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“Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite”! It’s a phrase I heard all the time as a nipper. Mum used to routinely say it last thing at night as she tucked us up in bed – a light hearted and innocent reference to bygone days, when this tiny pest ran amok through households across the land.

Now, apparently, bedbugs are back with a vengeance. A report in the Irish Examiner last week revealed the pests are making something of a resurgence in Ireland, and indeed around the world. “Health fears as bedbug infestations rise 66%” screamed the headline in last Friday’s paper. Apparently entomology professor Michael F Potter says we’re currently in the middle of a “global epidemic”, and blames a whole host of criteria from a fertile second hand furniture market to increased travel and global warming for the rapid spread of these unwelcome guests.

The most common locations for outbreaks of the pests are hotels and hostels, where the bugs and their eggs are carried in and out on people’s clothing and luggage… moving from one place to another and setting up house in any likely looking piece of furniture.

Hospitals, too, can be prone to infestation. All admissions to a community hospital in Co. Kerry had to be suspended last week because of an outbreak of bedbugs. Some wards were closed and patients relocated in an attempt to eradicate the pests. Apparently it will take up to a fortnight for the hospital to become fully operational again.

I’m all for more wildlife – biodiversity is a wonderful thing… bring it on I say. But, by and large I tend to prefer that the flora and fauna stays outdoors where it belongs. Flies in the kitchen, mice under the floorboards and a thriving ecosystem of mites in my mattress are all things I can happily live without.

I quite often use the “sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite” line when I’m tucking the girls in at night – a throwback to my own childhood. Tonight though I think I’ll give it a miss… just thinking about it is making my skin crawl!