Hotels Can Have Bed Bugs Too

The resurgence of the population of bed bugs during the last fifteen years has been blamed on the higher number of people travelling on long-haul holidays and the elevated amount of immigration from Asia and Africa.. 

It is not that individuals carry the bed bugs home on their bodies, but bedbugs might have laid eggs in the tourists’ garments or the bed bugs may have taken up hiding in the suitcases.

In this fashion they are carried home, and being very hardy to temperature change they do well in their new home country. If the carriers are on vacation, then the bed bugs could easily become unloaded into the hotel. This is how bed bugs can become dispersed unknowingly by humans.

You see, bed bugs do not flourish in a dirty environment necessarily. Bed bugs do not mind whether you dropped a piece of pastry on the floor last week and did not sweep it up. They do not eat what we like, even if they are hungry. They only eat blood.

If you live like this, then you will attract mice or rats, cockroaches and ants, but not bed bugs. It is a mistake to think that bedbugs like dirt and rubbish. They most likely prefer it quite clean actually, but they do have to have cracks and crevices to hide in, but there are lots of those in most accomodation.

They like to squeeze behind the skirtings and other woodwork. They also like damaged plaster, peeling wall paper and damaged mattresses. Because they are so thin, they can get into almost any gap. 

This means that any hotel may be infested with bedbugs, the Ritz, the Carlton, Holiday Inn – any of them.

This is the problem for us. If it was merely run-down, unclean hotels that had bed bugs, we could avoid them, but you simply should not judge a book by its cover.

There are ways of checking your room though. Look out for small bugs that look a little like an apple seed. Look in the hems of the chairs and check the mattress, if there are any tears in it, have it exchanged. 

You can also test by lying on the bed to warm it up and then throw back the bed clothes swiftly. You might spot a couple of fleet-footed insects running for cover. They are bedbugs.

Obviously, the first thing you have to do is tell the hotel manager. If you are not happy that he or she is taking you seriously, move or / and ring the environmental health department of the local authority.

Whether you find bedbugs or not, they still might be around to hitch a ride back home with you, so spray or dust your suitcase with a powerful pesticide before you go home and to be really secure, have your clothes boil washed, because bedbugs will not survive temperatures over 45c. 

If you cannot do this on the last day of your vacation, be sure you do it when you get home, but make sure that you do not give anything you have brought with you a chance to get out and reproduce.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on several topics, but is currently involved with the Dust Mite Pillow Cover.. If you would like to know more, go over to our website at Bed Infestation.