Orkin Man says Edmonton ranks sixth in Canada for bedbugs

Edmonton ranked sixth on a pest control company’s list of the worst cities in Canada for bedbugs.

The city finished behind firstplace Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Ottawa and St. John’s, N.L., according to a news release Tuesday from Orkin Canada.

The ranking is based on the number of commercial and residential treatments Orkin, which bills itself as Canada’s largest pest-control company, carried out in each city between July 1, 2016, and June 2017. It did not release the number of treatments in each city, saying the information is “competitively sensitive.”

Halifax, Sudbury, Ont., Scarborough, Ont., and Calgary rounded out the top 10.

Vishant Sharma, an Orkin Canada branch manager based in Edmonton, said the company receives daily calls about bedbug infestations. He said the problem has gotten worse in the last decade as bedbugs “hitchhike” on travellers to the city — including workers moving to the region during recent oil booms.

“There’s a lot of reasons for it,” he said of the increase. “More international travel — people are travelling a lot more now. People moving around, a lot of camp work, things like that.”

“They can hide in any crack or crevice the width of a credit card,” he added, making them particularly difficult to exterminate.

According to Alberta Health Services, inspectors conducted 849 housing pest inspections between April 1, 2016, and March 31, 2017.

Of those, 257 contained bed bugs.

The bugs have even been detected in office buildings. The Neil Crawford Provincial Centre in Edmonton, which houses Alberta Infrastructure, was being treated for bedbugs last month.

They can hide in any crack or crevice the width of a credit card.