bed bugs, what do you do?
 

What are your experiences with bed bugs? Can you see them with your eyes or you just feel like scratching the next morning and then you know you've been bitten? what do you do when you know they are there and they won't change rooms? Can you bring something from home just in case you are faced with that situation?

Well, I've never experienced them in Europe, but did in Thailand. They tend to be in places that don't wash their linens with every change of guest (ie very, very cheap).
You'll know you've been bitten if the bites appear in straight lines. I got lucky as I had laid my sarong down on the bed to sleep on it. My husband wasn't so lucky as his ankles were exposed to sheets and he was bitten.
No, I don't belive you can see them.
If you're going to be staying in buget places, like a yough hostel, bring a sleep sack to sleep in.

When I moved to Beacon Hill years ago, I had no furniture. A guy next door offered me his bed because he was buying a new one. The night I slept in that bed, I itched all night, turned the light on to look and noticed the bites but saw nothing. Went back to bed, , but the itch continued on other parts, I slipped out of bed in the dark, quickly turned on the lights and saw the bugs racing away. I got a bar of soap to kill as many as I could, dressed and threw the bed out on the sidewalk. Slept in the bathtub. The next morning called my landlord who called his exterminator and I went out to buy a bed. I was 118 years old.

Mimi, I hope you were actually 18 years old; otherwise you hold your age DARNED well, if you don't mind my saying so.

BC

>>I was 118 years old.

You look great for your age, cigalechanta!

whoops--x-post w/bookchick.

Thanks for making us laugh, mimi.

Mimi, You should write a book.

" Mimi, You should write a book. "

...but proof-read first. :)

Oh, Mathieu, Grasshopper and I would take care of that quite willingly, believe me!

BC

Why? You won't have me to pick on :)

Mimi! We don't want to pick on you, cherie, we just want to read your memoirs!

Meesa, I am sorry if we hijacked your thread, but I would not spend the night in a bed with bedbugs if given the choice. And it's likely if they are in one room of a hotel, they're in all. A friend has told me that even some of the "better" (meaning pricier) hotels have had them. I'd simply leave the hotel, seek other lodging, and dispute any charge with my credit card company. I don't know if you can bring anything from home that will completely stop an infestation.

BC

I didn't know bed bugs were real! I always thought it was just a joke. Ok,
From now on I will always think about bugs in the hotel beds. Thanks! LOL

meeza, everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask :)

http://www.pestproducts.com/bedbug.htm#description

I had an experience with this last summer. The bugs prefer some people over others (skin chemeistry?)& women over men. If you look at the sheets you will see tiny blood spots. They travel well and are extremely difficult to eradicate. It's good to check your suitcases carefully on your return because you may not have been bitten but you can bring them home with you. =-o

Over the past few months I've seen a bunch of articles about the increase in instances of bedbugs not just in low-budget places, but in high-budget places as well. I think the most recent one I read was from either the New York Times or New York magazine this past Fall. It seems the increase in occurance is due to the huge increase in travel over the past few years. There hasn't been infestations reported at these levels since early in the 1900s according to the article.

At any rate, it seems that these little critters are really difficult to lose, but are very easy to transport. Apparently, they can travel back home in your suitcase (I guess after they've attached themselves to pajamas, etc?) and can actually infest your home. The article completely gave me the heebee-jeebees (I love that word!) especially since I travel so much for work. I got a sleep sack after reading the article but the idea still creeps me out.

Of course, I can't remember what the article said about getting rid of them but I think I may search out the article on the NYT website.

Yech!

M&M

Look for tiny black spots on the edge of the mattress or on the side of the base unit. They can also sometimes be found in the furniture adjacent to the bed.

Reminds me of a whole 'nother discussion about whether one should unpack clothes into the hotel room's dresser drawers.

Some years back an employee and I were traveling through Missouri, I think it was. We stopped at a Hampton Inn or whatever they're called. It was nicely appointed and had only been open a few months.

We were virtually devoured overnight by bed bugs! I cautioned him, when we returned home, to do what I planned to do which was to leave my baggage in the car over night, to go to the entryway and disrobe and toss the clothes outside overnight as well, and then to head straight for the shower.

You really can bring them into your home via your luggage. Grisly but true.

In the late 90's we stayed in a cheap-o hotel in Earl's Court, London. Both my companionme and I awoke with the tell-tale bites and I raised bloody hell with management, insisting on a fresh room with freshly prepared bedding and towels. He complied but we left after only one more day anyhow. Who wants to share a room with such a nasty little bug?

In both cases it was dead of winter which of course rules out mosquito's and other "tropical" invaders. One can also rule out fleas as they are reasonably visable with a closer inspection of white or pastel bedding.

I've never heard of bed bugs transmitting diseases but since they bite hard enough to break the skin/draw blood, it might bear a bit of research.

Ugh...of all the things to have to put up with while traveling! And I'm only 117!

ewwwww... check this link out. It even has pictures! http://www.uky.edu/Agriculture/Entom...ruct/ef636.htm

Too bad we even have to think about such things!

I once had a bunch of small red spots that didn't itch much. They only appeared on the top of my feet. This was in Costa Rica and I was sleeping in low-budget rooms. I thought the bites were from those tiny flies on the beach. But maybe they were from bedbugs????

My son had a horrible experience with bed bugs while participating in a study abroad progam in London. He kept finding red bumps all over his body, went to several doctors who thought it might be chicken pox, etc. Finally two of his flat mates noticed they had similiar bumps and another doctor figured it out. My son who by this time was in bed feeling horrible when he awoke to an exterminator with gas mask telling him to get up. The boys were moved out, put up in a hotel. All their clothes were cleaned and moved back in to the flat. Back came the bed bugs. They are apparently very difficult to erradicate can hide behind switch plates, in seams, etc. And after checking on the internet there is an area in London that is terribly infested. Can't remember where his flat was; this was about 4 years ago.

Honest this thread brings back memories. My grandmother used to tell me not to sit on concrete or stones...
(piles..she said it took me years to remember to ask what they were...), and all sorts of weird things to do
One of the things she suggested was when going to a new bed (hotels, friends house, whatever) was have the lights on and rip the bedclothes right down to the bottom sheet. She said I'd see bedbugs and whether or not to sleep there.

According to this article in the Charleston (West Virginia) Daily Mail, http://www.dailymail.com/news/News/2004122716 - - bedbugs are resurging, and worst of all - - <i><b>Nostra culpa!</b></i>... one likely explanation is <i><b>us</b></i>, <i>who like to travel</i>!

Best wishes (or is that &quot;best itches&quot;?)

Rex

cigalechanta, did you already write the bed bug screenplay? I saw the bar of soap thing in a movie several decades ago. It was hilarious. But the guy in the movie didn't throw the bed out on the sidewalk, or sleep in the tub. Are you making up this part of the story? It wasn't in the movie, but should have been.

I swear this is my story. I left out going to a loan shark to get money to buy the new bed.

Skip this post if you don't like insects.

Bedbug folklore holds that roaches eat bedbug eggs and drive out or eat the adults. Back in my college days I spent a summer at school in a less than pristine basement room in a clubh0ouse, and discoved bedbugs were in the bed. My clean linens meant nothing to them. I remembered the folklore, and went to the less than pristine kitchen, caught a few roaches, and took them to my room. Within a few days there were no bedbugs. Of course there were more and more roaches, some of which were almost as annoying as the bedbugs.

Roach folklore holds that boric acid powder will kill off roaches, so I sprinkled it under the bed and dresser, and soon there were no more roaches.

I conclude that the success of modern roach extermination has allowed the resurgence of bedbugs.

No, No. I sprinkled the powder there, that later I found out had roaches, It did not work. I have read that they are now immune to that They will return if everyone in the apartment building does not exterminate as well. they move back in after the smell is gone

I thought about mentioning the cockroaches we found in our Nice hotel room in my last post, but then I figured, nah, I don't want to gross out this group. Now that the subject has come up here goes. The critters woke me up in the middle of the night crawling over my face. I turned on the light and they were running all over the walls.

BTW, a house I rented years ago was infested. I used the boric acid method and the roaches were gone in a week. It's not the smell that gets rid of them. It's the acid. It sticks to their hairy legs and then their friends down below try to lick it off. The boric acid kills their buddies and then the rest of them as they eat their buddies.

Everybody certainly knows about the other common traveler's bug problem -- crabs. Do we want to get on that subject?

I would much prefer a few roaches to a bedbug infestation.

Gregor Samsa