Grand Rapids Has Bed Bugs

Grand Rapids has been receiving some good news and rankings recently.

The Amway Grand and JW Marriott received "Four Diamond" rankings from AAA.  The Grand Rapids Fire Department was ranked in the top 1% of the country.  But now, some bad news.

Grand Rapids has bed bugs.

Rollins Pest Control owns several pest control companies around the country and annually monitors the number of treatments they perform.  They publish these results in an annual ranking by giving us the "Top 50 Cities for Bed Bugs".

You can't really view the results as scientifically concluding which cities have the most bed bugs.  Increasing awareness of bed bugs, number of competing companies, and number of Rollins employees per market are just a few of the variables that could effect their results.

But the rankings still provide us with some interesting data.

Rollins says bed bug business went up 33.6% in 2011 vs 2010.  The ranking for Grand Rapids/Battle Creek/Kalamazoo fell 17 places from 2010's ranking of 22.  Rolllins now ranks West Michigan as the 39th worst area for bed bugs.

The top 5 were:

1. Cincinnati
2. Chicago
3. Detroit
4. Denver
5. Los Angeles

Here's more from mlive.com.