Region affected by spreading bed bug problem

Pest control experts are reporting a resurgence of bed bugs across Ontario, and Waterloo Region is not immune.

Mark Grisold with Marshall Pet Control in Kitchener says his company now gets more calls on bed bugs than on cockroaches and that’s in keeping with a province-wide trend. A 2008 report by Ontario’s Ministry of Health and Longterm Care found a rise in bed bug infestations in Toronto, Ottawa, Owen Sound and London. In the Toronto example, 1,500 infestations were reported in 2008 compared to just 46 in 2003. New York City and some Australian cities have reported similar spikes in the past five years.

For Grisold, it’s been a ten year trend. “People would travel to faraway places and then they came back and that seemed to be the trigger,” the pest control expert tells 570’s Jeff Allan Show. “Now they’re everywhere.”

And thanks to legislative changes, bed bugs are getting more difficult to control. During the 1950s, much more toxic general synthetic insecticides like the now-banned DDT all but wiped out bed bugs. That’s no longer the case, according to Grisold. “They spread out throughout the globe now because of the controls on pesticides that have been implemented,” he says. “The government has eliminated a number of the pesticides that were used (to control bed bugs) so we don’t have access to them.”

Reported cases of bed bug infestations increased by 600 per cent in larger urban areas of Ontario between 2003 and 2005. Grisold says it’s keeping him busy. “People usually say ‘I’m glad you were here but I hope I never see you again’.”