Bedbug Epidemic Spreads Across Spain

From the Telegraph:

Housing authorities in Madrid are complaining of “a plague of bedbugs” and called for extra measures to tackle the troublesome parasites. 

According to pest control experts, the reports of bedbug infestations across Spain have risen by 70 per cent within five years and is now bordering on an “epidemic”. 

A residents’ association in the Lavapies district of central Madrid is demanding city authorities provide temporary housing for those affected while their homes are fumigated. 

Residents are blaming the proliferation of the insects, which bury themselves deep inside mattresses, on the rise in the number of buildings being squatted in the neighbourhood.

... Bedbugs, which bite humans and suck their blood, were considered virtually extinct in western Europe for at least fifty years. Their reappearance across Spain over the last ten years has been blamed on the increase in mass tourism.

The United States has seen its own bed-bug epidemic over the past several years (see, e.g., this 2011 article) and it seems to be getting worse. (See also here). The resurgence may be related to the banning of effective pesticides.

Bedbugs are not believed to spread disease. However, that seems to me to be of little comfort--flees probably didn't spread pathogens prior to y. pestis and the plague.