A few minutes of prevention is worth avoiding a nightmare.
Walking into a fresh hotel room should be a moment of relaxation, but the rising problem of bed bugs can turn that dream into a stressful ordeal. These persistent pests are expert travelers and can be found in even the most high-end accommodations. Taking a few moments to conduct a quick inspection upon arrival is the single best thing you can do.
This simple routine doesn’t require any special equipment and offers invaluable peace of mind for the rest of your stay. You can relax knowing you won’t be taking home any unwanted, six-legged souvenirs.
1. You should secure your luggage in the bathroom first.
Before you do anything else, place all of your belongings in a location where bed bugs are least likely to travel. The bathroom is the ideal spot. Its tile floors and lack of hiding spots make it a safe zone. Tossing your suitcase onto the bed or the carpeted floor immediately is a risky move, as it gives any potential pests a direct bridge into your things before you’ve even had a chance to look around.
By keeping your luggage quarantined in the tub or on a tiled floor, you create a buffer that protects your belongings during the inspection. This is the most critical step in ensuring you don’t cross-contaminate your own items, according to Consumer Reports. If you do find evidence of bed bugs, you can back out of the room without your bags ever being exposed.
2. You need to strip back the corners of the bed.
Bed bugs earned their name for a reason, so the bed is the first and most important place to inspect. Start by pulling back the comforter and sheets at each of the four corners of the mattress. You are looking for a space about a foot wide along the head of the bed. This is where you will want to focus your attention, as bed bugs prefer to hide close to their food source.
Carefully examine the seams, piping, and tags of the mattress and the box spring. Look for the bugs themselves, which are small, flat, reddish-brown, and about the size of an apple seed, as reported on Forbes. Also, search for tiny, pearly-white eggs or the tell-tale black or rusty-colored spots they leave behind. Use your phone’s flashlight for a better view of these dark crevices.
3. Check the area around the headboard and nightstands.
After the mattress, the headboard is the next most common hiding spot. Since these pests like to live within a few feet of the bed, the entire area is prime real estate. If the headboard is mounted to the wall, use your flashlight to inspect the crevices between it and the wall. Check behind any artwork hanging over the bed as well, as the back of a frame provides a perfect, undisturbed shelter.
Don’t forget the nightstands. Pull out the drawers and inspect the joints and runners inside the furniture. Bed bugs can easily squeeze into these tiny cracks, as stated in Online Bedrooms. A thorough check of all the furniture immediately surrounding the bed gives you the best chance of spotting an issue early.
4. You must inspect all the upholstered furniture.
Bed bugs don’t live exclusively in beds. Any soft, upholstered furniture can serve as a potential home. Take a few moments to inspect any sofas, couches, or armchairs in the room. Pay close attention to the seams, tufts, and the areas underneath the cushions. A quick lift of the cushions can reveal the dark spots or exoskeletons they may have left behind.
The curtains are another often-overlooked hiding place. Run your eyes along the seams and folds of the drapery, especially at the very top where the curtain meets the rod. These pests will crawl upwards to find a safe, dark place to hide during the day. This part of the check ensures you are covering all the common secondary locations.
5. Examine the luggage rack before you use it.
The hotel luggage rack seems like a safe place for your suitcase, but since it constantly comes into contact with luggage from all over the world, it’s a major hotspot for transmission. Before you place your bag on it, you need to give the rack itself a thorough inspection. Bed bugs love to hide in the joints and webbing of these racks.
Turn the rack over and check all the crevices, paying special attention to where the fabric straps are attached to the frame. Look for any of the tell-tale signs, like bugs, eggs, or dark stains. Also, take a quick look inside the closet, inspecting the baseboards and any cracks in the shelving before you hang up your clothes.
6. You have to know what you are actually looking for.
Conducting a search is useless if you don’t know what evidence to look for. You are hunting for three primary signs. The first is, of course, seeing live bugs themselves; they are oval-shaped, brownish-red, and about the size of a small seed. The second sign is their fecal matter, which looks like small, dark, inky spots that often bleed into the fabric like a marker would.
The third piece of evidence is their molted skins. As bed bugs grow, they shed their exoskeletons, which look like tiny, translucent versions of the bug itself. Finding any one of these signs is a definitive red flag. Should you discover anything, do not stay in the room. Collect your things from the bathroom and go straight to the front desk to report your findings.