Search Results for: bed bugs in hotels

There is a common misconception surrounding bed bugs and where they come from. Many associate bed bugs with a dirty home, but that is not necessarily true. Even the cleanest homes can experience a bed bug infestation.

They obviously live in beds, but do bed bugs live outside?

Bed bugs do not live in the grass and prefer the warmth and moisture that your bed and room provide.

Bed bugs are indoor pests and are commonly found:

• In your mattress, box spring, or bed base
• In your carpets and along your baseboards
• On sheltered porches and sunrooms

Let’s explore the world of these creepy crawlies and learn more about their habitat and how to eradicate them. 

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Bed Bugs: Nature’s Indoor Pest

Try as you might, there is no foolproof way to prevent a bed bug infestation in your home completely. While regular vacuuming, washing linens, and airing your bed might help, these measures are not enough to prevent this indoor pest from crawling onto your skin and having a cheeky snack. 

That said, bed bugs cannot and will not survive outdoors for long. They are most likely brought into the home in a few ways.

The primary ways bedbugs infest a home are:

• Brought in on luggage, from hotels, Ubers, even movie theaters
• Used furniture from second-hand stores or bought off of Facebook Marketplace
• Walked in from sheltered porches and sunrooms

Bed bugs are extremely small, with both male and female adult bed bugs being no bigger than a quarter of an inch long. They are quite comparable to apple seeds.

They are flat in size and can fit into gaps thinner than a credit card. Spotting them is not easy and can only be done at night as they are nocturnal insects. 

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Bed Bug Bites 

Bed bugs are truly a vampiric pest, out to drink your blood. And while they are not poisonous, their bites can cause an allergic reaction that can quickly turn into a welt. No clinically tested or recommended treatment or prevention can help keep you bite-free, but managing the infestation can certainly control the chance of being bitten. 

They only feed at night, and their bites are not painful. They are typically detected by feeling one crawling on your skin, these critters feed on your skin for up to ten minutes if undetected.

Usually, the only sign that you have been bitten would be a red mark on your in or bed bug feces and empty bug husks on your bed linens.  

Bed bugs have an elongated beak that pierces the skin. Once they have fed, their bodies swell and change from dark brown to a reddish/cyan color.

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Controlling a Bed Bug Infestation

As we have already stated, there is no effective way to fully prevent a bed bug infestation. But hope exists in the form of diatomaceous earth. 

Popular crawling bug repellents do not affect bed bugs, and an infestation requires careful management. Using diatomaceous earth sprinkled on your mattress, carpets, windowsills, and the small crevices between your carpets and baseboards will dehydrate and kill bed bugs within a few hours. 

Here are a few helpful steps that you can follow to effectively kill bed bugs and rid your bed and home of an infestation:

Step 1: Steam Cleaning

If you have a steam cleaner, great! If not, you can hire one for the day from your local hardware store or even at some laundromats. Steam clean your entire home, including all furniture, rugs, carpets, mattresses, and even windowsills and doorways.

While bed bugs thrive in moist, warm environments, they cannot stand the heat that high-temperature steam cleaning provides. However, be sure you let the rental place know you’re combatting bed bugs. If they don’t give you a powerful cleaner, you could easily spread the problem to the next person.

Step 2: Wash

Gather your bed linens, including any mattress protectors and baseboard covers, and give them a good wash on a very hot or very cold cycle. This should also help to remove the blood and feces stains from your linens too.

A hot cycle on the tumble dryer will kill off any remaining bugs, but hanging your linen in the sun to dry is just as effective. 

Step 3: Vacuum

The last thing you want after steam cleaning your home and washing your linens is to leave bed bug carcasses scattered around on the floor. Vacuum your carpets, rugs, furniture, and mattress to remove these dead bodies.

Remember to use the narrow nozzle attachment on your vacuum for those hard-to-reach, narrow spots. 

Step 4: Sprinkle The Earth

Using an applicator, you can apply diatomaceous earth to your carpets, furniture, and mattress. These are available from many online retailers or your local hardware store. Choose food-grade diatomaceous earth as this is safe for use with pets and children in the home.

This fine powder will kill bed bugs within hours but is best left as long as possible to be most effective.

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Prevention Tips

Sadly it is impossible to completely prevent a bed bug infestation, no matter how clean your house is or how often you wash your linens. But, we do have a few helpful tips that you can follow to ensure you aren’t bringing bed bugs into your home from outside sources:

• Steam clean or vacuum all second-hand furniture, clothing, etc. before it is brought into your home. Brush the items off, vacuum them, and treat them with diatomaceous earth if necessary. 
• Keep your porch clean and dry. Look out for any blood or feces spots that bed bugs are known to leave behind, and clean this area thoroughly. Bed bugs are small, flat, and vary in color according to their age. Identifying bed bugs is key to managing an infestation. 
• Brush all luggage and bags on your lawn before bringing them into your home. Also, keep a close eye on your storage areas, as they can be a hive for infestations. Bed bugs can live for up to a year in vacuum-sealed bags.

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Conclusion

Bed bugs are indoor pests and, thankfully, don’t really live in the grass. Bed bugs are almost always brought in from luggage, used furniture or clothes, or from warm and damp areas like your porch or sunroom.

Cleaning your home and using bug repellents is not sufficient to prevent an infestation, no matter how clean your home is. Please use the tips provided in this article to successfully treat a bed bug infestation and keep your home bed bug free.

If you’re planning a night out on a special date, or with friends or family, to the movie theater to see the latest blockbuster, you’re probably not thinking about whether you’ll bring a pest back home with you!

But unfortunately, these days this is exactly what can happen, which will not only ruin your night out, but can cause many sleepless nights in the near future.

Why? Because you have brought a bed bug home with you.

Can you get bed bugs from a movie theater? Well, the answer is yes, you can get bed bugs from a movie theater. In this article we’ll find out why and what you can do to stop this from happening to you.

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Can You Get Bed Bugs From A Movie Theater?Read More »

“Good night, sleep tight, and don’t let the bed bugs bite.” This was a common phrase that many American children grew up with before the 1950s, when bed bugs were a common pest in many homes because mattresses were made from either straw, shredded corn husks, and down feathers.

These natural materials were a haven for bed bugs. But these days this isn’t a problem. Unfortunately, though, there has been a huge rise in these annoying pests, with experts believing that this has come about due to a rise in travel, increased resistance to pesticides that irradiate them, and a lack of common knowledge about preventing infestations in the first place.

Is it because bed bugs could have a preference for blood type? Why don’t they bite everyone?

If so, what blood type do bed bugs like best? Bed bugs tend to keep a taste for the first blood type they’ve feasted on. In this article, we’ll explain how it all works, and why bed bugs love some people but ignore others.

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What Blood Type Do Bed Bugs Like Best?Read More »

Water bugs are a type of aquatic insect that is found in shallow pools of freshwater and brackish water. Many people confuse water bugs with cockroaches. What is the difference between water bug vs bed bug?

• They are also known as the water flea or the water beetle, but often people refer to roaches as water bugs. 
• They spend most of their time on the substrate or plants near the bottom of their habitat and can survive on land for a few hours without having to drink. 
• Bed bugs are tiny bugs that feed on human blood, causing itchy bumps, rashes, allergic reactions, dermatitis, and other health issues.

Here we put the two side by side to see what similarities or differences these bugs have.

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Water Bug vs Bed BugRead More »

Bed bugs are evil little vampiric insects that feed exclusively on blood. They are small, reddish-brown, and oval-shaped, with the adult female about 1/4 inch in length. They have flat bodies and six legs. They are typically about 3/8 inch long and can be seen by the naked eye. 

What defenses do you have to keep them from your home? Do lizards eat bed bugs?

• Some lizards including geckos, bearded dragons, and Gila monsters happily eat bed bugs
• There have been many reports of bed bug infestations in hotels, apartments, dormitories, schools, cabs and Ubers, and movie theaters all around the world. 
• Lizards can help with bed bug control, but aren’t going to cure an infestation!

Here we take a look at whether lizards eat bed bugs, and if so, how you can use them in your home.

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Do Lizards Eat Bed Bugs? Should You Shoo Away Lizards From Your Home?Read More »

Over the past few decades, bed bugs have become more prevalent, and are causing more havoc than ever before. Bed bugs were largely eradicated in the 1950s with the use of DDT, but since then, they have made a resurgence.

As a result, they are becoming more common in the United States. 

Bed Bugs like to nestle in dark places where it is warm and humid. Does this include eyes? Can bed bugs get in your eyes?

• Bed bugs can be found almost everywhere: in hotels, movie theaters, schools, and homes. 
• They feed on human blood and can live on clothing or furniture without feeding for months at a time. 
• They bite people while sleeping, leading to itchy welts that can last for weeks after being bitten. 

Bed bugs are interested in blood, and not in eyes or orifices. Bed bugs are a menace, but at least they don’t go into your eyes. However, they can cause some allergic issues with the eyes. We’ll discuss it further below.

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Can Bed Bugs Get In Your Eyes? Do They Attempt To Go There?Read More »

Hot tub folliculitis, also known as hot tub rash, is a bacterial infection that can occur when water with high levels of bacteria enters the body through small cuts in the skin. The symptoms of hot tub folliculitis include red bumps on the skin and a strong smell from the infected area.

But some of these symptoms are similar to bed bug bites.

• They may look like acne but can also occur as boils or pustules. 
• The infection can cause pain and discomfort, but it usually heals on its own within a few days. 
• The bacteria can enter the skin through a cut or open sore or by getting water up the nose.

Here we are going to take a look at hot tub folliculitis vs bed bugs so you can tell the difference and figure out which one you’re dealing with.

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Hot Tub Folliculitis vs Bed Bugs: How You Can Tell Them ApartRead More »

Bed bugs are tiny little vampiric insects that can ruin your life. Their bloodsucking bite is one of the worst, which might leave you wondering what you have not been doing or what you did to deserve those little demons! Can you get bed bugs from not washing your sheets?

No, leaving your sheets on your bed too long won’t cause bed bugs to infest your bedroom. But the cleaner your room, the better.

This article will go deeper on this topic by looking at some factors to consider:

• Where do bed bugs come from?
• How to reduce bed bug infestation
• What attracts bed bugs?

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Can You Get Bed Bugs from Not Washing Your Sheets?Read More »

Bed bugs are a common pest found in homes, hotels, AirBnBs, etc. They’re little vampiric demons that suck your blood while you sleep. Where do bed bugs hide on your body? Do they live in your hair or on your body like lice?

Here’s the bottom line:

• Bed bugs do not live on your body or hair.
• They feed on human blood and can cause severe skin irritation. 
• Bed bugs do not transmit diseases but can cause allergic reactions 

Bed bug bites may lead to asthma, eczema, and dermatitis. They come out at night to feed on their host’s blood from any part of the body where there is an opening in the skin.

Keep reading for a full explainer!

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Where Do Bed Bugs Hide on Your Body? Do They Camp On Your Skin?Read More »

Bed bugs are vampiric pests no one wants. However, although bed bugs aren’t something hotels want, your hotel may have them. If a hotel has bed bugs in one room will all rooms have them?

• It is possible to find bed bugs in even the nicest hotels. Rooms can become infested with them
• It’s common for a bed bug infestation to travel from room to room as the rooms are cleaned
• Just because bed bugs are in one room doesn’t guarantee they are in other rooms in the same hotel

How likely is it that if one room in a hotel is infested with bed bugs, all the rooms are infested? Let’s look in detail below.

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If A Hotel Has Bed Bugs In One Room, Will All Rooms Have Them?Read More »