| Orkin list | Data window (Orkin’s words) | Toledo | Other Ohio metros |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (July 7, 2026) | May 12, 2025 – May 12, 2026 | No. 42 (−6) | Cleveland 4, Columbus 8, Cincinnati 15, Youngstown 32, Dayton 38 |
| 2025 (June 30, 2025) | May 15, 2024 – May 14, 2025 | No. 36 (−4) | — |
| 2024 (January 22, 2024) | Dec 1, 2022 – Nov 30, 2023 | No. 32 (+6) | — |
What the list is
Orkin’s sentence: rankings “are based on treatment data from metro areas where Orkin performed the most bed bug treatments,” residential and commercial. It is one company’s treatment volume by metro, not a prevalence survey. No public body publishes one: the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department’s housing page has no complaint counts, and we found no bed bug statistic for Lucas County in any primary source.
What is fair to say
Toledo has been on the list every year since it joined and has slid ten places in two years, while four other Ohio metros sit above it. Six Ohio metros on a fifty-city list says more about the state than about Toledo. OSU’s 2025 factsheet has a section titled “Bed Bugs on the Rise in the Midwest” and attributes the resurgence to “increased human movement and insecticide resistance.”
What is not
That your home is likely infested, or that you should pay urgency pricing. One infestation has one source. Find it, treat it properly once, and the ranking is somebody else’s statistic.