Toronto’s medical officer says bed bugs are a real concern in the city. That’s no surprise to one resident, who has been battling the pests ever since she brought home a used bed last year.

“We had to rip it apart yesterday because we just couldn’t take the bugs anymore,” Nicole Bourassa-Burke told CTV News.

She also showed off her war-wounds: bites covering her arms and legs, some of them fresh.

“I’m sure some of these will not heal,” she said. “I’ll be left with scars.”

Bourassa-Burke and her family first tried to combat the bugs themselves. They tore up the carpeting in their living room, covered the used bed in a tarp and duct-taped the seams.

“We sprayed, we steamed,” she said. “Then I heard somewhere that a hot blow-dryer will do it, so we held a blow dryer to (the couch) and it actually burned it.”

This week, she finally gave in and called an expert.

“You feel like you can’t cope with it anymore. You’ve just had enough,” said Bourassa-Burke.

The professional pest control worker sprayed three different kinds of pesticides, and told Bourassa-Burke’s family to bag all of their clothes and put them in a dryer at the highest possible heat setting.

Bed bug infestations are spiking in Toronto.

Medical Officer Dr. David McKeown said there were 1,500 in total last year. This year, with four months left in the year, there have already been more than 1,000 calls.

“That’s up from only a few hundred calls five years ago,” he said.

With a report by CTV Toronto’s Janice Goldman