By Shane McCoy, Certified Entomologist and Technical Training Director at Wil-Kil Pest Control
You cannot just “get” bed bugs. They have to be brought into your home. One way of bringing bed bugs into your home is from hotel rooms. Whether traveling in the United States or internationally, there are hundreds of places where your luggage might come in contact with bed bugs. Bed bugs might be in your hotel room, in the trunk of a taxi, in the luggage compartment of the airplane, or in the baggage handling facility at the airport. Although you cannot control your bag’s travel experience, you can inspect your hotel room on arrival and your luggage prior to bringing it back into the home.
How to Spot a Bed Bug
First, let’s make sure you know what bed bugs look like. Adult bed bugs can be seen easily with the naked eye. Adults are reddish brown and about the size of an apple seed. The nymphs (or babies) can also be seen with the naked eye but they are smaller and a translucent white-yellow in color. The nymphs that first hatch out of the egg are the most difficult to see. You can also see the eggs, especially on a darker surface like behind the headboard or on the bottom side of the box spring. However, on a white mattress or white box spring, they are difficult to see.
In addition to spotting bed bugs themselves, there are also other signs of bed bug infestations. Bed bugs go through a process called molting when they grow. When a bed bug molts, it sheds its external skeleton (like cicada skins you’ve seen on trees). Bed bugs molt five times, so there may be many skins lying around where bed bugs are living. Bed bugs only feed on blood (primarily human blood) and, of course, they have to excrete some of the excess liquid as waste. This waste, called fecal spotting, is black in color and is often found before the bed bug. Fecal spots can be found on a mattress or box spring, behind the headboard, along the baseboard, at electrical outlets and behind pictures on the wall.
Checking Into a Hotel Room
One of the most common ways of encountering bed bugs is in a hotel room. Inspecting your room for signs of bed bugs is very important for protecting not only yourself, but a future infestation in your home.
When inspecting your hotel room:
- Pull back all of the bedding at the head of the bed near the headboard to look for bed bugs and fecal stains (usually black spots)
- Check the underside of the mattress piping and tags
- Check the seams and piping of the box spring
- If possible, lift up the headboard and remove it from the wall to inspect the back of it. This may take two people.
- If bed bug evidence is found, report it immediately to hotel management and ask for another room
Returning Home
Tips for inspecting and laundering your items:
- Avoid setting your suitcase on the bed while unpacking
- Immediately launder all clothing using the high heat setting in the dryer for at least 20 minutes kills all life stages of bed bugs. If you have items that cannot be laundered like shoes and backpacks, place those in the dryer.
- Using a flash light, perform a close inspection of all items that cannot be laundered or placed in the dryer, such as your suitcase. I place my large items in a big suitcase and store them in the garage until my next trip. Avoid storing luggage in your bedroom closet.
- If you want to take extra precautions, some pesticides can be used on your suitcase. These products can be found in your big box hardware stores or online.
I hope I haven’t scared you to the point that you no longer want to stay overnight in a hotel, as that’s definitely not my intention. I stay in hotels at least a couple nights every two months, but I am now bed bug conscious. My awareness of encountering bed bugs as a way of prevention has kept me from bringing bed bugs into my home, and yes, I have found bed bugs in my hotel room, but just once. I perform that quick inspection upon checking in, and take precautions when I get home. Bed bug treatments are not simple and can be expensive, and for this reason we all need to be bed bug conscious and stop their spread.
Shane McCoy is an Associate Certified Entomologist with 17 years of experience in Pest Management and is the Technical Training Director for Wil-Kil Pest Control servicing the Upper Midwest. To learn more about Wi -Kil, visit http://www.wil-kil.com/ or contact your local office at 800-236-8735. Follow Wil-Kil on Facebook and Twitter (@WilKilPest).
ROMNEYS original partner in BAIN were the Salvador death squads the assassins of the RC ARCH BISHOP and a dozen maryknoll martyrs, so if there are these harmless misinfo posts by wingnuts i and others will tell the real story, it is the WAR on LIES of the wingnuts. So don't cite lies as facts and I will not cite the facts.
Most wingies are mutated TPARTY chicken crapper flag wavers,draft dodger tax avoiders, most also have missing ingredients to the amygla, it usually came from being a down winder and inhaling TESTICLE CANCER BOB'S gift of stronium 90 rather than Tesla's free energy? right on Steve OBAMACARE part E for all! Then the rest of us could get the Cadillac treatment the AEI sponsored do not work Congress gets and the 18,000 Robme CAYMAN ISLANDERS! ,NEVER heard of bedbugs in their balmy Banksters digs, only here where the KOOL AID drinkers gather!
Just saying....
Then our own safe for 500 yr leaky casks RED GATE WOODS - GATE! Don't despair, unfortunately you are at yer limit, the amygla diminishes even more listening to HILLBILLY HEROIN RANTS and 5 years of obstuctionism has made it worse it is not reversible just keep trying to muck it up the only hope u really have is OBAMACARE for EVERYBODY PART E.
HOPE they are thru editing my posts someone must be taking it personal besides Bob AND A HUNDRED MORE WINGIES! MAYBE THEY WILL REOPEN MY MAILBOX ALSO.
I myself don't have any bedbug stories, but I always do check hotel room beds just in case. One time found a mosquito hanging out but no bedbugs as of yet.
Though it's obvious that insects, viruses, bacteria, etc. mutate I never really thought about humans not mutating. On the other hand, b/c we are able to save the lives of so many who would die (disease, mis-developed bodily organs, etc), we are weakening our gene pool.
For u and the robot's information My posts on Red Gate Woods is not subject to censorship on this Public site, THE national security issue was resolved by the remediation etc, everyone needs to comply on FOIA the government and the patch who is censoring what exactly? This is about U.S. federal law. For freedom of information in the fifty U.S. states, see Freedom of information in the United States. Freedom of Information Act Great Seal of the United States. FOIA Act Effective July 1, 1967 Signed into law by President LBJ on July 4, 1966 Electronic Freedom of Information Act of 1996 The Intelligence Authorization Act of 2002, PL 107-306, 116 Stat 2383 OPEN Government Act of 2007, PL 110-175, 121 Stat 2524 United States Supreme Court cases The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is a federal freedom of information law that allows for the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the United States government. The Act defines agency records subject to disclosure, outlines mandatory disclosure procedures and grants nine exemptions to the statute.[1] It was originally signed into law by President Johnson, despite his misgivings,[2] on July 4, 1966 as 5 U.S.C. § 552 and went into effect the following year.[3] The Federal Government's Freedom of Information Act should not be confused with the STATE Freedom of Information Acts by individual states.some of which may be similar but not identical.
Where's Bob we need expert testimony!
I guess you had a little trouble with reading comprehension in school? I'll restate what I wrote: bacteria, viruses, insects adapt (to DDT, whatever) in a sense becoming stronger (or at least resistant), humans do not adapt. And, we humans are actually weakening our gene pool b/c those who would o/wise not survive to child-producing years, due to whatever genetic misfortune are now being saved by science and producing children. This assumes their misfortune is in their DNA and being passed to their children.
LOOK at the TERRY ALIEN POSTS i did not articulate the response to what u said and then the #*** have done their best to edit and plant viruses and malware on my PC , THAT IS more than a bit annoying and something in his and your interpretation of my post on these related subjects, like Yakima,Fukishima and Red Gate woods, too bad we can't share the experience I have every intention of finding out just how much freedom there really is on the internet these days.
When I first moved to Chicago, I couldn't believe how must dust my 3rd level apartment accumulated within one week. After about 2 months, I discovered that it wasn't dust - it was DIRT! Black, filthy, soot covering everything. I also realized I had to clean my dogs ears much more frequently. This was in fancy "Andersonville". Hey, it's the city. Nevermind the glass shards everywhere while trying to walk your dogs in this "green" city that doesn't even have a bottle return law. This BIG bug problem is further slowing your "condo" sales and even their rentals. It's being HIDDEN by "associations". Worry about that "da man" right now and forget about Bishop Tutu, Republicans and "green" rooftops. Clean up your own backyard first. You're no different than that yuppie wannabe Mom in tony Lakeview East complaining about the cigarette smoker on the corner 2 blocks down while she's jib-jabbering on her "smart" phone totally oblivious that she's blocking the entire sidewalk with a stroller and..........at a bus stop with lil' Biff Jr. surrounded in a cloud of CTA #36 exhaust. Just plain stupid too.
It is all about the money the new congresswoman of the 2nd Dist has not won but assuming ---the first thing she does is go to the AIPAC DINNER to get her marching orders aka more money for Israel, the 2nd dist is not a disaster it is a blighted health hazard in many places and Kelly is guaranteeing the Zionist state has her support it is the dirt and soot problem, it is every problem nothing else matters so the dirt debris piles up and Rahm is now on the long list of POTUS in 16,the son of a IRGUN terrorist is not into cleaning up Andersonville or So Chgo he has to be clean the wailing wall and make it safe for jews, Fundy charlatans and predators alike to pray the dummies never wake up! .