Little bowls of dirt in the bedroom are not a good idea if you have cats.

I searched but didn't find a relevant thread, so feel free to direct me elsewhere if I'm repeating things.

It was bound to happen eventually to me...and the dreaded moment has finally arrived. Woke up this morning to big, red, itchy welty bites all over my arms and legs. 99% this hotel room has bedbugs and I've been bit...thanks hotel....I'm super pissed...and itchy....but more focused on "what now." Also trying to be realistic here...the hotel might not even know they have this problem...this is a "resort" too ().

I'm due to check-out this morning anyways (travel a lot for work) - staying in another city tonight, then several more stops (/cities/hotels) for the next two weeks before I go home for a few days in mid-October.

I need your suggestions/advice:

1- I do NOT NOT NOT want to bring these home with me. I'm on the road for the next two weeks, then I'm home for a few days before hitting the road again. Anything I can do to stop any potential infestation from coming home with me? How long do bedbugs live in your clothes/suitcase (if they get in there)?

2- I rarely take my stuff out of my suitcase/packing cubes (switching hotels/traveling too often to do that), but OF COURSE MURPHY'S LAW, yesterday evening I took all my clothes out to repack some and was looking for an earring I couldn't find and thought I'd dropped in my bag...and I LEFT ALL MY CLOTHES ON THE OTHER BED IN THE ROOM OVERNIGHT (I have a room with 2 beds). I won't be in a place where I can get something dry cleaned until 2.5 days from now (won't be anywhere long enough), but once I am there, should I get everything dry cleaned? Or is it better NOT to dry clean?

3- I am traveling for work, so I don't need/want a discount, $$ off my bill, etc. -- it's not my money (work is paying). That said, anyone ever been successful in getting a hotel to pay for your dry cleaning after something like this?

4- How can I make sure I am not bringing them with me to the next five hotels I am staying at in the next 2 weeks?

Wish me luck. I am currently sitting on the bathroom toilet while typing this (not to sound weird - I just don't want to sit on anything upholstered in the room right now). When I go downstairs to check out, I'm going to ask to speak with the manager. I'm currently wearing a skirt, so I can show him/her all of the lovely welts/bites up and down my legs (). Don't worry, I'm going to ask to speak with him/her privately and discreetly and explain I don't want remuneration, I just want to help ensure no one else ever has to experience this....

First off, the bites don't always appear instantly, so it's not certain that you were bit at this hotel.

Search for the bugs (or evidence of them) in the room. Google it.

Second, order a PackTite and have it waiting for you at home. Cook everything in the PackTite before taking it inside and the bugs and their eggs will be good and dead.

It wouldn't bother me if you ran downstairs and yelled at the clerk.

I suggest buying a new change of clothes and bring them bagged into the bathroom and off of the floor. When you leave the hotel (soon I hope), shower, change into your new clothes, and leave what you don't need behind.

Arriving home, strip in your garage and keep everything you brought with you in the garage for a period of time until you are sure it's all free of bugs and eggs.

In hundreds of hotel rooms, I only got hit once by bedbugs. It was a light infestation at a non-chain hotel in Budapest. Besides the bites, I could spot the little buggers in the bottom end of the sheets.

Well, that's a terrifying image.

I also happened to be bitten by bed bugs last summer in a Japanese ryokan.
I Googled 'bed bugs' and found some people recommend to put all your stuff in the freeezer for some time, this will kill the bugs and eggs. A number of people told me the same thing.

Luckily, I had not left my stuff around the room and had closed my suitcase, so I was lucky enough not to bring any bugs with me. I just washed everything fom my suitcase when I came back home, and left the suitcase itself open, outdoors, for a few hours, and that was it.

If you encounter beg bugs in any accommodation, you must report this immediately. Otherwise the provider has no chance to do something about it and you may help spreading the critters further.
I had one such encounter in a 4-star resort and rang reception in the middle of the night. The panic scream of the receptionist was followed by immediate relocation into a different, nicer room. We were not billed for our 3-night stay, offered medical treatment, anti-histamin cream and a nice bottle of wine.
The professional pest control man explained the next morning that they had found the colony behind the bed's headboard, and would have to strip the room of all fittings, fumigate, burn the mattress and dryclean all furnishings- a costly 4-week job.
The bugs are tiny and easily hitch rides in people's luggage, and using the metal stand for your suitcases is a good idea. Looking for them on arrival is pretty hopeless, as they hide from light and are not larger than a tiny ant if not filled with your blood.
Unfortunately this can happen in all categories of accommodation and is no reflection on hygiene standards. Given the resort's thorough response, I did not post any negative feedback on review sites.

I haven't read all the previous messages in this thread (although quite a few) so I apologise if this has been mentioned before, but it is always worth considering whether the infestation is actually with animal fleas rather than bedbugs.

This is most likely if the hotel allows pets (mainly dogs) to stay in rooms with guests, and it is very common. The fleas lay eggs in the carpet and when these hatch they release ravenous fleas that will bite any passing animal, including humans!

There are some distinguishing features of this: the bites are mostly on feet/ankles and upper limbs rather than head and shoulders and body; they are said to be randomly distributed rather than in short lines of bites (although I have most certainly personally had cat flea bites in short lines on my ankles and lower legs - from our own cat!); they become itchy very soon after biting; you can often see fleas jumping on to your legs from the carpet; you get bitten at any time of day and not just at night. The bites are said to look different from bedbug bites but, despite being a medic, I am not confident I could reliably tell them apart just by looking at individual ones.

The most important thing is that cat & dog fleas will NOT travel with you or your belongings to your home or the next hotel: you might want to wash clothing etc but there is absolutely no need to throw anything away or freeze it or douse it in noxious chemicals. Cat & dog fleas only travel on cats or dogs.

Hope that helps.

Not been bothered by one ever, but that solution with the special earth, sounds like it should work (couldn't spell it)

With 90-116 hotel nights yearly for short of three decades, never seen any bugs, nor stains that could represent feces. If I had, a report would be mandatory.

While I got 2 dozens severe bites in just a few hours, my husband had none. Maybe you met some bed bugs and they were just not interested in your skin type.

Read the reviews on Amazon.

Just an idea, but wouldn't leaving luggage open in a rental car passenger area parked in the sun for a few hours get the cabin above 120F to kill any bugs? It's probably not good enough in the winter or in an area with lots of prowlers though.

Of course, rental cars can have bed bugs too (and maybe if this catches on more of them will) but you hear about that much less than hotels perhaps because of the temperature swings.