Stayed in Hotel with Bed Bugs
Always search your hotel room for bed bugs. Use a flashlight when searching your hotel room for these critters. You can also use the one on your phone. Adult bedbugs are wingless, reddish-brown and oval-shaped.
Look for rusty dark marks on the walls, on the sheets or around the bedsprings and headboard. These rusty dark marks may be from the shells or feces of the bugs. You should also check the furniture, cracks in the wall, mattress, and box spring.
Signs of Bed Bugs
You may not find the actual bugs because they are small and can hide anywhere. If you see bites on your body, there may be bed bugs in your hotel room. Other signs of bedbug infestations include blood on the sheets and signs of crushed bed bugs like their shells or the actual bugs.
What to Do If You Find Bed Bugs in Your Hotel Room?
- Pack up your belongings and keep it as far away from the infested area as possible.
- Stay calm and inform the hotel staff about the matter. Ask to be transferred to a different room. It should be far from your previous room.
- Seal your belongings in a plastic bag and wash them on a hot cycle immediately. Another option is to store your belongings in a garbage bag and keep it in the freezer overnight to kill bedbugs.
- You can also call a pest management professional to treat non-washable items.
What to Do Upon Returning Home
Keep calm. Not every person who stays in an infested room will take these critters home. However, you should still act as if you have picked up a bed bug.
- Bed bugs are most likely to invade your bed, so keep your stuff away from your bed.
- Keep your items on the luggage rack to prevent bed bugs, if there is any, from infesting your stuff.
- Keep your luggage on an outdoor porch or in the garage upon returning home.
- Take out your clothes and put them in a garbage bag so that you do not spread bed bugs.
- Place the laundry in the washing machine and run them on the high-temperature cycle for 30 minutes. After that, run them in the dryer on the hot setting for 30 minutes to kill bed bugs as well as their eggs.
- Tie up the empty garbage bag and throw it out immediately after dumping your laundry in the washing machine.
- Send your sweaters and suits to the dry cleaner as you cannot wash these items in hot water.
- Isolate shoes, toiletry, suitcase, and remaining items outdoors until they can be treated with insecticide, heat or cold.
- You can place your items in a chest freezer for 1 to 2 days to get rid of bed bugs. If you want to kill bed bugs using high heat, you only need to put your stuff in plastic bags in a bed bug heater and raise the temperature to 120⁰ for an hour.
- Pest management professionals usually place non-washable items in 2-mil thick plastic bags with fumigant strips for 2 days to kill bed bugs.
Do these things and be able to keep bed bugs away from your home and get rid of them before they inside your home after your stay in a hotel.
Conclusion
Staying in a hotel is fun until you see a bed bug crawling on your bed. You do not want to bring them home. Consider calling a pest control company. You should also quarantine your stuff until you are certain that you have not brought bed bugs back with you.
If you want to use bed bug sprays, only use one that is registered by the Environmental Protection Agency for controlling bed bugs. Do not use outdoor pesticides inside your home. Avoid direct contact with the pesticide. Bed bugs are a nuisance, so follow the tips stated above to prevent a serious bed bug infestations.
