Most people who like to travel often stay in hotels. However, some might have experienced one common problem when sleeping in a hotel room and that is encountering bed bugs. These bugs can cause severe itching and welt-like bites and some of their favorite hangouts are in hotels and motels.
If you’re planning to travel soon, you don’t have to worry about bed bugs because there are ways on how you can avoid them. Here are some techniques you can adopt to make sure that those bed bugs will not ruin your vacation.
Go Straight to the Bathroom
Once you arrive in your hotel room, go straight to the bathroom and leave your luggage there. It’s because the bathroom is the safest place in any hotel rooms because it’s not a good environment for bed bugs. They are usually found on carpets and curtains which are not in the bathroom, so your suitcase is safe in there.
Check the Room
After making sure that your suitcase is safe in the bathroom, the next thing to do is to check the room. Your goal is to avoid a bed bug infested room so you need to know how bed bugs look like. They are usually brown in color and look like little cockroaches. Bed bugs are mostly active at night but they can emerge during the day as well. You can find them under night tables, in the carpets, within the curtains, and even in cracks in the wall.
Inspect the Bed
The most important part of the hotel room you should check is the bed. You can pull back the linens and inspect all the way around as well as under the mattress and behind the headboard. Since bed bugs are tiny like the shape of an apple seed, you may find them hiding in corners or seams of the bedding. You can also check if there are any blood stains or small black dots because they leave behind little black dots from their feces and red stains when they are squished.
Keep Your Luggage Off the Ground
If there isn’t any space in the bathroom for your luggage, find a space to levitate them because placing them on the floor or on the bed will make it easier for bed bugs to access them. Make sure to keep your bags on the luggage rack or on top of cabinets.
Wrap Your Suitcases in Plastic
Another way you can protect your bags is by wrapping them in plastic during your trip. Some storage and luggage sellers also offer zip-up plastic bags which fit perfectly on your luggage. These might come in handy when you travel to avoid bringing home bed bugs.
Teach Kids About Hotel Protocol
When you travel along with your kids, explain to them why there’s a need to inspect the hotel room first. Since they are taught about avoiding insects like mosquitoes, they should also know about bed bugs.
Let the Hotel Know
When you find bed bugs or traces of them, don’t be afraid to let the hotel know about it. Once you raise this up to the people in charge of the hotel, they will allow you to transfer into a different room and they will do a proper inspection immediately. They will not want to lose customers just because of bed bugs
Ask About Their Bed Bug Prevention Plans
After you’ve checked-in, you can immediately ask the hotel about the practices they’ve put in place to prevent and treat bed bugs. It’s better to get a hotel that conducts proactive inspections and work with pest management companies because they can ensure that their hotel rooms are clean and beg bug-free.
Read the Hotel’s Reviews
If you have booked a hotel room before you travel, you can research online and read some reviews. This way, you’ll be able to find out if there are some reports about bed bugs. You can also check the Bed Bug Registry. It is a free online database of user-submitted reports about bed bugs in hotels across North America. But be cautious because it’s difficult to know if the reports people have posted here are true, it can just give you an idea.
After Your Travel
When you return home from your trip, make sure to wash all the clothes you brought in hot water, even those you did not wear. They can’t survive in temperatures about 122 degrees Fahrenheit. This is to make sure that bed bugs will not live in your drawers and closets if ever you’ve brought home some. Aside from your clothes, make sure to check your luggage and suitcases as well before storing them. You can vacuum them out and keep them sealed when you store them.
We hope these tips will help you avoid bed bugs when you travel so you will have a good sleep in your hotel room.