Children/Travel/Hotels/Bedbugs

Good night, sleep tight.
Don’t let the bedbugs bite.
But if they do, then take your shoe and
Hit them till they’re black and blue.
– Old nursery rhyme (author unknown)

Everything you want to know (or, perhaps, would rather not know) about your kid(s) and you being bitten by bedbugs while in hotels is in this article – with one caveat: no one knows the likelihood of it occurring. The US Centers for Disease Control and numerous other health-oriented websites devote considerable space to the subject. Hotel officials claim it is a very rare event

1. Hotels are prime places to become infected. Rooms you occupy may have had hundreds of different guests in the previous year. If one guest brought the bugs into that room – often unknowingly – countless subsequent guests may become infected, and not only in your room. The bugs can migrate from one room to another via crevices in the walls and water pipes. And until recently, most hotels did not routinely spray for bedbugs.

2. Likely, the more stars a hotel has, the fewer the chances of becoming infected. However, there are no studies to back this up. The bugs are more common in poor, developing countries, especially in inexpensive accommodations. Moreover, preventing bedbugs is expensive. It requires training housekeepers to look for them, hiring exterminators, and taking rooms out of service when necessary. Only upscale hotels are likely to do this.

3. Hotels are not the only source of the bugs. It can happen when staying with friends and family or at your child’s friend’s sleepover party. Less commonly, bugs can be acquired in theaters, taxis, waiting rooms, schools, day care centers and when trying on clothing in stores. Outbreaks have occurred at summer camps, college dormitories, hospitals and nursing homes. Infants and children are no more likely to be bitten than adults.

4. Be able to recognize the bugs. Adult bugs are reddish-brown in color, oval in shape, and about the size of an apple seed. They crawl, but slowly, and cannot fly. Tiny blackish-red spots and smears on sheets and mattresses may be their droppings. Typically they avoid light, coming out of hiding at night to feed. They feed about every five to ten days but can go a year without feeding.

5. Know where to look. The bugs encamp in and around beds to be close to their main food source, human blood. Look for them in mattress seams and bed linens, on bed frames and nearby furniture, and under carpet edges. A flashlight can help you find them.

6. Prevent being bitten. If you suspect bedbugs, pull beds away from the wall and keep bedding from coming into contact with the floor. Keep clothing in tightly shutting luggage or in plastic bags, not on the bed, in drawers or closets, or on the floor. Use closets far from beds. (Obviously, if possible, change rooms or change hotels.)

7. Bedbugs do not transmit disease. While the bugs ingest various disease-causing organisms while taking a blood meal, they are unable to pass these organisms on to the next person they bite. However, some parents, knowing that they themselves or their child have been bitten, become obsessed with bedbugs and have difficulty sleeping.

8. Identifying bites as being from bedbugs is difficult. People vary greatly in how their bodies react to such bites – from almost no reaction to red bumps and, rarely, hive-like swellings around the bites. The lesions appear immediately or in a day or two and closely resemble other insect bites, but heal more slowly and itch more.

9. Keep bite sites clean with soap and water. Apply an antibiotic cream to prevent infection. Applying hot compresses, using hydrocortisone ointment and taking oral antihistamines reduces itching but don’t shorten the duration of the rash. Seek medical care for severe reactions to rule out other causes.

10. “Debugging” your home. If you think your family may have been exposed, place clothing in plastic bags until you wash it in warm water or dry-clean it. Vacuum the inside of travel luggage. However you may need the expertise of a professional exterminator. Insecticides must be used on mattresses. However, some bedbugs are resistant to insecticides and some insecticides are toxic for children. Most exterminators make use of bedbug-sniffing dogs and steam or freezing techniques to kill the bugs.

Additional information on bedbugs:

US Centers for Disease Control:
https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/bedbugs/index.html

US Environmental Protection Agency:
https://www.epa.gov/bedbugs

Consumer Reports:
https://www.consumerreports.org/pest-control/how-to-get-rid-of-bed-bugs-at-home/