ESCANABA — After months of bed bug complaints, management at the Harbor Tower Apartments has secured a new pest control company to try to get rid of the problem at the subsidized 18-story housing complex in Escanaba.

An Orkin affiliate in Green Bay has been hired to do the job, particularly because the company has a 100% guarantee that if any rooms they treat still have bed bugs within a 30-day window, they will return at no additional cost.

Harbor Tower management earlier had tried local pest control and heat treatments to eradicate the bed bugs. “We have no comment as to why a particular treatment method is or was insufficient. We are using Orkin because their work is guaranteed,” the housing commission stated.

According to Paul Adcock, executive director of the Escanaba Housing Commission, Harbor Tower isn’t the only site dealing with a bed bug infestation.

“It is exploding everywhere in the U.P. I talked to people at the training I went to at Mackinac Island — five or six directors did not have (bed bugs). (I) talked to them in Negaunee two and a half months later and they all had (bed bugs),” Adcock said.