Woke up 2am all itchy etc and found bed bugs running around the bed. Went to reception to complain. Rooms were changed etc, next day on check out -Hotel- says “after proffesional inspection” bugs were not found and with that written report I’ve been told to do one.

My concern is not a hotel stay compensation, but home contamination once I come back home.

I took pictures of bites on the body, videos of **** running around etc, showed them to hotel shift manager … he rolled his eyes and showed “proffesional report paper” and said that was the end of the case.

What to do now, and where do I stand?

Big company?

Tweet them a link to your video…

Not sure where you stand but, we’ve had a mouse in recently, whilst talking to the pest control fella, he said that without doubt, bed bugs were the hardest things to get rid of, so with that in mind id be doing plenty of Googleing before getting in my car or going home!

Where do you stand? In the corner.

Don’t lie down.

Name and shame. They obviously don’t care.

Pop some stills from the video on to trip adviser with an accurate description of their response. See if you get any follow up! Take care not to exaggerate and just state facts – don’t want to entice a lawyery response.

Then wash all your clothes/yourself when you get back home to minimise bringing the blighters back.

Scott wins.

Completely new set of clothes, go for a long swim then changed into new clothes, discarding the old set to act as quarantine?

You can never go home.

You should nuke yourself from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

I’d chalk it up to experience, you could continue to complain, but they can’t very well change their mind now can they.

Or as jimdubleyou says you could name and shame on social media – but these days big places don’t fear it as much – unless you’ve got thousands of followers or you can somehow make it go ‘viral’.

If if makes you feel any better, 3 weeks ago My Wife, My Son and I went to view a house to rent, it was nearly £1000 a month – so not cheap, and we live in Wales, not London – as we arrived the agent said “just to warn you, this is the first time I’ve seen it”. It was a pit, stank, dirty and frankly a bit of a wreck – 10 mins in and “oww, oww oww” and my Son is coming out in spots from flea bites, we get a reaction to them so we left, took him home, put him in the shower, his clothes straight in the machine, but sure enough 2 days later we’re getting flea bites – it’s taken me ages, but I think I’ve got rid of them now…

If you have evidence escalate it up the chain of command and then use social media if they deny the evidence you have on video

No idea how you make sure you are bug free but i assume long bath/swim/immersion and a change of clothes is the starting point

Have you gone deaf in one ear?

If it’s any consolation (it’s not) I was told by a custody nurse who had examined a dirty stinking bloke I’d been fighting with that he had scabies, and to go and by some stuff – I forget it’s name but it was basically medical napalm – and wash with it for the next couple of days.

^ ….and this is what happens when you leave one doughnut in a police station. 😀

Re. contamination, wash all your clothes that were in that room straight away, take them to a launderette before they enter your home if your particularly worried.

And I would be all over TripAdvisor, Twitter and Facebook too.

Based on the experience of a relative I’d hot wash all of the clothes several times but the key thing is to sling or fumigate luggage / bags before you bring them in the house. Bed bugs can live for up to a year without any food so it’s really important that everything is checked very thoroughly – especially the Zips on bags as they are quite good at hiding in those.

There were two actually, but who has just one donut at a time.

If you have evidence escalate it up the chain of command and then use social media if they deny the evidence you have on video

This is what I would do. Also tell us where this was so I don’t stay there!

Tell them you’ll need to report it to Environmental Health at the local council. Also, actually do this.

For yourself – clean everything really, really well.
Bags, clothes, laptop anything in the room.

A gf of mine years ago had a contamination due to looking after an infected sofa for someone. I used to get covered in bites when I stayed over before it was sorted out. They never made it back to my house though so not sure you need to panic.

Curiously they never bit her – she is black but not sure if that was the reason.

A recent thread on crazyguyonabike. The gist seemed to be poly bag everything before getting home. Treat by leaving in a chest freezer for a month was the easiest way to be sure every stage of the bed bugs was killed.

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/forum/board/message/?thread_id=713155&page=1

As advised above make every effort to decontaminate and report – they are
possibly the worst thing to get in your house – a friend of ours took 2 years to
get clear and that included moving house and bagging their entire life to kill them off.

On a slightly more positive note, bed bugs can’t move that fast. if they were running around, sounds more like cockroaches, but then they don’t bite…

The hotel only have themselves to blame if they ignore you, because bed bugs spread like wildfire. Mind you, I wouldn’t put it past them to pretend to you that they don’t believe you (to put you off making a claim for your money back) but actually treat the room anyway.
The suggestion to use a laundrette is selfish and irresponsible. It could pass them on to other customers of the laundrette. You need to stick everything in a plastic bag and place in the deep freeze.

On a slightly more positive note, bed bugs can’t move that fast.

I was wondering about that. They’re pretty small, 4-5mm and very flat which lets them hide in really small gaps. So the hotel may have been correct in that the insects you saw were not bed bugs, but some other kind of biting insect.

And I would be all over TripAdvisor, Twitter and Facebook too.

like a rash

Google name of “professional inspection” company, look for accreditation with trade associations. Contact these people for advice whilst naming and shaming in a neither crazy nor angry tone of email.

Decontamination: check every seam and inner every flat surface of every object you had with you. Freezing won’t work, neither will submerging necessarily.

like a rash

…and just keep bugging them on social media.

Freezing won’t work,

Any source for that claim. Plenty studies show it does.

It takes temperatures below -15 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) at three and a half days to control all life stages of bedbugs (Cimex lectularius), entomologists wrote in an article in the December issue of Journal of Economic Entomology

http://www.isciencetimes.com/articles/6494/20131208/killing-bed-bug-requires-80-hours-freezing.htm

Quarantine everything that was in the room. Double bag it in rubbish bags and seal them. Do the same with what you are wearing. New set of clothes. Hot wash everything then tumble dry at high heat.
Sounds paranoid but those **** are nasty and play mind games with you, I shit you not!

Hotel sound particularly uncooperative. Trip advisor. Honest review. Don’t put others through it.

Bedbugs could come in from anyone that walks in do an inspection does not mean a lot.

We had them on a boat I was working once. Left mental scars..

Any source for that claim. Plenty studies show it does.

I may have typed that without fully taking into account the length of time you were suggesting freezing the things. Objection withdrawn.

On a slightly more positive note, bed bugs can’t move that fast

As an ex pest controller believe me when I say that the little fcekers can move plenty fast enough.

Freezing is a good approach to take with your clothing. Get some vacuum bags and leave them in the freezer for at least a week. It can take a while for bulky items to get properly cold all the way through. If you were in Devon I’d offer to lend you my portable bed bug oven (oh yes, they exist). Steam treatment is also good for killing bed bugs but you need a very good quality steam cleaner which can reach very high temperatures.

If it was a bad infestation a half decent pest controller would have found plenty of signs of bed bugs such as blood spotting and skin casts. Ask the hotel for more details on who carried out the report, check that they are property qualified and as said above use Trip Advisor.

If you are unfortunate to find any bed bugs in your own home search online to see if you can buy a product called Perbio Choc. It has a weird name but kills all insects, and I do mean all insects. It should only be sold to professionals but some places will sell to the public. Spray it on the bed bugs and watch the little sods convulse themselves to death.

Thank you all for advice, have large freezer in garage so will do just that. Hotel in question was -Wessex hotel- Bournemouth. Was a bit surprised by dirty looks shift manager gave us but well … live and learn.

Wessex hotel – Bournemouth

and Bed Bugs

Wouldn’t want Google to pick up on that eh?

I got put up in a place for a week that was jumping with the little feckers when I started a new job away from home. Lasted one night.

As above, double bag all clothes and freeze. Take no chances – a friend of mine brought them back from a hotel in New York and spent over a year intermittently fumagating his flat to try and get rid of them. Plus the new mattresses, and the new clothes.

They are properly grim little things….

Or just put in a dryer at high heat

http://www.bedbugs.umn.edu/bed-bug-control-in-residences/laundering-bedbug-control/