How To Check For Bed Bugs When Traveling

Bed bugs are notorious for feeding on people at night, which may be a significant annoyance. Itchy and painful, bed bug bites can occasionally even trigger allergic reactions. Bed bugs don’t care about who they live with, and they will establish a home anyplace they can find a source of food. Although it may seem as though bed bugs just appear overnight, bed bugs are known for hitchhiking from one place to another, especially from hotels to residences. If you are vigilant about checking for bed bugs when you travel, you may dramatically lower the possibility of bringing bed bugs back as a souvenir. It only takes one pregnant bed bug to develop a full-blown infestation.

Starting as soon as you enter your room, prevent bed bugs

In most cases, bed bugs ride along in luggage. You need to safeguard your possessions to prevent bringing bed bugs home. Naturally, you’ll want to unpack your bag as soon as you check into your hotel room, but doing so is a big mistake. Your odds of them getting into your possessions so you can take them home increase the longer they are exposed to a contaminated environment. Check for bed bugs before allowing your luggage to contact the floor, a bed, or any other furniture.

Where to Look in a Hotel Room for Bed Bugs

Bed bugs are about the size of an apple seed and are quite good at hiding, which makes them difficult to spot. However, you can lessen your chance of taking bed bugs home if you know what to look for and where they hide. Place your stuff on a bellhop or the luggage carrier while you search (these are typically available at the front desk or in your room.)

Locating Bed Bug Hides

Bed bugs have a few favourite hiding places in the majority of hotel rooms. The following are some of the most typical locations where bed bugs or bed bug evidence can be found:

around the bed or in it. You should check the bed frame, headboard, sheets, box springs, and mattress for bed bugs because they can hide in even the smallest spaces. Bed bugs may also infest nightstands in cases of severe infestations.

furniture for the room, particularly upholstered furniture. If there is a couch or sofa in your space, you should search underneath and between the cushions. Bed bugs can occasionally hide in drawers or nightstands.

additional tiny, dim nooks. While bed bugs prefer to remain hidden close to the areas where people spend the most of their time, they will move to other locations if necessary. Electrical outlets, picture frames with loose wallpaper, and curtains are common hiding places for bed bugs.

Things to Watch Out For

There are other things you can check for when searching your hotel room, though seeing a real bed bug is the most obvious indication of bed bugs. As bed bugs only emerge at night, it’s essential to look for these additional symptoms before you unpack your bags or go to bed in order to detect an infestation.

Look for bed bug droppings. One of the more glaring indications of bed bugs may be their droppings because sheets are frequently changed between visitors. Feces from bed bugs can be discovered in the seams of mattresses, behind headboards, all around bed frames, and in other places close to the pests’ feeding grounds. Make sure you look closely for this telltale sign because droppings typically appear as tiny dark specks that are simple to miss.

Analyze any shed body parts. Bed bugs moult their exoskeletons as they develop from eggs to nymphs to adults. They are typically seen where droppings are found.

Check bed linens and other soft surfaces for blood stains. Although blood stains are less frequently discovered upon initial admission, if you awaken with itchy welts on your skin, you may want to look for indications that you were a bed bug’s food the previous evening. Normally, these blood stains are reddish-brown in colour.

You can begin unpacking your baggage once you have checked your room for bed bugs and determined that it is bug-free. Keep an eye out for the above-listed typical bed bug symptoms throughout your stay, and notify management right once if you think there may be an infestation.

When You’re at Home

Even if you carry out the most comprehensive inspections when travelling, bed bugs may nevertheless find their way back home. Following your vacation, there are a few precautions you should always take to make sure your possessions are bed bug free.

For a day or two, try not to bring your bags inside. If there is no host for the bed bugs to feed on, they will perish even after hatching.

Take everything out of your bags and wash it on the hot cycle. Any live bed bugs that could be hiding in your garments will be killed by doing your laundry.

You can prevent bed bug eggs from hatching in your house if they were found in your bag by vacuuming. When finished, be careful to empty the hoover or filter outside your house.

Even while these precautions can’t always stop a bed bug infestation, being vigilant and using this approach when you travel can lower your risk. Keep a cautious check out for bed insect symptoms after your trip in the same places you did.

Find Out More About Bed Bugs’ Early Symptoms

What to Do If a Bed Bug Infestation Is Found

If you think there might be a bed bug problem at your hotel, tell management right away. From there, you can ask for a different room or, if possible, look for alternative lodging.

An expert in pest control should be contacted if you believe your home has a bed bug infestation. Although it may be tempting, bed bugs are incredibly resilient and proliferate quickly, making it impossible for you to treat them on your own. The number of eggs that a female bed bug can lay every day is in the dozens, and an infestation quickly grows too large to control.

Any type of bed bug infestation can be handled by Blue Pest Control. To make sure your pest problem is dealt with as soon and successfully as possible, our qualified bed bug experts can offer you a free assessment and recommended treatment plan.