Check Your Hotel Room

People are bringing home more than souvenirs in their luggage when they return home from a trip. Bed bugs are hitching rides with travelers on a daily basis. Many people upon checking into a hotel room will leave their luggage on the bed they are not going to sleep in. This allows bed bugs to crawl into that container and travel home with them. Unlike other insects which have specialized appendages for holding onto human hairs, etc, bed bugs are spread most commonly through luggage, furniture, beds, etc. being moved from one place to another. This is why checking your hotel room for evidence of bed bugs should be the first thing you do when you enter any hotel. If the hotel room has a removable headboard, I generally start my inspection there. Bed bugs like tight cracks and crevices, and they like to “nest” near the head region of their unsuspecting host. Look for the bug itself or for small black dots as if someone used a Sharpie to make dots on the backside of the headboard. These are fecal droplets from the last blood meal. Upon finding any of these signs, it is time to leave the hotel room and inform the management. Bed bugs can and are found at any hotel, not just the cheap run down ones. I will soon include more information including photos of bed bugs and signs of their presence, and I welcome questions and personal stories concerning what is becoming a more and more common pest problem.