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An annual report fom the BPCA yesterday that only 7 per cent of councils across Britain have an in-house service able to offer free pest treatments. The association said that teams from Birmingham, South Staffordshire, South Tyneside and Sunderland were among those called out the most in 2012 to deal with infestations of rats, mice, cockroaches and wasps.

But top spot went to the Corporation of the City of London, which received 40.54 call outs per 1,000 residents. Rats were responsible for 38 per cent of all call-outs across the country, with 247,132 treatments undertaken in 2012.

Local authorities in London accounted for nearly half of all call-outs for bed bugs and the BPCA said almost a third of all were carried out by East London councils such as Tower Hamlets, Newham and Southwark.

The BPCA said: "We could be facing much larger figures next year as the BPCA expect these figures to increase dramatically due to the influx of tourists we received during the summer of 2012."

In August experts blamed the long winter and glorious summer for a late wasp invasion, with a swarm blamed for almost killing a cocker spaniel that went into anaphylatic shock near Fife in Scotland.

The BPCA said treatments for wasps in 2012 went up almost 7 per cent - the only pest where an increase was registered due to cutbacks among the council workforce. Scottish local authorities carried out more wasp treatments per head of population than the whole of the UK. The North-East saw a 63 per cent increase in call-outs for wasps.

There was a 50 per cent drop in call-outs for mammals such as foxes, rabbits, squirrels and moles, which the BPCA said was likely to changing attitudes towards the pests, as well as a skills shortage in local authority pest teams.