Bed bugs?!?!?

[Garga]

My dh is returning from a geological field trip for college. (He's 42 and getting a master's degree.) His roommate at the hotel thinks he might have been bitten by bedbugs last night.

 

I've heard before (and have been reading online) that bedbugs are VERY hard and VERY expensive to treat if you get them in your house. They are also known (very well known) for crawling into luggage and coming home with people.

 

Anyone have advice or experience with bedbugs before DH brings in his luggage?!?!?

 

I've told him to put the luggage in the shed until we can unpack it. Anything else we can do? I cannot afford to replace my carpets and mattresses and even couches and stuff (as sometimes has to be done if they spread through the house--which is common.) This isn't even about the icky factor. I just can't afford to replace all my furnishings.

[hornblower]

I would put all the clothes immediately in the laundry, wash & dry on hot. I would keep it in plastic bags outside until you can put it in the wash.

 

Put the luggage in plastic bag & seal it with tape - I'd probably double bag it. Diatomaceous earth kills them I think so you could put that in the bag with them. I suspect a good steam vacuuming of the luggage & or steam cleaning it with one of those little hand units would be good too.

 

(ps. I've also been a geology field school widow in the past. :D But luckily all dh brought home was rocks, rocks, rocks. Look honey! Look at this specimen!)

[Laurie4b]

I have read online that you can check for bedbugs by looking at the bare mattress. If there are little brown spots, it's indicative of bedbugs. You can google bedbugs in images and see what it looks like. You can probably also find good info by googling bedbugs. Or you could call your agricultural extension service. They have excellent info on just about anything!

 

Spiders can also leave lots of bites in one night. I hope it was spiders!

[eternalknot]

I stay in hotels all over the world, as part of my job. Bed bugs are the one paranoia I have in life.

 

I second the advice by Hornblower. Laurie4b also had great advice, which I'll add to -- bedbugs are attracted to warmth (hence, the biting of warm, sleeping bodies!) so as soon as I get into a room I will set up my laptop on the corner of the mattress, turn off the lights, and shower or go downstairs to eat for a bit of time. The laptop gets warm enough to draw out any bed bugs that might be lurking (you can turn on the sidelamp real quickly, but I use a flashlight. The light from a cell phone would also work).

 

I never unpack my clothes at a hotel, except for hanging my work outfit. Always keep every zipper zipped (don't leave the suitcase flap open) unless you're actively retrieving something from thet bag. Don't set it out near beds or sofas, always place it on the hard desk or collapsable rack (near a wall away from bedding and sofas).

 

I've only found bedbugs in two hotels, in over 20 years of frequent travel. Both times I caught the bugs after dinner but before I had unpacked. I got new rooms (not that I slept well in those!) and have never been bitten, or brought any home.

 

I rarely bring my suitcase inside, and definitely never bring it into my bedroom or lay it on my bed to pack/unpack. Wheels are dirty, case is icky from hotels. I usually leave it in my car for a day or so (heat kills everything at some point!) and I pack/unpack in the laundry room. My suitcase stays there, completely zipped, between trips.

[JennyD]

I would put all the clothes immediately in the laundry, wash & dry on hot. I would keep it in plastic bags outside until you can put it in the wash.

 

Put the luggage in plastic bag & seal it with tape - I'd probably double bag it.

 

This is spot-on. We had bedbugs a few years ago (brought home from the hospital when I had #2, believe it or not) and while it wasn't as bad as the nightmares you hear about -- we caught the problem immediately and it was relatively straightforward to solve - it was still Not Fun. Whenever DH travels this is exactly what we do.

 

Your husband should also take off the clothes he's wearing and take a shower -- put those clothes into the wash as well. Anything nonwashable can be put in the dryer on high heat.

[eternalknot]

Have you ever found any in the hotels?

 

 

Twice, in twenty years. One was a 2-star chain, the other a 4-star chain. The bugs don't discriminate ::shudders::

 

Gross as that is, I still think that's a pretty good record considering how much travel goes on in this day and age!

[sbgrace]

What I found in my research was that two hot dryer cycles (two, high heat) will kill them. A regular wash and dry cycle won't.

 

I would not bring the luggage in. I would wash the clothes he's wearing and packed immediately as above and have him shower immediately.

 

Shoes are a potential issue too. Anything you can't dry on hot can be frozen but it takes quite a while to kill them freezing.

[Tree House Academy]

Oh heavens! With my dh traveling quite a bit, this is always a worry of mine. I am definitely going to share the above things withhim. Wonderful advice.

 

P.S. He has never brought home bed bugs either. :)

[keptwoman]

When I get into a hotel room the first thing I do every time is rip back the sheet and check the mattress corners. However, I'm going to add the laptop routine, that's a wee piece of genius!

So far, so good, we've never found them.

[hillfarm]

...hmmm...I wonder if bagging the luggage in a black plastic trash bag and then leaving it for several days in a sunny spot in a hot car would generate enough heat to deal with the problem? This might work for shoes also, and any other things that you wouldn't really want to put into a hot clothes dryer.