Bed bugs are small, blood-sucking insects that live on furniture or bedding. Their bites are often itchy and unsightly. Bed bugs do not usually cause major health problems but can result in stress, anxiety, and sleep loss, particularly if the nightly bed bug attacks persist over an extended period. But how common are bed bugs in the UK in 2024, and what factors affect their population?
Bed bug Seasonality
Bed bug problems are most common in the UK in August and September. The numbers are lowest between January and February. Numbers start ramping up rapidly from March, reaching their late summer peak.
Google search trends reflect the seasonality of bedbugs. The more people encounter bed bug activity, the more they take to the internet to get information about the little critters. Thus, we infer increases in bed bug activity from increases in Google search demand, and the annual repetition of this peak and trough pattern.
The summer peak and the winter lows in bed bug activity that we see in the search data are also confirmed by a separate study published in the Journal of Medical Entomology on bed bug seasonality, which indicates February as having had the least amount of bed bug pest control call outs and August having the highest numbers.
Below, you can see the UK’s Google search trends for ‘bed bugs,’ with searches peaking each year at the end of the summer. Usually in August, but occasionally in September.
Bed bug activity is likely affected by two key factors: (1) warm weather and (2) people sleeping in different beds.
Let’s discuss each component in detail.
Warm weather
Bed bugs go into a state of hibernation when temperatures drop below 13 degrees Celsius. They can stay in this dormant state for up to a year. The parasites will only awaken once the weather warms up and when they sense food (humans) nearby.
Bed bugs can survive, hibernating in cold weather quite well unless the temperatures drop to freezing. Bed bugs die in freezing temperatures. Hot temperatures (above 45 degrees Celsius will also kill them.
The temperature sweet spot for bed bugs is roughly the same as that for humans. So, when bed bugs are indoors, cohabitating with humans, they can easily survive the winters without hibernation because our living temperatures are ideal for them. But transiting between locations is risky for bed bugs when it’s cold outside, which means cold weather helps limit their spread.
Sleeping in different beds
During the winter months, bed bug infestations are generally less transmissible as we humans sleep at home in our beds more, and as such, we are less exposed to other bedrooms that may have bed bugs.
However, that all changes when the summer comes. In summer, we take vacations and stay in accommodations with high footfall, such as hotels and guesthouses.
Bed bugs spread from place to place by hitching on humans. They hide in our luggage and clothing, and we unwittingly transport them from one room to another.
Probably the biggest culprit for spreading bed bugs is the hospitality industry.
During holiday season, hotels and guest house beds are effectively human conveyor-belt buffets for bed bugs. Almost each night, the resident bed bugs are served a fresh human or two to feast on. And each morning, as the guests check-out, the bed bugs are offered the chance to go home with their meal.
If just one guest brings bed bugs to the hotel, they will multiply. Each female bed bug lays 1 – 7 egg daily. The offspring won’t need to look far to find a mate because they will mate with eachother. Yuck.
The bugs will feast on the guests each night and can spread from room to room, eventually infesting the entire hotel floor, or building, if not stopped.
On the onset, bed bug problems can go undetected for quite some time without proper screening because the bites occur while we sleep. A victim may simply notice some insect bites and dismiss them without knowing where or when they originated. This is compounded by the fast that bites often having a delayed reaction.
So, unless you’re staying in the same bed bug-riddled accommodation for at least a few days, getting bitten each night consistently, it’s unlikely you can nail down where your bites are coming from.
This means that bed bug issues can escalate into sizable infestations before they are brought to the attention of hotel staff by a guest.
It’s easy to imagine how one guest room with bed bugs, could quickly spread.
The spread of bed bugs
Hotels can’t rely solely on cleaning staff to report them because bed bugs don’t like light and spend their days well hidden in tiny, inconspicuous nooks and crannies.
By the time the bed bug issues are flagged and the pest controllers are called in for a reactive treatment, many unfortunate guests have often already been exposed to them and helped them spread to new locations.
Bed bugs are not confined to bedrooms either. They have six very capable legs and can crawl at a speed of 100 feet per hour. They will gladly explore other hotel rooms or apartment blocks for new feeding opportunities.
For longer journeys, humans act as a taxi service, transporting the bugs to other lush feeding grounds such as trains, planes, buses, hotels, or even people’s homes.
If just one little bed bug slips into your luggage, what may have started as a soon-to-be-forgotten insect bit while on holiday could become an unforgettable nightmare in your home, affecting the whole family.
Bed bugs are notoriously difficult to eliminate because they are so good at hiding. Anyone unfortunate enough to bring them into their home is in for quite an experience.
Pest control techniques using sprayed insecticides are ineffective if the pest control technician doesn’t know where the bugs are hiding. Furthermore, many bed bugs have evolved, developing immunity to commercial pesticides.
Bed bugs are more common in warmer climates, such as Latin America, than here in the UK. This is because these countries don’t have particularly cold winters and lack the sophisticated pest control methods we can access here in the UK, such as canine bed bug detection.
Mexico is a popular tourist destination but is a hotbed for bed bugs. Bed bugs are the second biggest pest problem in the country, with ants being their biggest.
Visitors entering the UK from countries with high levels of bed bugs often unknowingly bring the pests back with them, thus contributing to the UK’s increased numbers each summer!
How common are bed bugs in the UK?
According to the BPCA (British Pest Control Association) national survey in 2016, there were 11,829 bed bug-related pest control call-outs in the UK’s 2015/16 fiscal year. This accounted for 3% of all pest control call-outs in the period.
Taking learnings from Google search data for the term “bed bugs,” it suggests that UK bed bug activity has decreased yearly since 2018. That was until 2022 when searches shot up again.
Reduced bed bug activity in 2020 and 2021 would be because of the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on the hospitality industry and stay at home mandates. Now, with business as usual for the hospitality sector, the UK’s bed bug numbers have returned to pre-Covid levels. Therefore, 2023 experienced relatively high bed bug numbers.
2023 also experienced it’s fair share of pure hype. This started off as media whipped up a frenzie about bed bugs in Paris. Then fear mongering didn’t stop there. Stories of bed bugs crossing the Channel into the UK made the headlines of many rag mags. Finally, a blurry instagram video of a single bed bug on the London Tube blew everything out of proportions.
At Merlin, we believe that the bed bug numbers in the UK were not affected by France in 2023, any more than in any other year, and that most of the panic was just media hype. However the media has raised public awareness of bed bugs, which is a positive thing. We experienced a huge influx of bed bug enquiries in October 2023 off the back of the media.
Which part of the UK is the worst for bed bugs?
We previously did a study where we mashed “bed bug” Google search data with population data. We discovered that London was unsurprisingly the bed bug capital of the UK, with the highest number of “bed bugs” Google searches per capita. Leicester came in at a very close second place, and Manchester won the bronze medal.
Wakefield was the least bed bug-infested city per capita in the UK. Generally, we observed that cities not so well known as must-see destinations tended to have lower bed bug activity.
You can check out the full study here to see where your favourite UK city ranks.
How to stop the spread of bed bugs in 2024?
While we’ll probably never completely get rid of bed bugs from the UK, early detection of the pests is key. The earlier they can be detected, the earlier they can be eliminated, and the less they will spread.
If hotel owners simply wait until they get customer complaints, it can mean that the infestation is already quite significant. The complaints can result in negative online reviews or, in some cases, lawsuits against the affected business.
For UK public transport and hospitality, early detection means regular screening using sniffer dogs. Because bed bugs are so small, finding them by sight alone in a hotel or on a train is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
But dogs can smell them.
Good pest control companies like Merlin have trained sniffer dogs that will point the bed bug’s exact locations to the pest control technician so they can be dealt with.
Public awareness is another weapon that can be used to fight bed bugs. Being aware of what bed bugs look like, what their bites look like, and what action to take if you’ve been exposed to bed bugs is key to preventing their spread.
If you need a pest control team with highly trained sniffer dogs to screen your business, click here to learn how we can help.
