a ride and become a real pest, particularly in the United Kingdom.

According to statistics from Rentokil, a U.K.-based pest control company, there has been a 40 percent increase in the number of bedbug complaints around the country in the past year as people unknowingly bring them home after traveling abroad.

Rentokil's technical director, Savvas Othon, said the increased complaints are largely a product of increased global travel, as the bedbugs are often found in hotels, where the insects and their eggs latch on to travelers' clothes and suitcases.

Bedbugs are small, wingless blood-sucking insects that respond to body heat. Their bites result in painful, itchy welts, and they can be transported quite easily by getting into travelers' baggage, especially if left underneath beds, and their clothing.

Because they lay up to 4,000 eggs in a lifetime, or about two to three a day, it's very hard to prevent bedbug infestations from growing once the bugs have gotten into your luggage or lodged themselves in bedding. Airplanes and hotels, with their steady stream of passengers and overnight guests, are fertile breeding grounds.

David New of Bed-Bugs.co.uk, a public advisory center and bedbug treatment company, said that "conditions are absolutely right" on an airplane for bedbugs to thrive.

New also said that infestations in Britain could be attributed to "one particular group who had recently had a lot of worker migration into the country," though he refused to specify which group he was referring to.

New spoke about speculation that bug infestations could increase following the Beijing Olympics as athletes returned to their home countries.

"Ninety five percent of hotels in Sydney had at least one room infested" during the 2000 Sydney Olympics, he said.

David Cain, managing director at Bed-Bugs.co.uk, said it's difficult to pinpoint a specific place where bedbugs originate. He noted that they can appear after travel, ranging anywhere from the Middle East to New York to Toronto.

"They are now cropping up over the length and breadth of major cities in the U.K. and transportation hubs," he said.

Cain said there has been a "definite resurgence in bedbugs from 2000" and that the growth has been "exponential." He said his company went from receiving three to five complaints a day in 2005 to fielding as many as 16 calls a day today.

Of course, more bedbugs mean bigger business for companies like Rentokil.

"We've seen a 50 percent increase in our contracts," said Othon.