Students partly to blame for bed bugs

7:20pm Friday 6th July 2007

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Students are partly to blame for an explosion in bed bugs in Oxford, according to pest control experts Rentokil.

The company said it had seen a 64 per cent increase in the number of bed bug-related callouts in the city between June 2006 and June 2007.

The increase in the city is higher than the national average, which the company said was a 52 per cent year-on-year rise.

Although Rentokil would not release the exact number of call-outs because it was deemed "commercially sensitive information", the rise was blamed the rise on: *Bad housekeeping by students and busy families *Bugs brought back from abroad as overseas travel becomes cheaper *An increase in the popularity of car boot sales and retro-style clothes.

English student Holly Reading, 21, from Crown Street, East Oxford, graduated from Oxford Brookes University this year.

She said: "I think sometimes students are not as clean as other people. When lots of work and stress is around sometimes you don't necessarily make the time and effort to wash. Student houses aren't the cleanest environments - and when you're in that environment it doesn't necessarily make you want to be clean."

Bed bugs, which are approximately 5mm long, are notoriously difficult to treat as they shelter in narrow gaps such as seams of mattresses, bed frames and behind furniture.

Greg Mulligan, manager of the Central Backpackers hostel, in Park End Street, said: "I'm not sure it's spread from dirty people - it's more from dirty places.

"It's rare that we get people through that I would consider dirty in that their hygiene is lacking."

Rentokil technical director Savvas Othon said: "The large student population in Oxford is one of the possible reasons for the increase in bed bugs. Students travel a lot and move around socially, which allows them to spread."