A pest control operation in progress in an apartment in France last month / AP=Yonhap News
Fear of overseas-originated bedbugs is spreading in Hong Kong, leading to a surge in sales of pesticides and pest control reservations.
However, Hong Kong experts point out that Hong Kong, with its high population density on a narrow land and its hot and humid climate, is an optimal environment for bedbugs and that there were initially many bedbugs in Hong Kong.
According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP) on the 14th, Francisco Pazos, the representative of the Hong Kong pest control company NoBedBugs-HK, said, “We usually handle about 400 pest control requests a month, but we’ve handled a month’s worth of work in the past three days,” adding, “The current workload is unbelievably high.”
Pazos said, “Hong Kong is like Disneyland for bedbugs. It’s so densely populated that there are many places for bedbugs to lay eggs, which can be transferred through people.”
Following the UK and Paris, news of a large number of bedbugs appearing in Korea has spread, causing a spread of bedbug fear in Hong Kong.
Recently, a picture of bedbugs on the seats of the Hong Kong Airport Railway circulating on social media has fanned the fear.
The photo’s authenticity has not been confirmed. Still, since then, the Hong Kong airport and railway authorities have announced that they will strengthen inspections after confirming that no bedbugs were found in the inspection results.
Hong Kong’s e-commerce platform Shopline announced that sales of pest control and bedbug pesticides increased 172 times during the Double Eleven shopping festival from the 11th to the 12th.
One seller sold HK$2 million (approximately $257,000) worth of bedbug prevention travel kits in one day due to their popularity.
Shopline told SCMP, “This shows a considerable level of concern among Hong Kong citizens about the widespread bedbug problem and a proactive move to prevent bedbugs from boiling over.”
Henry Cheung, a Hong Kong’s Ivy Pest Control consultant, said, “We usually receive 8 to 10 pest control call-outs a month, but this month we’ve already exceeded 20.”
He said that the increase in such work is not because the number of bedbugs has increased but because the alertness to bedbugs and pest control requests usually come from densely populated districts.
Yuan Mingzhu, who previously led the Hong Kong government’s pest control advisory group, pointed out that the bedbug problem has been ongoing in Hong Kong for decades. Still, the alertness to bedbugs has increased recently due to media reports and social media posts.
He added that there is no need to worry too much about bedbugs and that it is sufficient to keep clean and thoroughly check items brought in from bedbug-infested areas.
Professor Chu Shu-wai of the Chinese University of Hong Kong also appeared on Hong Kong’s public broadcasting RTHK and said that bedbugs are already common in Hong Kong, “In our 2021 survey, one in six respondents said they found bedbugs at home.”
He said many people don’t know they have bedbugs at home, and maintaining personal hygiene is the best preventive measure.
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