Will bed bugs travel from Paris to the UK? They’re already here, expert says
Paris is grappling with a bed bug infestation – but the problem is likely just as bad in London, an expert says.
“I think there’s probably a similar level of issue in London as there is in Paris at present,” microbiologist and founder of Bed Bugs Ltd David Cain told Sky News.
“They’re already on buses, trains, tubes, cinemas, doctor’s surgeries, public spaces, hospitals.”
The difference is that Parisians are talking about the problem, while Brits are “trying to keep the whole thing quiet”, he said.
That culture of silence, where people don’t know there is an issue and don’t know how to tackle it, creates the perfect environment for bed bugs to spread, he said.
So what’s happening in Paris and the UK, and how can you avoid picking up bed bugs – or deal with them if you do?
Here’s everything you need to know…
What’s happening in Paris?
Bed bugs aren’t a new problem in France’s capital – but things seem to have got worse recently.
They have been spotted in homes, cinemas, hospitals and trains, according to reports.
Emmanuel Gregoire, deputy mayor of Paris, described them as a “scourge” and a “public health problem” as he called on the prime minister to act.
The city has been waging war on the creatures for years. In 2020, the government launched a campaign to tackle the problem, setting up an emergency helpline where people could get expert advice.
More than one in 10 French households had a bedbug infestation between 2017 and 2022, according to a report from ANSES, the French health and safety agency.
France is grappling with how to control the problem before the 2024 Paris Olympics
How bad is the bed bug problem in the UK?
The UK saw a 65% increase in bed bug infestations from 2022 to 2023, according to data released by pest-control company Rentokil in September.
Reacting to the findings, Natalie Bungay from the British Pest Control Association (BPCA) said she wasn’t surprised.
“Reports of bed bug activity tend to increase in the summer as people travel more.
“The lack of travel during COVID-19 lockdowns meant bed bug issues were few and far between, so it’s not surprising we’re now seeing a rapid rise in call outs.”
Mr Cain estimated 5% of households in London have had a bed bug infestation in the last two years.
People who haven’t been on holiday for years are finding the bugs at home, he said, so it’s not as simple as people travelling and bringing them back.
People who don’t have cars are also facing the problem, indicating they are embedded on public transport networks, he said.
The increase in recent years is part of a decades-long trend. Bed bugs were common before the Second World War, but the discovery of DDT as a cheap and effective insecticide helped control them.
But the insects developed resistance to DDT, and then to the next wave of insecticides.
Could bed bugs travel from Paris to the UK?
Bed bugs are known for hitching rides when people stay at hotels with infestations, and can survive a plane or Eurostar journey back to the UK.
Eurostar said it was on alert and ready to step up “preventive treatment” across the network.
A spokesperson told Sky News finding insects such as bed bugs on trains was “extremely rare”.
“The textile surfaces on all of our trains are cleaned thoroughly on a regular basis and this involves hot-water injection and extraction cleaning, which has proven highly effective in eliminating bugs.”
Trains will be disinfected “on request or as soon as there is the slightest doubt” if there is a report on a hygiene matter, they added.
Mr Cain said the treatment frequency would need to be “one journey, one clean” to really tackle the problem.
“Otherwise you’re using the same train to go backwards and forwards – and every time a new set of customers get on, then they potentially pick up the problems left by the previous one.”
But he reiterated his message: infestations in the UK will not just be down to bed bugs crossing the Channel, because “they are already here”.
There’s concern bed bugs could be hitching a ride on public transport.
What should you do to prevent an infestation?
Regularly checking your mattress, cleaning the frame of the bed and vacuuming around it will mean any bed bugs can be found and dealt with quickly.
Mr Cain also advised installing a bed bug monitor on your mattress which will show if any bed bugs have crossed its path.
Mr Cain said: “If you don’t get into that disciplined practice of checking once a month, there will come a day when you tip your mattress up and there’s going to be maybe 5,000 or 6,000 bed bugs looking back at you.
“Once they’ve been in your property for more than about 60 days, the population is doubling every 14 days.”
If you spot bed bugs, what should you do?
The most important thing is not to panic, Mr Cain said, because you are more likely to make mistakes in a heightened state of anxiety.
He listed three common mistakes to avoid: don’t use an aerosol-based insecticide, don’t use a fogger for bed bugs and don’t throw away furniture because you could introduce the bugs to any new furniture.
If you’ve caught the problem early, it may be possible to eradicate it by washing bedding and clothes on a hot wash and vacuuming the affected room.
But DIY solutions involve a big time investment to research and do them right, he said – and there’s no point only getting rid of 90% of the bugs because you’ve still got an infestation.
The NHS advises calling a pest control company or your local council. If you rent, it’s the responsibility of your landlord, local council or housing association to deal with the infestation if it predated your tenancy.
How do you spot bed bugs?
Bed bugs tend to hide in bed frames, mattresses, clothing and furniture, and mostly come out at night to feed on sleeping humans.
Your first sign of bed bugs might be bites, which can be raised and itchy and are often in a line.
Bed bugs are not known to carry disease, but the bites can be uncomfortable and the psychological toll of an infestation can be distressing.
Not everyone will react to the bites, so you might be sharing a bed with the bugs without noticing.
Other telltale signs include spots of blood on bedding, either from the bites or from squashing a bed bug that’s recently fed, or brown spots on bedding or furniture from bed bug faeces.
Confirmation of bed bugs involves either seeing the creatures, their shed skins, or testing the faeces spots.
Adult bed bugs are about 5mm long and look a bit like an apple pip. The eggs are about 1mm long and pearly white – they may be found on their own or in clusters.
Bed bugs on a wooden bedframe. Pic: Bed Bugs Ltd
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How can you avoid bed bugs while travelling?
If you’re staying in a hotel or apartment, check your bed for bugs, looking in the seams of the mattress and cracks of the headboard.
Avoid putting your suitcase under the bed and keep it zipped as much as possible – just take clothes out as you wear them and don’t leave them on the floor.
Keep your suitcase elevated on a hard surface if possible. When you’re packing for a trip, put clothes into resealable plastic bags and use a hard-shelled case if you have one.
How can you ease the itch of bites?
The NHS recommends putting something cool on the infected area, trying not to scratch to avoid infection and keeping the area clean.
If your bites are very itchy or painful, a pharmacist may be able to recommend a steroid cream or antihistamine.
Will France’s bed bug problem be solved by next summer’s Olympics?
France is holding crisis meetings about bed bugs in the first week of October – less than 10 months before the Paris 2024 Olympics open.
On 3 October, the French government said a cross-party bill would be put forward in December to combat the “scourge” of bed bugs.
The head of Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party in the French National Assembly, Sylvain Maillard, said the president’s party and its allies had decided to make the subject a “priority”, Le Monde reported.
But there is an “incredibly narrow window” for authorities to get the problem under control, Mr Cain said.
The solution would lie in “getting ahead of the infestation site” by installing monitors and making sure rigorous screening programmes are in place across the city’s accommodation, transport network and the Olympic Village.
“To be honest, I don’t think Paris has enough time now,” he said.
UK
Thousands of trans rights activists gather in London after Supreme Court ruling on definition of a woman
Thousands of trans rights activists have been demonstrating in central London days after the Supreme Court ruled the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex.
Trans rights groups, trade unions and community organisations came together for what was billed as an “emergency demonstration” in Parliament Square in Westminster.
Activists demanded “trans liberation” and “trans rights now”, with some waving flags and holding banners.
Campaigners in Westminster. Pic: PA
Graffiti was seen on the statues of suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett and South African statesman Jan Christian Smuts in Parliament Square.
The Metropolitan Police said it had launched an investigation after several statues were vandalised and it was investigating the incidents as criminal damage.
Chief Superintendent Stuart Bell said it was “very disappointing to see damage to seven statues and property in the vicinity of the protest”, adding: “We support the public’s right to protest but criminality like this is completely unacceptable.
“We are now investigating this criminal damage and urge anyone with any information to come forward.”
Meanwhile, a rally and march organised by Resisting Transphobia has been taking place in Edinburgh on Saturday afternoon.
Graffiti was daubed on the statue by trans activists. Pic: PA
Graffiti on the statue of South African statesman Jan Christian Smuts in Parliament Square. Pic: PA
In a long-awaited judgment delivered on Wednesday, the UK’s highest court ruled the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 “refer to a biological woman and biological sex”.
It essentially means trans women who hold gender recognition certificates are not women in the eyes of the law.
This means transgender women with one of the certificates can be excluded from single-sex spaces if “proportionate”.
Demonstrators in Westminster
Baroness Kishwer Falkner, chair of the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said on Thursday that the ruling means trans women can no longer take part in women’s sport, while single-sex places, such as changing rooms, “must be based on biological sex”.
The UK government said the unanimous decision by five judges brought “clarity and confidence” for women and service providers.
A Labour Party source said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had brought the party to a “common sense position” on the subject from an “activist” stance.
Among the groups supporting the London protest were Trans Kids Deserve Better, Pride In Labour, Front For The Liberation Of Intersex Non-binary And Transgender people (Flint) and TransActual.
Pic: PA
Keyne Walker, strategy director at TransActual, told Sky News the government needed to put equality laws back on a “sound footing”.
Speaking from Parliament Square, they said: “The mood is jubilant and also angry and also people are anxious… Right now trans people are coming together to demonstrate to the country, and to everybody else, that we’re not going anywhere because we don’t have anywhere to go…
“Queer people have been through worse than this before, and… we’ll suffer through whatever is to come in the next few years.”
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The activist continued: “The government needs to immediately clarify how they are going to protect trans people and what this ruling actually means for spaces.
“It does not bring clarity… businesses and venues at the moment don’t know what they can and can’t do… the government needs to step in and put equalities law back on a sound footing.”
Protesters in Westminster in support of the transgender community. Pic: Daniel Bregman
It comes as Bridgerton actress Nicola Coughlan announced she has helped raise more than £100,000 for a trans rights charity following the Supreme Court decision.
Following the ruling, the Irish star said she was “completely horrified” and “disgusted” by the ruling and added she would match donations up to £10,000 to transgender charity Not A Phase.
The fundraiser has since raised £103,018, with a revised target of £110,000.
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Gender ruling – How it happened
Why was the case heard in court?
The Supreme Court ruling followed a long-running legal challenge which centred around how sex-based rights are applied through the UK-wide Equality Act 2010.
The appeal case was brought against the Scottish government by campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS) following unsuccessful challenges at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.
FWS called on the court to find sex an “immutable biological state”, arguing sex-based protections should only apply to people born female.
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Campaigners react to gender ruling
The Scottish government argued the protections should also include transgender people with a gender recognition certificate (GRC).
The Supreme Court judges were asked to rule on what the Equality Act 2010 means by “sex” – whether biological sex or “certificated” sex as legally defined by the 2004 Gender Recognition Act.
Delivering the ruling at the London court on Wednesday, Lord Hodge said: “We counsel against reading this judgment as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another. It is not.
“The Equality Act 2010 gives transgender people protection, not only against discrimination through the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, but also against direct discrimination, indirect discrimination and harassment in substance in their acquired gender.”
A teacher who was upskirted by a pupil says women are being “specifically targeted” by misogynistic attitudes being expressed in classrooms.
Sally Rees, now the president of teachers’ union NASUWT in Northern Ireland, was visited by police officers in 2016 and told they had found a USB stick containing images filmed up her skirt by a pupil.
“You just feel so violated,” she told North of England correspondent Shingi Mararike.
“As a teacher, you give so much of yourself in the classroom, you want the best for your pupils and then to know that somebody has done that to you, it just completely shatters your sense of trust.”
Ms Rees was filmed multiple times over 14 months and after a “long drawn-out legal process”, the pupil was found guilty of five counts of outraging public decency.
Ms Rees spoke to Sky News as a new survey by NASWUT suggested nearly three in five (59%) teachers believe social media use has contributed to a deterioration in pupils’ behaviour.
At the union’s annual conference this weekend, members will debate calls on the union’s executive to work with teachers “to assess the risk that far-right and populist movements pose to young people”.
“We’ve seen the impact that Andrew Tate and other figures are having on… young boys’ reactions in the classroom,” Ms Rees said.
“One of the things we have to remember is that the majority of our workforce is female and so they are being very specifically targeted by these attitudes, specifically things around; ‘You can’t tell me what to do’, that a man has a right to dominate a woman and has a right to a woman’s body.”
Andrew Tate.
File pic: AP
The drama teacher said schools were now expected to deal with behaviour like this without enough support.
“We need to bring parents and carers into this because it starts in the home and then trickles into our schools,” she added.
“We end up with a blame culture that education is at fault, teachers aren’t dealing with it and yet teachers are the ones that actually end up being the victims of this type of behaviour.”
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When asked about the NASWUT survey, a spokesperson for the Department for Education (DfE) said: “Education can be the antidote to hate, and the classroom should be a safe environment for sensitive topics to be discussed and where critical thinking is encouraged.
“That’s why we provide a range of resources to support teachers to navigate these challenging issues, and why our curriculum review will look at the skills children need to thrive in a fast-changing online world.”
UK
Man who was ‘on first date’ admits dangerous driving after crash involving five police cars on A1
A 20-year-old man has admitted dangerous driving after seven officers were injured in a crash involving five police vehicles and a car.
Personal trainer Mazyar Azarbonyad was taking a woman home after a first date when the crash occurred on the A1 on Tyneside in the early hours of 9 April, Newcastle Magistrates’ Court heard.
He appeared at court on Saturday to admit a series of driving offences, including driving without insurance several times after the crash.
Azarbonyad, who was driving a powerful BMW, failed to stop after police had concerns over how the vehicle was being driven in the Whickham area of Gateshead.
Mazyar Azarbonyad leaving court on Saturday
Pictures of the scene showed the BMW and debris strewn across the road. One of the police cars had its roof torn off.
The collision led to major delays as the road was closed.
The seven police officers have all now been discharged from hospital.
Pic: PA
After the crash, Azarbonyad was granted bail that included conditions telling him not to drive.
He told the court that just days after the crash he drove on four occasions between 11 and 15 April to get to work at a gym in Newcastle, despite being warned not to drive and having no licence or insurance.
Prosecutor Simon Worthy told the court he thought the defendant would have been “a bit more sensible” about his actions, adding: “But no, you continue to stick two fingers up.”
Pic: PA
Pic: PA
BMW was ‘essentially at a stop’
Defending, solicitor Jack Lovell, told the court the defendant had shown genuine remorse for his actions.
He said he had been “very foolish” to get back behind the wheel after the crash, but had made full and further admissions about driving to work.
Mr Lovell added that Azarbonyad had panicked after catching the attention of police on the night of the crash, as he was aware he had no insurance and the woman had made reference to being in “possession of cannabis”.
“The defendant knew he should have pulled over immediately,” Mr Lovell said, adding that after getting on the A1 he did eventually slow down, put his indicators on and gestured out of the window with his hand to show he was braking, the court heard.
The scene on the A1 from above. Pic: PA
Mr Lovell said helicopter footage shows the BMW was “essentially at a stop” when an unmarked police Volvo, which had earlier reached speeds of 135mph, collided with the back of the car at around 80mph.
“From there, there is something of a domino effect, it flips over and then the other police vehicles are also involved,” Mr Lovell said.
“I am not in any way trying to excuse – he should not have been driving the vehicle, it is his driving that has led to the incident on the A1.
“He accepts that by way of his guilty plea.”
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Northumbria Police said a woman in her 20s would face no further action in relation to her arrest on suspicion of aiding and abetting dangerous driving.
However, she was bailed over suspected drug possession offences.
Azarbonyad was granted conditional bail and is due to be sentenced on 20 May at Newcastle Crown Court.
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