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Heading on Vacation Soon? Watch Out, Bedbugs Might Hitch a Ride Home

If you think that early June mostly signifies the beginning of barbecue season, vacation season, and postwork rooftop cocktail season, you might be missing the bigger picture—or perhaps the smaller and creepier one. Welcome to Bedbug Awareness Week! The National Pest Management Association “celebrates” June 4–11 in an effort to heighten awareness of these pesky parasites, which rank among the most disconcerting and disgusting a homeowner can encounter (as evidenced by one angry Augusta, ME, resident who recently walked into City Hall and unleashed a whole cup of bedbugs on the staff).

It gives you the willies, doesn’t it? Yet all of us are at risk, particularly once we head off on our summer vacations. The trade association Airlines for America predicts a record 4% increase in air travel over last year, prompting the NPMA to predict a peak bedbug scourge this season, too. All of which means that wherever you go, these insects could be waiting, hoping to hitch a ride back home so they can feast on your blood at night and multiply like, well, bedbugs. This is not the kind of vacation souvenir you want to take home.

Why vacations can bring bedbugs home

While bedbugs can be found anywhere, staying in hotels will significantly increase the odds of close encounters. Even five-star establishments aren’t immune; the critters have been spotted at all echelons, including the Waldorf Astoria and various Trump Hotels (to check for infestations before you book, go to bedbugregistry.com, a free public database of over 20,000 user-submitted bedbug reports in over 12,000 locations).

“The most common way to bring them home is via your luggage,” says Nancy Troyano, entomologist and director of Technical Education and Training for Rentokil Steritech, with regional brands Western Exterminator, Ehrlich, and Presto-X. “Bedbugs do not like to hang out on the people themselves, unlike other insects such as lice. Rather they will crawl into your bags.”

So consider carefully where you plop your suitcase once you walk in your room and start to unpack.

Beds, couches, or other upholstered surfaces are bad; hard surfaces like a desk or bathroom floor are safer bets, says Harry Ramos of All Seasons Pest Elimination Service, in North Jersey, which has worked with a wide range of properties (including New York’s Plaza Hotel). 

Signs of bedbugs in your hotel

Once your luggage is safe, it’s time to check for the critters themselves.

“Pull back the corners of bedding on the bed and check the mattress and box spring for bedbugs, which are about the size of an apple seed,” says Troyano. Since these critters hide from light, check for telltale signs.

For instance, “bedbugs will molt and shed their skin before each new life stage,” says Troyano. “Often you can find these pieces of shed skin lying around creases in the mattress. Bed bugs also leave fecal deposits on the sheets and mattress that look like small dots, as though you’ve touched a black marker to fabric.”

Eww.

If you do spot anything, you should ask your hotel for a new room—or better yet, a refund.

Even once you return home, take some precautions. In addition to washing and machine drying your clothes, “store your suitcase in a nonliving space if possible, such as an attic, basement, or garage,” says Troyano. “If the suitcase must be stored under a bed or in a bedroom closet, place it in a large trash bag first.”

You’ll want to sequester any critters that could be on your luggage and keep them firmly locked away from any access to human flesh. However, keep in mind that bedbugs can live a few months or up to a year without feeding, so it’ll take a while to starve them out.

Have bedbugs? Here’s what to do

However, if—after all these precautions—you still end up with bedbugs (look for the aforementioned signs or red, itchy welts on your skin), this does not mean you’ll have to trash your mattress and furniture.

“You do not need to get rid of your bed and furnishings in the event of a bedbug infestation,” says Troyano. That said, you’ll want to call in the professionals to get rid of them; this is not a DIY job.

“Since we continue to find populations of bedbugs that are resistant to pesticides, you may need to consider other control options that don’t involve the use of chemicals, such as heat,” says Troyano. Heat kills all stages of bedbugs, including the eggs. Pest control companies do offer the option of heating infested items, as well as entire rooms.

In other words, your life won’t be over if you end up with bedbugs. You, and your home, will survive.

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