A video of a bed bug crawling on a TTC subway seat has residents disgusted online, and urging the transit service to change its fabric seats to plastic.
On Tuesday, a person shared a video online of a bed bug crawling on a TTC Line 1 seat, with the caption “Regular occurrence.”
@nowtoronto A video of a bed bug crawling on a #TTC subway seat has residents disgusted online, and urging the #transit service to change their seats to plastic. #Toronto ♬ original sound – Now Toronto
The video has gathered over a hundred comments as of publication with riders questioning the TTC’s cleanliness.
“F**king gross, dude. Never sitting down on TTC again,” one Reddit user said.
“I sat on the subway the other day, now I’m feeling itchy from watching this,” another user wrote.
“This is why I don’t sit on the TTC anymore. Almost always nasty when I get on,” a different Redditor said.
The post also has many urging the TTC to get rid of its fabric seats and adopt plastic instead, following the example of other transit systems such as in Montreal or New York.
“What are they waiting for to replace this with plastic seats? New York and Montreal are much better in that sense. This is backwards,” one Redditor said.
“Also urine, vomit, spilled food, how in the hell do you sanitize seats after that? We need plastic seats very badly,” another user suggested.
“I never understood the reason why they kept the fabric covered seats for the new trains. So much less hygienic and it’s not any more comfortable than a bare metal seat,” a different user commented.
Last month, the TTC confirmed that it is currently taking steps to transition to plastic seats.
According to TTC Spokesperson Stuart Green, the transit agency began testing non-fabric seats on electric buses three years ago, and has ordered 340 battery electric buses with plastic seats instead of cloth.
The agency also said that all new buses moving forward will feature plastic seats, although it is still unknown when these buses will be available for public use.
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In a statement to Now Toronto on Tuesday, Green said that bed bugs are not a common problem on the TTC, given that multiple experts have stated that transit is not an ideal environment for insects to live and reproduce, regardless of the seats being made of cloth or plastic.
Nevertheless, the transit spokesperson guarantees that TTC vehicles are frequently cleaned, and urges riders to report situations like this on the SafeTTC app.
“Vehicles are cleaned every night, but from time to time we do learn of insects getting onto the system. While not common on the TTC, this is something public transit agencies around the world must deal with,” he said.
“Our hope is that if someone sees something like this, they promptly report it to customer service or through the SafeTTC app so we can have the vehicle taken out of service and cleaned.”
BED BUGS IN TORONTO
Toronto Entomologists’ Association President Antonia Guidotti confirmed to Now Toronto that the insect seen in the video is in fact a bed bug.
Bed bugs are small insects that receive this name for typically coming out at night and feeding on the blood of humans and animals while they sleep.
Their bites might not be noticed immediately, taking up to 14 days to appear, and usually don’t require medical attention, as they are unable to spread diseases.
However, some people might react to the bites with small skin irritations that can turn into infections, or, in rare cases, severe allergic reactions. Individuals who live in homes infested with these bugs have also commonly reported mental health impacts, such as anxiety and insomnia.
Usually, these bugs prefer spaces where they can easily hide and feed, while their bodies allow them to access small locations like mattress pads, night tables, wallpapers, picture frames and more. Since they don’t have wings, and can’t jump or easily crawl on metal, they usually move around by climbing into objects that are moved from room to room.
Toronto has often been reported as one of Canada’s “buggiest” cities, most recently ranking first for the second year in a row in Orkin Canada’s report about cities with the most bed bugs in 2023.
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This is not the first time bugs on the TTC have residents talking. In 2023, Now Toronto reported on a viral video of a bug crawling on the transit’s seats that left riders worried, following an infestation that hit Paris during Fashion Week earlier that year.
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