Who do I report to concerning bedbugs in my hotel room?

Question by Gino:
Who do I report to concerning bedbugs in my hotel room?

I moved into a hotel last week and have paid a month in advance. I notice them later on that night before going to bed. Well the offices were closed so I left whoever was in charge that I had bedbug problems. A couple of days ago, someone from the hotel came over and sprayed the hotel room. This morning I collected a few bedbugs and placed them in a small bag to take down to the office again.
This time if they do not do their job by taken care of the problem, I would want to call or go to a company that deals with this kind of problem. So is there any suggestion on who I could talk to concerning the bedbug problems I am having problems with?

Best answer:

Answer by pelican
Getting rid of bed bugs is a process. The whole building may need to be treated, not just your room. You need to find out how bad it is. Close the windows in the bedrooms, close the blinds or curtains, turn the heat as high as it will go, close the door, and leave it like that for a couple of hours. Then open the door and you wlll see them if they are there. They will most likely be on the walls. (This is what you need to do every time you stay at a hotel before bringing anything into the room – you walk in, do this, walk out and go for a meal or something while you wait.) Check in the dresser drawers. If you do not see any in the dresser drawers, the infestation is not as bad as it might be.

Put double sided sticky tape around the legs of the beds and other furniture, on any wooden parts of the beds, around the perimeter of the room, at the edges of the baseboards, along the window ledges, insde the switch plates and plug in plates. You could also put vaseline on the legs of the beds and other furniture. Bed bugs like to hide out behind switch plates and in other places like that and the sticky tape will catch them. Also check inside ceiling light fixtures – take them down – and inside any smoke detectors – take them down and clean and treat with the sticky tape.

Dry all the bedclothes, clothes, fabric items, and stuffed toys on HIGH heat for at least 30 minutes. SEAL everything in plastic bags for at least three days, which will kill them. Nothing should go back into the infested rooms until you have taken care of the problem. Throw away the pillows. Buy new ones. It is not worth trying to clean them. Check every closet and dresser for the bugs or eggs and if you find any, you have to do the whole process everywhere. Check behind picture frames, curtains, mirrors, etc. If you find sticky yellowish white balls of the size of a dust particle then use a hard brush to dislodge them and collect them in plastic bags. These are bed bug eggs! You can use the sticky tape again to pick up any live bugs or even the eggs. Kill every bed bug that you see. Go on a bug hunt.

Vacuum several times a day and immediately empty the vacuum cleaner OUTSIDE, not inside. If you cannot do that, empty it inside a plastic garbage bag and immediately put the bag outside. I would remove any carpet when you can, and replace it with hardwood or a vinyl or something easier to deal with.

Steam clean mattresses, particularly the edges and seams, luggage, camera cases, laptop cases, and every piece of fabric furniture in your house.

Block all their easiest routes. Caulk along baseboards, around switch plates, and everywhere you see any possible opening so that the whole area is sealed.

Replace box springs and mattresses if you can. Put the new mattresses AND BOX SPRINGs inside an approved mattress cover before you even bring it into the bedrooms. If there are bed bugs in the old springs or mattresses it is incredibly difficult to get rid of them, even with chemicals. The only thing you can do about that is to put each of them inside a cover, seal the cover, and do not open it for at least a YEAR. That is the length of the life cycle of bed bugs, so you have to make sure nothing can get out for at least that long. Keep the beds away from the wall, not right up against it. Make sure sheets and blankets do not touch the floor, Put the legs of the bed inside a slippery sided container to make it even more difficult for them to get to the bed.

If you have wooden framed beds, consider getting rid of them and replacing them with just metal bed frames to support the box springs and mattresses.

There is no point in using a fogger – they don’t get bed bugs. There is a product called Kleen Free Naturally, made specifically to clean insect-infested places, it’s natural and it’s biodegradable, so not harmful to you, your children or your pets. Make sure you clean every surface, behind every piece of furniture, inside every cupboard and drawer, along the baseboards, light fixtures, wall sockets – basically everything in your room or house. If you can’t find that product, ask at the hardware store for something similar.

Do everything on this list again in 10 days, and again in another 10 days. If you are scrupulous about doing this, you should get rid of them in about 30 days. I hope this helps. Good luck with it.
http://www.toronto.ca/health/bedbugs/bedbugs_factsheet.htm

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Tagged as: bag, bed, bedbugs, Concerning, double sided sticky tape, Hotel, report, Room, window ledges

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