Garga Posted October 13, 2018 Share Posted October 13, 2018 (edited) Years ago, my husband went on a business trip and brought back bedbugs into our home. I posted about the whole thing here—about discovering them and exterminating them and the HUGE HASSLE and expense that it was. Ever since then, if we’ve stayed in a hotel, we bag everything in large black trashbags and label the bags and live out of the bags while we’re in the hotel instead of suitcases. We’re super careful about wearing only one outfit in the hotel (dress right before we step out of the room) and any garment that was worn in the room gets heat treated in a super hot dryer when we get home. We visually inspect and wipe any item that comes out of the bag (toothpaste tubes, books,etc.) And I can tell you, it’s a PAIN living out of black trash bags and changing clothes every time we set foot in the hotel room. So, now I’m on a mini-vacation at the beach and I thought, “We’ve never seen bedbugs since all those years ago...I’m not going to worry about it this time.” I didn’t pack stuff in black bags (though my dh brought a roll of bags with us), and we spread our stuff out all over the hotel room. And sure enough, in the morning when we woke up, there will little black dots on the pillowcases (bedbugs leave a trail of dots behind when they feed on you) and on our pjs and I found a LIVE BEDBUG RUNNING AROUND INSIDE MY PILLOWCASE. We caught the live bug and showed it to the front desk. They didn’t seem surprised at all. GRRRRR. I just had to share the horror with you guys. ?. And I will never, ever, ever trust a hotel room again. It’s back to living out of black trash bags whenever we’re in a hotel in the future. I would seriously recommend to anyone who stays in hotels to put everything into thick black trashbags, label the bags, and keep them closed with twistie ties the entire time. And pack lightly. Edited October 13, 2018 by Garga 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluegoat Posted October 13, 2018 Share Posted October 13, 2018 Oh God how horrible. When I was away this summer, the thought of bedbugs really kept me up at night at times. In fact I still am slightly paranoid that I could have brought some home. It figures too when you finally decide to relax you find the little buggers. I am curious about one thing - you mention using black trash bags - is there some reason they should be black? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sassenach Posted October 13, 2018 Share Posted October 13, 2018 Worst nightmare Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrincessMommy Posted October 13, 2018 Share Posted October 13, 2018 that is horrible. Will the hotel pay to have your items cleaned? How does that even work? Thanks for the tip... so sorry it had to come from such a bad experience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El... Posted October 13, 2018 Share Posted October 13, 2018 Oh my. To what agency does one report something like that? The health department? Agh! That is horrible!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eagleynne Posted October 13, 2018 Share Posted October 13, 2018 1 hour ago, Bluegoat said: Oh God how horrible. When I was away this summer, the thought of bedbugs really kept me up at night at times. In fact I still am slightly paranoid that I could have brought some home. It figures too when you finally decide to relax you find the little buggers. I am curious about one thing - you mention using black trash bags - is there some reason they should be black? Actually, white trash bags might be a better choice. According to research done some time ago bed bugs prefer dark red and black over bright white and yellow. A bright white hardshell luggage would probably be optimal, but that's not so easy to find. Here is an article about it: https://www.cnn.com/2016/04/25/health/bedbugs-dark-color-sheets/index.html Just an FYI, that link has a lot of pictures of bed bugs if that bothers anyone. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happypamama Posted October 13, 2018 Share Posted October 13, 2018 Oh no! I am so sorry! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liz CA Posted October 13, 2018 Share Posted October 13, 2018 Oh man. I'd be so bummed. I am thinking of talking to hotel manager and asking for reimbursement for dry cleaning or heat treatment or whatever you have to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selkie Posted October 13, 2018 Share Posted October 13, 2018 Yuck. I hate that you can't even stay at a hotel anymore without worrying about getting infested.? So sorry this happened on your vacation. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoodGrief Posted October 13, 2018 Share Posted October 13, 2018 That is some rotten bedbug luck!! Arrrrgh!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alisoncooks Posted October 13, 2018 Share Posted October 13, 2018 Yikes. We stay at a hotel in a run-down/poor area for Thanksgiving and Christmas each year. I'm always terrified of bringing home bedbugs. We check the beds and keep stuff contained but....it's hard work! Sometimes I just want to relax, without the fear of infestation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katy Posted October 13, 2018 Share Posted October 13, 2018 6 minutes ago, alisoncooks said: Yikes. We stay at a hotel in a run-down/poor area for Thanksgiving and Christmas each year. I'm always terrified of bringing home bedbugs. We check the beds and keep stuff contained but....it's hard work! Sometimes I just want to relax, without the fear of infestation. I wouldn't assume it's worse in a run down area. I've never seen a bed bug, but a sibling of mine has run into them multiple times, more often in nicer hotels than cheap ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J-rap Posted October 14, 2018 Share Posted October 14, 2018 Wow, I'm so sorry! We stayed at several hotels that had bedbugs when we lived in the Middle East, years ago. Since then, we've never, ever had an experience like that, and we end up staying in hotels/short-term rentals/airbnb's probably 3 months out of each year. You've had some bad luck! That's awful! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnM Posted October 14, 2018 Share Posted October 14, 2018 I am so sorry. We stay at hotels all the time and so far haven't encountered bedbugs (to my knowledge anyway). And here you have encountered them TWICE! Yikes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garga Posted October 14, 2018 Author Share Posted October 14, 2018 21 hours ago, eagleynne said: Actually, white trash bags might be a better choice. According to research done some time ago bed bugs prefer dark red and black over bright white and yellow. A bright white hardshell luggage would probably be optimal, but that's not so easy to find. Here is an article about it: https://www.cnn.com/2016/04/25/health/bedbugs-dark-color-sheets/index.html Just an FYI, that link has a lot of pictures of bed bugs if that bothers anyone. That’s good to know! 22 hours ago, Bluegoat said: Oh God how horrible. When I was away this summer, the thought of bedbugs really kept me up at night at times. In fact I still am slightly paranoid that I could have brought some home. It figures too when you finally decide to relax you find the little buggers. I am curious about one thing - you mention using black trash bags - is there some reason they should be black? We had chosen black ones because those are usually very sturdy. The last thing we wanted was a wimpy bag that got a hole in it. But now that I’ve read the above, before our next trip I’ll be searching for sturdy white bags. We’re home now. When we were on vacation we didn’t care to fight anyone about bugs. It was a teeny tiny vacation—only three days long, 4 hours of driving on each end. We had precious little time to relax in the first place and didn’t want to be fighting the hotel about bugs. I’ll figure out later about leaving reviews on the hotel website to warn future guests. We have pictures, but I’m not sure if we can make a report to someone official days later without the actual bugs or being there. There was no way I was going to spend my teeny little vacation waiting to talk to someone official to make a report. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shawthorne44 Posted October 14, 2018 Share Posted October 14, 2018 15 hours ago, Thatboyofmine said: If I was prepared to leave the hotel, just in case I was asked, I’d go to TripAdvisor now and leave a bad review with my title being, ‘BED BUGS!’ I’d post pics of the bugs and put on the review that mgt wasn’t concerned. Hit them where it hurts. And to help out other potential guests of the hotel. I am terrified of them and I learned what traces they leave, and I've always inspected first thing. It never occurred to me that the traces might not be there until AFTER we've slept. I wonder if there would be a way to detect BEFORE sleeping there, like maybe with a black light? This summer we'll be flying Sprint to our vacation and sending our stuff ahead with a moving company. The first part of the trip is one night here and one night there ... I'd planned on grouping our stuff by day. For some reason I'd planned on using pillowcases to group a day's clothes. Switching to sturdy trash bags now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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