Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite...

[midcoast1]

I must be lucky.Stayed in lower priced motels and hotels Lax , San Francisco ,Vegas and Manhattan last year with no bedbug issues though have read reports of bedbugs at same places.

 

[VirginiaF]

Yes... I got them on a recent trip to Shanghai in a 5 star hotel .
Needless to say I was unhappy!

Oh, not the Shangri-La Pudong, I hope. We didn't have any problem there in July.

 

[vertisol]

Found them in a decent hotel in koh samui a few years ago. Changed rooms but your mind plays tricks on you afterwards

Sent from my HUAWEI SONIC using AustFreqFly

 

[tuapekastar]

Anyone travelling to North America (and soon, by the looks of things, the UK) may find The Bedbug Registry useful (and/or offputting )

 

[MatF]

Wow, I was a bit paranoid about bed bugs going through Europe last Dec/Jan, but didn't even think about them in Salt Lake City in August.
No idea why I didn't even consider they might be there - particularly given that Bed Bug Registry shows them all over SLC, including in the hotel I stayed in :/

Thankfully haven't encountered them yet. I'm a bit of a germophobe ... I don't think I'd cope very well.

 

[Neannie]

Thought I would share my daughter's story. She was on a swim team trip to Darwin in April this year and stayed at a Quality Inn. Woke up scratching furiously after the first night, team doctors said it was a reaction to antihistamine (which she was taking for hayfever). This happened after the next night, but of course she was even worse - doctors said it was scabies. Not once did they mention bed bugs - they made her stay in this room for five nights to be eaten alive! Finally changed her for the last night and I asked why and she said "Oh, they are spraying my room!) Funny that!!! I took her to our doctor when she returned and Bingo - she was covered in bed bug bites! The worse part was, when she checked in with the team, the girl behind the front counter said to her "Oh, you have the lucky room"! Did they already know about the problem and didn't have time to act on it? I wouldn't wish this on anyone after seeing her suffering so much for a couple of weeks!

A friend gave a suggestion of taking a fabric softener sheet (for use in clothes dryers) and wiping the inside of your suitcase to stop the transportation of the bugs.

 

[Julesmac]

Eeeewww. Thanks Hayden for the physical pics to go with the mental image! Stayed in a mid $$ hotel in NYC six years ago, on the Upper West Side. My girls were bitten but I dismissed the thought of bed bugs, however that's what they were. We were in the adjoining room but not affected. The hotel was pretty uninterested but I made sure I gave my TA tghe heads up - it was a hotel she often recommended. Would a surface pest spray help? Could you spray it on the mattress? Even if you examined the seams etc, what could you do to kill the buggers? PS I am feeling itchy.....

 

[ctrunfree]

Stayed in a nice place at Goa a few years ago - it was a quirky place owned by a medical Dr who was also an artist. Reading in bed late on the first night, something caused me to turn my head and I came nose to tip of a long thick black curly hair ..... then I spotted lots more hairs as well as a thick layer of dust......

Headed down to reception but it was unattended and the place seemed to have locked up for the night - fortunately I had spotted the linen room so I changed all the bedding and left the grotty set on the floor in the linen room. This may also have been a lucky escape from the dreaded BBs.

 

[kew]

What an interesting read. I've never come across them in the past or at least I've never identified it. I have always thought they were invisible to the naked eye but the previous posts made me do a little googling and I found out the following information;

As adults, bed bugs have oval shape bodies without wings. Before eating, the length of a bed bug is a quarter of an inch and as flat as paper. After eating, they become dark red and bloated. Their eggs are whitish have the shape of a pear and are the size of a pinhead.

I wonder whether a spray of insect killer would be a good precaution?

 

[hotanddusty]

Don’t look for bed bugs but do check the bed out for other people’s hair in the bed that has supposedly been changed and made

 

[blackcat20]

Don’t look for bed bugs but do check the bed out for other people’s hair in the bed that has supposedly been changed and made

Now thats something I've experienced. Getting into bed about midnight, pulled back the sheets to find clumps of dark head hair. Ended up sleeping wrapped in a sarong on top of the covers... Used towels still in the bathroom too :shock:

 

[midnight]

Good old bedbugs. A subject I know very well having been the proprieter of a backpackers in the past. I can tell you that they are the scourge of the accommodation industry.

I can tell you that most establishments treat the problem very seriously, there are of course a few that just don't care but the majority do. You have to remember that these places are a persons livelihood and it is not in their best interest to ignore the problem. We had a policy of immediately closing off a room and having it inspected and fumigatred ASAP. Also part of the policy was if possible to ensure that the guests luggage and clothing were left in the room for fumigation also, we would then organise for washing and drying of their clothes afterwards. The thing that amazed me was the number of people who, when you explained the possibility of their clothing or luggage having been infested couldn't have cared less and wanted to move on to somewhere else, even though it had been explained that they could be transferring the problem to somewhere else.

Of course most people would immediately blame us for the place not being clean but unfortunately the presence of bedbugs actually has very little to with cleanliness. They can be introduced to a perfectly clean room and find a crevace in a mattress or bed base and just lie in wait.
There is also a further problem with fumigation in that it is dependent on where in the life cycle the bed bugs are at. For instance the fumigation did not affect eggs, therefore you could have the room sprayed today and 2 or 3 days later have a new infestation as the eggs hatch. I remember on one occassion we had to have the same room sprayed either 3 or 4 times over around a two week period before we finally got rid of them. From memory the cost was around $70 per fumigation so as I say the proprietor does not go out of their way to make sure that they have bedbugs, most do everything they can to ensure that they are not around. Particularly in this day of being able to post reviews on the internet for everybody to see. Unfortunately most people will of course blame the establishment when in all reality it may well have been themselves or a fellow traveller that introduced the problem.

Unfortunately the situation is an ongoing cycle now with the transfer not just happening in hotel rooms. From what I understand bus and aircraft holds have had to be fumigated at times after infestations have been discovered. If you think about it all it takes is for one BB to move from one piece of luggage to another and the the number of places to be infested has just jumped from one to two so unfortunately they are a very difficult thing to control.

Cogratulations to those who did not share the names of establishments as I don't believe it is in anyones interest to do so unless the management had a total disregard for the problem when reported.

 

[QF WP]

Wow, I consider myself blessed as I have never had them - or lice. haydensydney, thanks for the visualisation - I really needed that

 

[JohnK]

Can't say that I have ever experienced bed bugs but I may not have known based on the description of the symptoms or lack of symptoms.

Have been in some ordinary hotel rooms where I have slept on top of the covers but they are the breaks. Cleaning staff are not always perfect and mistakes do happen. As long as the hotel acknowledges the mistake and does everything possible to rectify the mistake then I have no issues.

 

[Blackadder]

Anyone travelling to North America (and soon, by the looks of things, the UK) may find The Bedbug Registry useful (and/or offputting )

Must say I have stayed at some of the hotels that are mentioned there, and no signs of any bugs.
I guess it is like the TripAdvisor reports, take with a grain of salt.

 

[yo yo ma]

Stayed in a hotel for 3 nights. On the third night was out exploring in forests (and spending time sitting on dirt etc). Later that night noticed some red splotches on my legs, backside, small of my back and on my arms. Looked at them and thought they were pretty strange, but put them down to an allergic reaction to the soil / mud / plants I was around and/or bites from various insects.

Now I'm puzzling... Did I have 2 bed bug infections in a row? Did I bring them from hotel 1 to hotel 2 or was hotel 2 already infected? Did hotel 1 have bedbugs - again, I never saw any blood, but the marks were there.

Any chance they weren't bedbugs... just insects from the forest that got caught on your clothes. They could have then travelled with you to hotel 2... just a possibility as they weren't there for the first 2 nights???

 

[Mal]

Any chance they weren't bedbugs... just insects from the forest that got caught on your clothes. They could have then travelled with you to hotel 2... just a possibility as they weren't there for the first 2 nights???

Hotel 2 definitely had bed bugs. I don't have any clear pictures (too much flash), but they were bed bugs. Still leaning towards Hotel 1 not having bed bugs, and those bites coming from different insects. I should have noticed the blood stains on the sheets from the bites if I was being bitten in Hotel 1.

Anyway, those marks from the bites made determining Bed Bugs more difficult in hotel #2.

 

[yo yo ma]

No worries... just thought it was a possibility, though the ones in hotel 2 had bored into the bedhead, so it is likely they had been there for a while.