Bed Bugs - tips/hints ?
 

I travel every week for work, so bed bugs are a concern of mine.

Im in a strange bed 3 nights a week (sometimes 3 different beds, since I am doing multiple stays) so I am looking for tips on how to prevent them from tagging along with me back home.

I know the usual, check the bed spread for brown (blood) stains, etc.
But with the constant changing of sheets, plus with the bed bugs potentially hiding in walls/behind picture frames/etc...its not foolproof.

Here's some ideas I've had.
1. Instead of putting bags and clothes on the bed (I usually put my stuff on the spare double bed) hang tshirts, jeans, etc in the closet.
2. Put other items on the table.
3. Put my bag on the "bag caddy" (that metal folding thing that you open). I heard that bed bugs have trouble crawling on metal, so the metal legs might keep them off.
4. if there is no "bag caddy" then I put my bag close to the door. I assume the bed bugs hang around the bed, since thats where the people are.

I even thought about putting my bag in the bathtub at night, since bed bugs mainly come out in the pre dawn hours.

So basically the only thing on the bed is me (bedside table - cellphone) so even if I get bitten, thats only for 1 night, when I leave, I wont be bringing them along.

Any other ideas/thoughts?

Thanks

I would not put any clothes on any bed in a hotel. My wife and I just spent 3 weeks traveling through Germany and Italy - all the places we stayed were very nice hotels, and B&B's, all of then looked "spotless". One night my wife was bitten by bed bugs, strangely enough I did not recieve any, or at least did not have a reaction to any bites. We had twin beds that were pushed together to make a "king" as they do alot in Europe. Anyway, just one night, and she was covered on her arm, back and hands with bites. Some of them actually became infected and we had to visit a doctor to get an antibiotic cream. Needless to say, for the rest of the trip we were both paranoid. We did not report the incident, because to be quite truthful with all the train trips and hotels we stayed in we were positively certain where these were "picked up". When we returned home we vacuumed all our suitcases, washed clothes in hot water and did not put our suitcases under our bed where we usually stored them.

Ok, so nothing on the bed.

Anything else?

I read that you should look at the mattress and particularly in the seams because the bugs hide in there. I try to do this when I can remember.

Arggh... Why did I read this thread? I'm currently laying on a hotel bed about to go to bed... :mad:

Now I'm gonna feel like I'm not sleeping alone tonight :(

I've seen recommended elsewhere something that I follow -- I place my luggage in plastic bags (sealed) [the leaf-lawn trash bags are big enough for my biggest luggage] while in hotel room. I also place my dirty clothes in sealed plastic bags and when home, wash in hot water and dry on high heat.

I'd rather the cost of plastic bags than having to deal with an infestation at home. New York magazine had a very frightening article about how tough it is to deal with them a while back.

So do you use a new bag everyday, or reuse them?
I assume you throw the bags out in the hotel room when you leave.

New bags every trip (if I stay multi-days in the same hotel room then same trash bag -- I open it, get out what I want, and then close it again, if I switch to a different hotel, then a new trash bag) and yes, I throw out the trash bags when i leave the hotel room. :D I sometimes wonder what housekeeping thinks when seeing my trash bagged luggage and the trash bags in the trash when I leave, but I'd rather a few :confused: housekeepers than bring bugs home with me. I also don't believe that I'm the only person who travels with trash bags so they've probably seen it all before. There was an infestation at a FOX studio last year(?) that got some press -- I remember that one of the employees would change her clothes before getting home....I would too!

I heard this too, but they can hide anywhere...in the power sockets, behind picture frames, etc...

I heard there are some sprays you can use on the bed.

I have been travelling with 2 bed sheets and for the pillow as well. I put these over the hotel made up bed. I take the blanket they give you on the plane. ( I only travel international but not that often). I sometimes take a second blanket as recently I have had an extra seat next to me.
I sleep with heavy athletic socks on my feet.

I may depending on the hotel next time, bring an air matress and sleep on the floor. This may not work for you as you travel.

Whats the purpose of the extra bed sheets?

To be honest, I have no problem getting bit for one night.
My concern is bringing them home...then you get bit forever

I eat only chocolate bars and cover myself in tissues to protect against germs. In all seriousness, if the thought of bed bugs makes you so paranoid that you are bringing extra sheets with you, then it is time for you to change jobs, so you don't have to travel. There are freshly laundered sheets on your bed anyways, if they are going to get through 2 sheets, then they will get through 3.

Any decent chain hotel will have policies for housekeeping to check for bed bugs. I stay in 2-3 hotels most weeks. I have not run into them.

I'd give the same advice to someone with extreme paranoia of flying. Time to not travel if the thought of bed bugs makes you that crazy.

You all know that people have farted, pee'd, had sex, drooled, etc, on those beds, walked on the floor in germ laden shoes and feet and used the shower in the room. Everything in your home bathroom is covered in fecal bacteria. Everything.

You're better off insisting that people shut the top of the toilet when they flush than worry about bed bugs.

It sure seems like there are a lot more frequent travellers afraid of bed bugs than there are bed bugs. If it were a HUGE problem, at least half of the flyertalk community would have tales of woe.

That said, it does seem to happen, so I assume reasonable precautions are appropriate. I don't put clothes or suitcases on beds, and I try to keep the suitcases zipped up and on a table at night.

My kids did get lice a couple years ago, and it was a pain in the neck to get rid of them (vegetable oil in their hair under a shower cap for several nights!). So I'd rather not deal with bed bugs. But unless you want to just stay home, I don't think there's much more to be done than just take reasonable precautions.

I only travel once a year. Used to be more often with my last job. I've stayed at one star hotels so that may be why. The Cornerhouse and the Brouwer.

I think that the measures I use help. I don't mind taking these precautions. It doesn't hurt.

...or you could just ante up and stay in hotels that don't make you want to sleep in your clothes.

As far as I know, there isn't any evidence that "better" hotels have fewer bed bugs. Every time you read a published article on the subject, they're eager to tell you how someone who stayed in a fancy hotel got bedbugs. I dunno. I stay in whatever -- tents, hostels, dumps, fleabags...and all the way to five star suites bigger than my entire house plus garage plus yard with huge multi-player hot tubs overlooking the view. I have not encountered bed bugs. I don't know if there is a genetic component (resistance) or if I've just been lucky. Knock on Wood.

I do not know why sleeping in your clothes or carting around extra sheets would protect you against bed bugs.

I think there is a such a thing as sensitivity to the strong detergents used by some hotel laundries. I bring my own pillow case and I'm fine. If a break out was caused by bed bugs, I don't know why a pillow case would stop them.

And worse:
 

from my experience, as reported in a different thread, I'm fairly certain I got bitten while snoozing transpac upstairs on a UA 747 flight NRT-LAX in the new config lie-flat business seats.
At least that's where I assume the bites happened since I noticed them immediately after arriving home; my travel companion was not affected.
At least one other poster contributed a similar experience, egad!
In the past we'd stayed at the same hotels as before and after this particular flight and NEVER had a problem in the past.
Never felt the bites on backs of legs mostly, no itch, no scratch, just raspberry-colored, random spots that weren't there when I started out...:td:

Upon returning from a trip I make sure to wash all my clothes, dirty of not. In addition, my suitcase goes into Quarantine in my basement until the next trip.

Check the mattress seams, you can also turn the covers back and put your laptop (turned on) on the sheet. Turn the lights by the bed off for a few minutes, maybe while you're brushing your teeth and washing your face then turn the lights back on and check the sheets. The warmth of your laptop might make them expose themselves. Use the luggage rack, if there isn't one you can put your suitcase on the ironing board.
I've been bitten twice, both were very nice hotels. If you do get bitten do not take your suitcase into the house! Unpack it outside and carry your clothes directly into the washer and treat everything!! Trust me, you don't want them in your house!

When I return from a trip in the winter I leave my bag out overnight in the sub zero temps....that should kill them. :)

Bed Bugs - tips/hints ?
 

Apparently just subzero is not enough. Some significant amount of extended cold is required.

I know I get confused and paranoid about these critters. For example, is an itchy spot a mosquito bite, a bedbug bite, or just dry skin? Are the insides of my eyeball itching because - why? Would I really get symmetrical itching on the backs of my knees from bedbugs (I think that was dry skin in a dry climate). How do you know it's bedbugs or not with random itching?

I was creeped out several months ago when I saw a mattress leaning against the wall of my closest coffeeshop, with the sign "Caution Bedbugs!". No one has thrown away that mattress yet, although it was moved behind a dumpster. Just writing this post is making my ear canals itch (very unlikely to be bedbugs ;)).

I see this thread is back.

The topic has obviously gotten a lot of attention in the media over the years, probably because it seems particularly gross.

That said, Flyertalkers (including me) tend to travel a lot, and we don't seem to get that many reports of bed bug problems. So it can't be that common. Right?

I hope. :)

I've actually heard more reports of bedbugs from friends or friends of friends who do not travel very much. These are so upsetting that it doesn't bear thinking about (especially where they involve infested apartment buildings).

I don't know what the statistical likelihood is that a traveler will bring home bedbugs if he or she is in a room with some. I'm not sure how that would be calculated.

Yeah, some "expert" should probably do a study of flyertalkers and bed bugs. I'm sure I've slept in more than 500 beds (probably more) in the past 10 years and never had a bed bug problem (at least that I'm aware of!). I've taken normal precautions -- like I don't leave luggage/clothing on beds -- but nothing else. That seems to be the general experience of our online community. So what's the real deal with this? Beats me.

From backpackers to 5 stars had a bugs encounter only once, in the filthier hotel in Doha, Qatar.
Never brought any sheet with me, just lately got used to carry a pillowcase from home.

You can also check bedbugregistry.com. Not foolproof, though, since I'm sure a lot of bed bug incidents go unreported. Will give you a *little* piece of mind, though, if your hotel isn't on the list.

I wonder how many "bed bug" reports are actually fleas, or spiders, or some other type of bug. Not every bite is going to be a bed bug. That said, my bags stay in the garage and clothes are all (clean or not) put right into the washer.

No other way to really do it. I have been doing two hotel nights/week for the last ten years (a lot of that in NYC), and I have yet to see a bed bug or a bite (knock on wood).

Yeah, I don't even do all that (I don't usually wash the clean clothes in my suitcase). I don't do that many nights in NYC, but otherwise your travel is like mine and it would seem inevitable that we'd have had bed bugs at some point by now. And, as you can see by the limited comments on this thread, this doesn't seem to be a huge problem for flyertalkers. So the mystery of the non-existent bed bugs continues. :)

That would be my wife...
 

I racked up enough points on Southwest is 2011 to earn a Companion Pass (a free seat for my companion anytime I fly on Southwest), but my wife accompanied me on exactly ZERO trips. Now, some of those were to places like GSP and OKC, but one was to SJU. Every time I went somewhere, I let her her know when I was booking the ticket, but she never took me up on it.

I don't consider myself particularly reckless with regard to travel risks, but put me down as one more (moderately) frequent traveler who has never had an issue with bed bugs.

I had bed bugs in my NYC apartment a few years ago, most likely picked up from a share house in the hamptons or a hotel.

It was one of the worst experiences of my life (which I should probably be happy about). It was hell getting rid of them, even with professional help, and pretty expensive (bed bug insurance for a business idea?). In the grand scheme of life, bites that are exactly like mosquito bites and do not carry disease shouldn't be so traumatizing, but the mental toll of coordinating cleanup for months, along with not being able to sleep well for the entire time is quite taxing.

For a year after getting rid of them I took all precautions when traveling, including keeping my suitcase in a plastic bag at hotels, leaving the case outside when I returned home until I was completely ready to fry it and its contents in a purpose-build heating system designed to kill anything that may have tagged along. That process would take several hours, every trip. I eventually ended up purchasing four of the heaters for various houses/ apartments. The worst was when I traveled with golf clubs because there was no way to fit them into the heater, so I'd usually leave them outside for a few weeks and hope they would crawl out to find food. I was probably kidding myself though because, apparently, those things can basically hibernate for months without eating, waiting until they sense heat again.

I would also dry-clean my business suits/ sport coats after every trip, which just kills the life of them and really doesn't even guarantee any bugs would be gone - I just hoped any would crawl out before being returned to me. I also made my girlfriend take similar precautions, which she thought was totally ridiculous (and it probably was - it's bordline impossible to live that way unless one is a complete freak). The whole thing, from time with bedbugs to the time I was able to forget about them, many months later, put tremendous stress on my relationship but it worked out eventually.

I think the way to operate is to keep bags away from beds since the bugs like staying next to a source of food, and to keep bags closed as much as possible. That will reduce the likelihood of getting bed bugs, but in order to really feel safe, you have to be a crazy person and it takes over your life, especially if you travel a fair amount.

On a related note, I personally believe body chemistry has a big effect on either one's attractiveness to the bugs or the severity of skin reactions to their bites. Throughout my whole ordeal, my girlfriend was never bitten, but I was bitten perhaps a hundred times. I also was able to catch a few of the critters and show them to a professional, who confirmed they were bed bugs, so I eliminated the possibility of a weird skin disease (which I definitely spent an inordinate amount of time investigating, further evidencing the craziness of getting bed bugs).

Sorry for the downer of a story, but I guess the fact that I got through it means it's a happy ending...

allow nature in to fix the problem
 

Natural predators of bed bugs have been mostly eliminated from hotel bedrooms except in some very tropical locations. I favor a natural balance and allow creatures that are indigenous to the area to continue to live in my space. Spiders and lizards eat bed bugs.

I saw this suitcase a while back... thought it was pretty interesting (and, since I've yet to have problems with bed bugs, ridiculous):
http://www.thermalstrike.com/product...of-luggage.asp

UP!

Is there any spray that really works to prevent bedbugs when staying in a hotel ?

If you are suspicious of bedbugs, you have to take all the bedding off the bed and look carefully in any seams and welts of the mattress and box spring where they hide. If you find any bugs or dots of blood, just move. They can hide other places but there's only so much you can check.

Bedbugs come out while you sleep because they are attracted by the the carbon dioxide you breathe out. The smell of the sprays works by making them them hide out, so they do work somewhat. Spraying rubbing alcohol will work and does no harm. Bedbugs are resistant to the usual active ingredient in home pesticides so they just hide out but are not killed if you set off bug bombs or spray stuff like Raid. You wouldn't be able to use a pesticide and then sleep there right away, anyway.

If your suitcase might be carrying bedbugs home, wrap it in a big plastic garbage bag and sit it in the sun all day before you being it in the house. The heat buildup inside will kill them. Off course, this only works on a sunny hot day. Carefully and slowly running a hot blow dryer over your suitcase supposedly will work, but I would just throw out the suitcase myself. The heat of the dryer will work on your clothes.

I leave my bags on the table/bag rack and I leave my clothes in it or on my clothesline. Standard precautions of checking beds and linens before bed but aside from that there's not a lot you can do about bed bugs.

No, so don't waste any of your money on them.

Count me among those who never considered that I might encounter a bed bug after a long traveling career involving a multitude of countries and every type of property from hostels to high end resorts. I had the same thoughts an many of the posters here - if bed bugs were that ubiquitous I would have seen one by now.

However, I was finally bitten (repeatedly) a couple of months ago and I still have the scars on my arms and chest. I can only imagine the trauma that people bitten on the face must have. I learned my lesson and now I check.

Yeah, we're not entirely sure, but it seems that my wife was bitten on her ankle by bed bugs during our summer visit to an Amazon camp in Peru (since it was the Amazon, we're not 100% sure). After several weeks, the bites are not entirely healed.

Mercifully, it does not appear that we brought any bugs home with us. I could see how that would be a huge PITA. It's one thing to be bitten once, but an entirely different problem to have recurring bites.

EDIT: BTW, if her bites are from bed bugs, the odds would still seem extremely long that anyone would encounter them. My wife and I have undoubtedly slept in more than 300 different beds in the past 5 years, and 600 beds in 10 years. We don't leave clothing and suitcases on the beds, and we try to keep our suitcases closed in hotels. Other than perhaps glancing at the sheets before climbing in bed, that's all we do.

Yeah, I did the mental math also and you are correct about this. I spent a number of nearly entire years on the road and never had a problem. The odds are indeed slim, but travel enough and eventually you'll tempt fate.

It is likely that bites on the ankle are not from bedbugs. Since bedbugs are drawn to the carbon dioxide you breathe out, their bites are typically on the upper body. Bites around the lower legs, feet and backs of knees are more likely to be chiggers, fleas, sand fleas (which are really crustaceans), spiders, etc.

Interesting. We've considered whether they might be fleas, but didn't think of chiggers. Her bites are slooowly going away, so we didn't think it was worth getting a professional medical opinion on it. Our medical insurance has a high deductible, so we're probably looking at about $150 to see a dermatologist -- hard to justify when she doesn't seem to need any "care" and a possible better diagnosis of the bite won't really help (we're not heading back to the Amazon soon!).

EDIT: From this long thread on tripadvisor, it appears that my wife was bit by sandflies in Machu Picchu, which we visited before the Amazon.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic...co_Region.html