Chicago has once again been named the most bedbug-infested city in the United States, the news coming as it also grapples with a rat problem.
Orkin’s annual rankings showed that Chicago has the worst bedbug problem in America, NBC Chicago reported Monday. It is the fifth year in a row the Democrat-controlled city has been given the ranking.
“The pest control company compiled its rankings using treatment data from areas where it performed the most bedbug treatments from May 15, 2024 to May 14, 2025,” the article read.
“Chicago was followed by Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles and Indianapolis to round out the top five. Two other Illinois metro areas – Champaign and Peoria – made the list at No. 9 and No. 33, respectively,” it continued.
Bed bugs are tiny, flat insects that bite people and animals to feed on their blood during the night hours, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):
Bed bugs are not known to spread diseases to people. However, they cause irritation, itching, and loss of sleep. Removal from dwellings can be expensive and inconvenient to remove [sic].
You can find bed bugs anywhere, from North and South America, to Africa, Asia, and Europe. Bed bugs are in five-star hotels and resorts. How clean a place is does not determine whether bed bugs are present.
Bed bugs can also live in places like buses and trains.
Orkin Entomologist Ben Hottel said, “Bed bugs are some of the most resilient pests in the world, making them extremely difficult to control if brought into a home or hotel. As summer travel picks up, it is critical that people know the best ways to identify, prevent and control these pests.”
In an attempt to control its problem with a larger pest, Chicago recently began using a birth control method to cut down on the city’s rat infestation, Fox 32 reported in April.
“The city’s latest effort includes placing bait boxes filled with a contraceptive in alleys behind major commercial areas in Wicker Park and Bucktown, ” the outlet said, noting, “The goal is to curb the rat population without using poison, which can harm other animals and the environment.”
Chicago was named the number one “rat capital” in the nation in 2018, according to Breitbart News.
