First Encounter with Bedbugs or a Free Night the Hard Way

[foxfirev5]

Well after 30+ years and several thousand nights my DW and I had our first experience with the dreaded bedbugs at a Fort Lauderdale area hotel. Always a fussy traveller we carefully inspect each room upon arrival. Nothing was found out of the ordinary except the a/c didn't work. We moved to another room - 1st strike. After a long day we turned in early, only to be awakened by something in the bed. My DW shot up and covers flew everywhere. We found a small bug which we dismissed and turned on the TV. A few minutes later she observed another bug crawling along the sheet. Sure enough a bedbug - thanks to google research. The evidence was submitted to the front desk who offered no resistance and immediately issued a credit - makes me wonder. We spent the rest of the night in our third room with the lights on and DW doing inspections on the quarter hour.
My take away -a nice clean looking hotel doesn't mean much. I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. Maybe we'll take another look at going back to RVing again

 

[Richard4444]

Just make sure that you don't bring them home. When you do return home, leave your luggage in the garage, and bring each item of clothing into the washing machine or dry cleaner separately. Check every non-clothing item before you bring it in, and then examine and treat (?) your luggage.

 

[SJ1_]

I just made res. in Ft. Lauderdale could you mention the name of the hotel?
little paranoid but better paranoid and safe...

 

[sheehs1]

I always check the room too. I try to check under the mattress, between the sheets and behind the beds.

I don't unpack and make sure my luggage is "off the floor" (just in case). Don't know if it really helps but it makes me feel better about those little critters.

 

[REWahoo]

Maybe we'll take another look at going back to RVing again

+1

We've spent more than 60 days traveling this year and slept in our own bed every night.

 

[HFWR]

Have (thankfully) never encountered bedbugs, but now only set my luggage on the table or desk, never on an upholstered item...

 

[tinlizzy]

We encountered bedbugs for the first time this year, also. On a cruise out of NYC. No bedbugs in the hotel we stayed in but in the cabin on the ship. They refunded our cruise fare and luckily had another cabin to move us into.

They steamed our luggage and clothing - all of it, but I was still paranoid and we called a friend who's an exterminator when we came home. He said steaming (industrial type) works but advised us to take all the clothing to a laundromat (because the dryers get hotter) and dry the dry clothing 30-40 minutes on high heat. He said not to wash the clothes because if the clothing is wet to begin with it may not get hot enough to kill the bedbugs. I laundered them normally when I got home.

Spraying the luggage with 99% isopropyl alcohol will kill bedbugs at every stage. I still left it in the (detached) garage for months after.

That was in May and no bedbugs here at home. I'm thankful we found the bedbugs or I might have brought them home. We were noticing bites but thought it was from sand fleas or mosquitos on the islands.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Bedbugs are a sign of the times. Better get used to it.

When people could use persistent spray (like DDT) bedbugs could be gotten rid of permanently from a room. Now someone sprays (with environmentally friendly spray) and the effects only last a month or so until the spray breaks down.

It's not the hotel, every hotel has this issue. In fact one room may have the bugs and the rest of the hotel is fine. They'll spray the room when they discover the problem but if someone brings hitchhiker bugs back the problem will recur.

 

[foxfirev5]

Thanks to all for the advice. Fortunately we didn't have our luggage unpacked as this was a quick overnight. However the luggage goes in the garage as SOP.
As far as naming the hotel I would suggest checking out the bedbug registry prior to making your hotel plans

 

[rodi]

Someone I know works for a high end lawfirm in NYC. They found bedbugs in the associates offices. My friend was completely freaked out.

 

[obgyn65]

My first encounter with bedbugs was at the Marriott hotel on NY Broadway. I called to complain, and no one ever called me back. I have never gone back.

My take away -a nice clean looking hotel doesn't mean much. I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. Maybe we'll take another look at going back to RVing again

 

[NW-Bound]

We encountered bedbugs for the first time this year, also. On a cruise out of NYC. No bedbugs in the hotel we stayed in but in the cabin on the ship. They refunded our cruise fare and luckily had another cabin to move us into.

They steamed our luggage and clothing - all of it...

My! It will not be long now until passengers boarding cruise ships must go through delousing to prevent infestation.

Good grief! Airplanes next?

 

[MooreBonds]

My encounter with bedbugs was in New Zealand, about 12 days into a 30 day trip around the country with my gf at the time. Even though it was a hostel that was just slightly on the grungy side, it hasn't soured my opinion of them ("them" being hostels, not bedbugs).

Of course, at the time, I was distraught and beside myself to the point of almost saying "screw this" and simply finding the next flight home out of Wellington the next day.

I discovered them when I went to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, and happened to gaze down and absentmindedly pick out a tiny, whitish cotton fuzz ball from the nether regions.

Only it wasn't a fuzz ball.

When a thorough search uncovered a second trespasser, I went from cautious hesitation to full-on red alert.

I was leaving that hostel the next morning anyway, and made a plan for arriving at the next city later that day to hit the showers ASAP and take a razor to the "old growth forest" area of my body in preparation of laying waste with an assault of lice shampoo.

Ended up picking 10 of the damned things off of me that had stuck to my skin "down there".

Ugh. Hope I never have another experience like that!

 

[NW-Bound]

I have never stayed in a hostel, but now I am afraid of travel (and I have been a travel lover).

Talk about parasites, even scarier than lice and bedbugs who stay on top of the skin are scabies, which burrow under the skin. OMG!

I think I will be retreating to my boonies home to be a hermit, with as little contact with the outside world as possible. I still need to get groceries, and will have to figure out a way to do that safely.

 

[kumquat]

You're probably ok. I think that bedbugs and lice 'down there' need more contact than you'll get at the grocery store. Not knowing your habits, however, YMMV.

 

[NW-Bound]

How 'bout scabies? That's scarier! They spread by contact.



Just joking.

 

[tinlizzy]

My! It will not be long now until passengers boarding cruise ships must go through delousing to prevent infestation.

Good grief! Airplanes next?

The sad part is that I asked them if it were possible to treat our clothes and luggage before moving us to another cabin. They didn't seem the least bit concerned about our belongings potentially carrying the bedbugs to another cabin (and the next guests).

 

[NW-Bound]

Perhaps the bed bugs tend to hide in beds, hence their name.

Now if the news gets out that infected passengers get a free cruise, I wonder if some unscrupulous people may just intentionally bring the bugs aboard to get a freebie. This scares me!

...happened to gaze down and absentmindedly pick out a tiny, whitish cotton fuzz ball from the nether regions...

Wait a minute! Bed bugs supposedly look like very small cockroaches. See photo I linked from Wikipedia.

 

[MooreBonds]

Wait a minute! Bed bugs supposedly look like very small cockroaches. See photo I linked from Wikipedia.

Well, technically, I had managed to pick up a cast of crabs. Some people lump them in with 'bed bugs', since I (along with a few million others across the globe) managed to catch mine from dirty linens. I didn't realize bed bugs looked like the picture above - they're definitely different from the buggers I had (in the midst of my anguish, I was briefly amazed that they did, indeed, look like miniature crabs with large front 'claws')

 

[omni550]

Heard on the news here the other day, that bedbugs had been found in one of the small meeting rooms in the library of a nearby city.

omni

 

[freebird5825]

Long ago and far away...methinks it was perhaps 1983 or so...
I visited a college roommate and her BF in Queens NY. Their apartment (and building) was infested with cockroaches. The little buggers were invisible by day. Once the sun set, it was pure pandemonium.
When I returned home. my husband told me to leave my luggage in the front yard, i.e. not bring it into the house. He sprayed the dickens out of my suitcase with Raid. After 2 days of chemical warfare, he opened the suitcase. There were still a few survivors.
We burned the suitcase and contents in our outdoor fireplace. I replaced the clothing.

Moral of the story?

Just burn it!

 

[Nords]

Living in a tropical paradise makes you a bit casual about bugs scampering around your livingroom. Centipedes generally stay clear of humans (not always) and I've only seen one scorpion in over two decades. Usually the geckos clean up after the mosquitoes, flying termites, and other invaders. No worries.

Several years ago we went to a taekwondo camp. We were there for three days of sparring clinics and other hijinks, with me in the men's cabin and my daughter in one of the girls' cabins. Luggage, clothing, sleeping bags, everything went to camp with us and then came home. Taekwondo gear was always laying around to dry in the sun.

About a week after we'd come home from the camp my spouse had a line of tiny bruises on one bicep. She's always getting bitten by mosquitoes and stung by bees, and this was another mystery bite. It was unusual (a line of bites rather than just one) but it didn't raise any alarm.

A day or two later our daughter came into the kitchen and said "I found this in my bed." I looked it up in our copy of "What's Biting Me?" and sure enough it was a bedbug. I explained it to our daughter (as we were stripping her bed linens and spraying insecticide on her bed frame) and she said "Oh, those were crawling all over our cabin at taekwondo camp. I thought they were cockroaches!"

Spouse had been sitting on our daughter's bed reading a book with her, and several of the critters must have hitched a ride. We found a couple more bedbugs in the master bedroom and quickly killed them off too. When bedbugs bite they usually inject a local anesthetic around their bite, so humans rarely even wake up during the experience. If I was getting bitten, I didn't bruise.

I brought a sample baggie of the critters with me to our next taekwondo practice and struck up a conversation with one of the chattier Moms of a girl who had also been in the girls' cabin. She got on her cell phone with the other parents. We found that about a dozen girls had brought bedbugs home to share with their entire families.

I left voicemails and e-mails for the camp. No response. Neither the dojang nor Ohana Nords have been back since.

 

[JoeWras]

Well, technically, I had managed to pick up a cast of crabs. Some people lump them in with 'bed bugs', since I (along with a few million others across the globe) managed to catch mine from dirty linens. I didn't realize bed bugs looked like the picture above - they're definitely different from the buggers I had (in the midst of my anguish, I was briefly amazed that they did, indeed, look like miniature crabs with large front 'claws')

Lice are easy to deal with by comparison. And it is a sure sign that your hostel was not keeping up linen cleanliness.

The problem with bedbugs is the linens don't matter. They can clean them all they want. The suckers stay in the nooks and crannies of the mattress, bed frame, wall sockets, headboard, pictures above headboard, etc.

 

[NW-Bound]

Well, technically, I had managed to pick up a cast of crabs. Some people lump them in with 'bed bugs', since I (along with a few million others across the globe) managed to catch mine from dirty linens. I didn't realize bed bugs looked like the picture above - they're definitely different from the buggers I had (in the midst of my anguish, I was briefly amazed that they did, indeed, look like miniature crabs with large front 'claws')

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the crab louse! Photo from the Wikipedia.

You can read all about your potential guest here, Crab louse - Wikipedia, but briefly, this louse likes to stay in moist skin folds like the groin, armpits, and even mustaches and beards (Ha, I just remember a vulgar joke about this!).

 

[BigNick]

(Ha, I just remember a vulgar joke about this!)

Is that the one whose punchline is "I just ended up in Burt Reynolds' moustache again" ?