Have read that they are getting to be a problem. Anyone have any experience? what do they look like?

I was visiting NYC when I saw this in the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/re...qgPsvRRLF6j09g

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.......

Many years ago we were staying in a nice hotel, one of the best brands. Something woke me up in the night so I turned on the light. There was a big blood-filled bug on the pillow so I smashed it. I was young and had no idea at the time what it was. I do now - a bedbug. After seeing a special on 20/20, or one of those shows, that showed what to look for, I check each and every hotel bed upon entering the room. I've yet to find anything, but I'm not going to stop checking.

you don't see them, that's the problem

these are terribly annoying little creatures...and you can check and check the bed and then..poof...they don't come out until you are sleeping...you will know if you sleep in a bed with bed bugs...you will have lots of tiny bites or a rash -

be careful if you ever buy used furniture - couches/chairs/etc - they can come in them too ! that's how my friend got them in her house once - eeewwwww

No, you dont' see the bedbugs in the daylight, but they leave little "clues" behind. amp;

Ok, so you see a bedbug. Yuk.
You leave ASAP, assuming that is an option.
What the frick do you do to guarantee you do not bring them home?????

This site, and the news program I saw, said characteristic dark brown or reddish fecal spots of bed bugs are sometimes apparent on the bed linens, mattress or walls near the bed. http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/bedbugs/#invade

My good friend had a bedbug infestation in her apartment over the summer. She woke up one morning and her entire arm was covered in bumps the size of mosquito bites. We looked on the internet and thought it might be bedbugs. The following night, while she was sleeping, she felt an itchy sensation and flipped open her cell phone. In the glow of the light, she could see several bugs run across the sheet.

Her apartment was infested from another tenants apartment. She ended up breaking her lease and moving out, it was so bad. She had to burn pretty much all of her bedding and linens, and some of her clothing.

Why would you BURN your belongings?
She actually BURNED her stuff? Where the heck do you do that?
When I worked in an elementary school we would have to educate people on methods to get rid of head lice.
While it may be easier to toss your belongings, it was possible to store pillows and linens in a sealed bag for a while to kill the bugs. You could wash items in extremely hot water and then dry in a hot dryer to kill 'em. You could spray surfaces with insecticide.
What is the recommended method to exterminate?

My parents discovered bed bugs in a hotel in Pigeon Forge. My Dad had fallen asleep and my Mom was reading (in bed) when she noticed something on her chest. I think she said she was wearing a dark gown and the bug was a light color, but very tiny. Anyway, they freaked out and went to another hotel that night. I think she washed all of her clothes in very hot water and she threw away their luggage. Supposedly they are easy to carry home with you and almost impossible to get rid of.

When I was little my mother used to say "Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite," but I never actually saw or heard anything about bedbugs for real until about 3, 4 years ago. Still haven't actually seen one, but I know someone in the office who has a very bad bedbug infestation at home (and for some reason likes to talk about it). I'm terrified of them. I always stay at least 10 feet away and never sit on their furniture or borrow anything from their desk. What's going on? Where are all these bedbugs coming from? Are bedbugs what used to be called "cooties"?

She gave her bedding and pillows to the super in her building. They asked her not to put it in the public washer dryer because they could possibly get into someone's laundry basket. It wasn't feasible for her to store her belongings, so that was the course of action. I'm not sure if this is what the experts recommend, but just what her super told her to do.

This is scary! How do you know if a hotel room has them?

Makes travel everlasting fun, isn't it? amp;

I thought you could only catch cooties in elementary school on the playground - i remember us all giving each other 'cootie shots' -

bed bugs aren't just in beds.. they can be in furniture, in wall to wall carpeting along where it meets the wall, in crevices of old furniture.....eeks they can be everywhere -...and they can hide for a looong time "between meals" -

as someone once said to me, if you could see what lives on most people's eyelashes you'd cringe....or in most wall to wall carpets.....

but that's another thread another time....
this thread is making me SO itchy !!

Oh, you know I just recalled that the apartment building in I Love Lucy had an incinerator.
Do buildings in NYC still have incinerators?

Good night nurse!
BayouGal, thanks for the description of evidence "the day after".. seems I've been wrongly blaming my husband for these issues and I sure owe him an apology

My building does, but it's an enormous complex. I believe the buildings on Roosevelt Island have them as well.

I first started hearing about bedbugs only a couple of years ago - and just the thought of them makes me itch.

I watched a couple of Dateline videos that I found on msnbc.com where they did an undercover investigation at a hotel suspected of having bedbugs. They brought a pest control expert in to show what signs to look for.

Interesting video, and as paranoid as it seems, I do the "bedbug inspection" each time I check into a hotel.