Pittsburgh's Bed Bug Problem Persists

PITTSBURGH, PA - Let’s hope the Steelers handle the Jaguars on Sunday better than the city handled bed bugs in 2017. For the second consecutive year, Pittsburgh ranked in the top 25 for bed bug service calls, according to rankings released Monday by the Orkin pest control company.

Pittsburgh was 24th among the nation’s top metro areas, the same ranking it had a year ago. The ranking is based on both residential and commercial treatments.

If your home required a service call, Orkin officials said it had nothing to do with a failure to keep a neat house.

"Any type of home is prone to bed bugs. It has nothing to do with sanitation,” Orkin entemologist Tim Husen said. “We have treated for bed bugs everywhere, from newly built upscale homes to public housing.”

To help detect bed bugs, Orkin recommends homeowners do the following:

• Inspect your home for signs of bed bugs regularly. Check the places where bed bugs hide during the day, including mattress tags and seams, and behind baseboards, headboards, electrical outlets and picture frames.

• Decrease clutter around your home to make it easier to spot bed bugs on your own or during professional inspections.

• Inspect all secondhand furniture before bringing it inside your home. This is a common way for bed bugs to be introduced into homes.

• Dry potentially infested bed linens, curtains and stuffed animals on the hottest temperature allowed for the fabric.

The top 25 cities for bed bug treatments and the change in their rankings from last year:

1. Baltimore
2. Washington, D.C.
3. Chicago
4. Los Angeles (+2)
5. Columbus, Ohio
6. Cincinnati (+2)
7. Detroit
8. New York (-4)
9. San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose
10. Dallas-Fort Worth (+5)
11. Indianapolis
12. Philadelphia
13. Atlanta (+3)
14. Cleveland-Akron-Canton, Ohio (-1)
15. Raleigh-Durham, N.C. (-3)
16. Richmond-Petersburg, VA. (-5)
17. Houston
18. Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News, VA. (+2)
19. Charlotte, NC (-3)
20. Buffalo, NY (-2)
)21. Knoxville, Tenn.
22. Nashville, Tenn. (+1)
23. Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo-Battle Creek, Mich. (+4)
24. Pittsburgh
25. Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C.-Asheville, NC

Photo: Associated Press.