An annual survey of top bed bug cities places Atlanta at No. 25 -- an improvement (that is, a drop) from No. 15 on the same list last year and almost right in line with 2012's ranking.
Atlanta-based Orkin's top 50, released today, "ranks the cities by the number of bed bug treatments" performed by the company during the calendar year. Only one southern city cracked 2014's top 10: the Richmond-Petersburg area in Virginia. But for the third year in a row, Chicago came in at No. 1.
As Orkin noted in its 2013 ranking, "the Windy City’s bed bug problem was serious enough" in that year that the city council had to intervene. According to Orkin, there were reports of bed bugs in Chicago office buildings as well as public buildings such as a fire station and police headquarters.
- Chicago
- Detroit
- Columbus, Ohio
- Los Angeles
- Cleveland – Akron – Canton, Ohio
- Dallas – Ft. Worth
- Cincinnati
- Denver
- Richmond – Petersburg, Va.
- Dayton, Ohio
Bed bugs are "great hitchhikers, and people often bring them inside on their clothes or in their luggage," Orkin Entomologist and Technical Services Director Ron Harrison said in a release. A female bed bug can deposit one to five eggs a day, Harrison has said previously.
Americans are spending more to battle them, spending "$446 million to get rid of bed bugs in 2013, the latest data available, compared to $70 million in 2004," according to the release.
There is one silver lining: research shows that bed bugs don't spread disease, Orkin said.
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