Report: Los Angeles Now Has More Bed Bugs Than New York
Looks like we might have to stop making fun of New York Shitty for its bed-bug problem.
Best Coast bed bugs.
According to a new report from giant pest-control company Orkin -- based on the number of treatments it conducted in each major U.S. city last year -- L.A. experienced somewhat of an embarrassing bed-bug renaissance in 2011.
The numbers are staggering:
Los Angeles climbed from 25th place to 5th place on the company's annual list of the 50 most bed-bug-infested cities. And the overall number of "incidents" (ew) across America shot up almost 35 percent.
Now the only cities that sit between sunny, happy L.A. and the top prize are Cincinnati,
Chicago, Detroit and Denver -- more notoriously grungy/dark/insecty, at least in our totally biased understanding of the rest of the nation.
GROSS, right?
But the most shameful aspect of our new standing is that we're now four spots ahead of New York City, once considered bed-bug capital of the universe.
Even Orkin entomologists express surprise in the company's press release that so many of the quick-climbers in the Top 50 are "popular spring break destinations." They guess that this could be because "several of the top 50 cities have large, busy airports, and there could be a correlation between increased travel and bed bug activity."
Ah, yes. We always knew LAX had a deep, disgusting secret beneath its exhaustive PR campaign to promote state-of-the-art new facilities.
San Diego, the Bay Area and Hawaii also experienced heightened activity:
In the end, though, we don't blame the little buggers. Who wants to be cooped up in some overpriced NYC hellhole when he could be relaxing on a perennially sunned rooftop hotel in WeHo?
Orkin
Or, um, a $62-per-night lodge in Glendale. To each his own.
[@simone_electra / swilson@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]
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