Having a hard time imagining another night in a motel.

[ilovedolphins]

I moved my son to Florida a couple of weeks ago.  We spent 3 nights in different motels before I woke up to about 25 bug bites.  Over the course of the next few days over 40 more bites showed up.  I researched and it sounded like bed bug bites because they can show up up to 11 days after the bite.  I don't know which motel I got them from but now I am a little nervous about staying in a motel room again.  I am allergic to mosquito bites and wasp bites.  These bites blistered and swelled up and were all red.

And then another day I took an afternoon nap in a motel by Atlanta Georgia and woke up to a very large cockroach on the wall.  I called the front desk and told them I wanted a refund and would be leaving.  I am all bugged out and worried about the next time I stay at a motel.

Have you encountered these problems with motels?

[beergut]

 I have never had any issues with bed bugs in a hotel.

 It sounds like you're staying in places where they don't clean the rooms often enough, which is where bed bugs can become an issue. 

 Sounds like you stayed in some cheap places where they cut corners to keep expenses down. 

[Deleted]

Are you staying at places like this?

[dee27]

Before I book a hotel or motel, I read the reviews from former guests. If there is any mention of bugs, I will book in another place. However, I always check the sheets and mattress to look for telltale signs of bed bugs before I unpack.

[ilovedolphins]

We stayed in a Red Roof, Baymont Inn and Suites and Disney Resort.  In that order so I don't know which one had the bugs.  The Disney resort was when I woke up with the bites. The cockroach was in a Comfort Inn and Suites.  We were on our way to Florida and got motels that were off the interstate.  After an extremely bad experience in a motel in Los Angeles I just book motels that are a chain.  Most of these cost around $100 a night so I wouldn't consider them cheap.

[Sharon]

I would be more worried about the ones that hitched a ride home in your suitcase and are now moving into your home.

[giramomma]

I'm sorry.

Two years ago, we took a 2.5 week driving vacation and stayed in hotels for at least 10 nights..We never had a problem with bugs in hotel rooms, but half the time we were staying in Canada..sometimes in hotels really geared towards business and not family.

If we can, we stay at Marriot hotels. We've also done VBROs and been very pleased, not only by the quality but also the price point.

[Shooby]

  I would think some climates are going to have more bug problems.  But reading the reviews does help.  

[Rukh O'Rorke]

yuk! that is a lot of bites!

do be careful with bringing them home....

I do quite a bit of traveling for work and am always worried but so far no problems. Usually - the places are about 300/night, but even the best of places can get an infestation.

[plugginaway22]

This is one of my nightmares.  We travel a lot and I am getting worse with age.  I strip back the bed coverings, sheets, etc to inspect mattress edges.  DH thinks I'm losing it, ha-ha.

[Tennesseer]

Why not travel (if by car) with bed bug spray. If traveling by air, buy after you arrive.

Spray the bed and other areas when you first arrive in your room. Spray the outside of your luggabe.

[Deleted]

I've stayed in a LOT of hotels/motels and never encountered this but I used to read occasional posts about this problem on Flyertalk and sometimes it does happen in respectable chain hotels.  I agree with Shooby- it may be the climates. I rarely travel in warm, humid areas such as FL or Southern CA.  It's also partly luck.

[Rob Base 2.0]

Hotel, motel, Holiday Inn.....if your girl starts acting up, then you take her friend.

[milee]

Jul 23, 2017 8:48:44 GMT -5 plugginaway22 said:

This is one of my nightmares.  We travel a lot and I am getting worse with age.  I strip back the bed coverings, sheets, etc to inspect mattress edges.  DH thinks I'm losing it, ha-ha.

Most of the regular travelers I know do exactly that because the number of bed bug incidents are increasing.  And if you happen to bring bed bugs home, it's a nightmare to get rid of them.  Part of why they're such a nightmare is that there really aren't effective "bug sprays" for bed bugs.  They're resistant to just about everything and the few things that will kill them are so toxic you don't want to spray them anywhere near where you are going to sleep.  Heat treatment is about the only thing that works.  It's a PITA, expensive and if you don't remove all the places they can hide (books, knick knacks, clutter, pillows, bedding, etc) while you do the heat treatment, the heat treatment may not work since the bugs can be hiding in those places that might not get hot enough.  

It's not crazy at all to inspect the mattress edges of the hotels, motels and rentals you sleep in.  Doesn't matter if it's a cheap motel or the Ritz, all have had increasing issues with bed bugs over the past few years.

[milee]

And as for that sports writer complaining because Delta prevented his son with lice from flying... good for Delta.  

www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/should-a-passenger-with-lice-be-banned-from-flying/ar-AAovqWx?li=BBnbklE

Of course the airline should have the discussions with passengers in a way so as to not publicly embarrass them, but if an airline knows a passenger has lice - which are highly communicable - the airline owes it to the other passengers to not allow the person with lice to fly until the lice are removed.  Lice aren't nearly as difficult to get rid of as bed bugs, but they're still not something people want to catch.  It's very easy to pick up lice from something like an airline seat - think how many times the planes are turned around per day and how the next passenger is sitting in the same seat with their head against the same headrest pretty much before the seat has even cooled down from the prior passenger.  

[countrygirl2]

My husband worried about that. Sometimes he would leave his suitcase outdoors and we

would wash all his clothes and spray the luggage. He kept most of his clothes packed in

plastic ziplock bags so that helped. In some countries they ironed their clothes incase

insects got in them, it killed them.

Now you know another reason we travel and stay in the motorhome.  Even in nicer places

sitting on the toilets, getting in the tubs, walking on that dirty carpet, and using used

pillows and blankets, I can hardly do it anymore. We have no issues, and our own washer

and dryer, we know everything is clean.

[zibazinski]

I stay in hotels in Florida. No issues. Just stayed in one Friday night. I'm good. I've stayed in some not do great ones and just been lucky I guess. As far as roaches. They are everywhere. I stayed as a kid with my parents in the Waldorf in NYC. One in the bathroom as my mom found out to her horror. My dad was thrilled as our 4 days were comped because of it. My mom wanted another room but it was booked solid because of thanksgiving.

[Ava]

I've never had an issue with bugs so far.
The only time I was afraid of it was after my stay in Las Vegas.
There were no bugs inside the hotel, at least that I could see, but the moment I stepped outside to wait for airport transportation I started seeing cockroaches everywhere. I even had to remove one from top of my luggage.
Fortunately, they didn't hike a ride home with me.

Hope you don't get bugs infestation at your home.

[zibazinski]

Nope. I have a service. They spray the inside in the beginning then 4x a year after that outside.

[alabamagal]

If your son is moving to Florida, get used to the bugs. You can spray all you want, but you can get an infestation and you will see roaches.

Bed bugs are much worse. There is no spray for them. And you can get them in nice hotels as well as cheap hotels.

[ilovedolphins]

I have lived in Florida so I know all about cockroaches.  My mother in law's house had them so bad that they were crawling on you under the sheets of the bed.  You would open a kitchen cabinet drawer and they would fall out.  And they lived in a nice neighborhood and the house was nice--it was just infested.  They never did anything to kill them.  Everywhere I lived with my ex-husband we had cockroaches.  When I got divorced I didn't have any.

So when my son moved there I told him if he seen any cockroaches to tell the apartment complex so they would know.  He thought I was overreacting about a little bug until he saw the one in the motel that was probably 3 inches long.  Even the desk clerk gasped when she seen it and commented on how big it was.

I have stayed at many motels and have never had a problem so far but the two week trip to Florida moving my son was kind of like the trip from hell all the way around.

And I hope I didn't bring any home.  I washed everything in hot water and am still washing everything in hot water in case they moved in.  My daughter didn't want me to spend the night with her because I might have bed bugs so I guess.  I haven't gotten any bites since the trip so I hope they didn't move in with me.

[seriousthistime]

I don't know if this helps, but I read the best place in a hotel room to keep your suitcase is the tub. Last time I went to Vegas I had a separate shower and tub so it was convenient just to keep the suitcase and my clothes in the tub.

Obviously, it's not so convenient to do it if there's a tub/shower combination. 

The thought of bringing bed bugs home is the main reason I don't buy used upholstered furniture.

[ilovedolphins]

I read that you should leave your suitcase in the tub or at least on the luggage rack.  Don't put anything on the floor.  The next motel I stay at I will probably go overboard on precautions but all those bites drove me crazy.

[TheOtherMe]

I put nothing on the floor and look under the mattress.  So far, so good. 

[resolution]

Well, wish me luck. I just stayed at a Motel 6 in Boston where I went for a funeral. Not a hotel that I would normally book, but my extended family was staying there and the whole point of the trip was to be right there to support them. The place stank, the pool was completely green and had been "closed for maintenance" for an undetermined length of time, there was no hair dryer or shampoo, and the room had obviously been smoked in for years. But so far no bedbug bites. Unfortunately I had just unpacked my suitcase before I read this, so hopefully I haven't dispersed a bunch of little critters throughout my closet.

[zibazinski]

Ugh. I haven't stayed in one of those since college.

[milee]

Jul 23, 2017 17:54:37 GMT -5 resolution said:

Well, wish me luck. I just stayed at a Motel 6 in Boston where I went for a funeral. Not a hotel that I would normally book, but my extended family was staying there and the whole point of the trip was to be right there to support them. The place stank, the pool was completely green and had been "closed for maintenance" for an undetermined length of time, there was no hair dryer or shampoo, and the room had obviously been smoked in for years. But so far no bedbug bites. ....

I wouldn't worry about bedbugs.  The cigarette smoke probably killed them off.  Or the mold in the room mutated into a new life form that ate the bed bugs.  

I know I've got some germophobe issues, so take it with a grain of salt... but the few times I've been in that sort of situation, I've just taken a nice little power nap in my nice, clean SUV rather than even go into a room like that.  No way I'd sleep anyway, so no use trying.  

[atlantapenny]

We need to know which Disney hotel!  (Says the person about to book one!).

[busymom]

Always check the corners & edges of the mattress at any hotel you stay at.  If you find any have "hitched" a ride to your home, spray the live bugs with isopropyl alcohol, which will kill them on contact.  Wash EVERYTHING in your suitcase, even the stuff you didn't wear.  Hope they don't come home with you, as they are a PITA to get rid of.

[ilovedolphins]

Jul 24, 2017 19:46:11 GMT -5 atlantapenny said:

We need to know which Disney hotel!  (Says the person about to book one!).

We stayed at All Star Music but that doesn't mean that's where the bugs were since they can show up up to 11 days after you have been bitten.  We have stayed at all the All Stars Resorts and never had a problem with bugs.  If I had to guess which motel it was I would guess the Red Roof Inn in Arkansas but who knows.