I have never seen a bedbug, but I would certainly change rooms, and, if necessary, hotels if I found one. I do know how to check for them.

Ditto what NewbE said.

I always check when entering a hotel room but I'm with the above posters, I have never seen one. If one was seen, I would leave the hotel, not just the room.

Travel a lot and have never seen a bed bug. But I do know they exist and can be found even in upscale hotels - not just dumps. I must admit that I check every hotel room before bring my luggage inside. If I found them I would ask to e moved to a room in a different part of a hotel. If I found them there - or the hotel isn't immediately on the job to fix the problem - I'm on to a new hotel.

(A friend and her 3 kids were heavily bitten in an upscale resort in DisenyWorld. But they were given new luggage, had all of their clothes cleaned for free and were changed to another resort.)

The problem is usually not the hotel - since the bed bugs typically come in with other guests - who naturally don;t report that they are carrying them. In a decent hotel the room is fumigated and other rooms are checked - so the bugs don;t spread and other guests are safe.

If the place is a dump they don;t do this - and then the bugs can spread to a lot of other people.

Ok. I have just arrived at my mid- to upper-range hotel. I am hot (or cold) and tired, and very pleased to be told that my room is ready.

On entering the room, I find it all looks clean and tidy, just as I had expected it would. What should I now do to check the place for bed bugs?

I pull the bottom sheet and mattress pad off enough to look at the tuffed rim around the top of the mattress. If bed bugs were there, there would be little brown spots or maybe even the bugs themselves.

Thanks for the feedback guys, some interesting insights.

I actually asked this question in the US forum because I heard it was a bigger problem in the US (I'm from Europe)... maybe not!

It's interesting to hear that although some of you haven't seen a bed bug, you are aware of how to spot them. Is this something the media reports on a lot in the US?

My daughter had a terrible bed bug experience on a train seat in Europe. Had hundreds of bites on every part of her body that touched the upholstery. she ended up with a infection and had to go to a doctor in England.

I've had several friends find them in beds in Asia and the US. From my friends who work in hoetels in Waikiki, I know it is a problem there. I think it was Chicago or new your that had infested movie theatres.

joeconnell90, bedbugs were a huge news story about a year or year and a half ago in the US. I wish I could say that I always check for bedbugs before bringing in my luggage, as that seems prudent, but I tend to forget. Been lucky so far...

I've never seen one, and, in all honesty, have never checked for them. We stay everywhere from relatively high end properties to very cheap places in Central America.

I also don't bring along wipes and wipe down the room either. Nor, do I remove the bedspreads.

Never had any problems.

The bedbug problem actually started a decade or so ago in Europe and was a particular problem in cheaper London hotels. Then it moved to the U.S. about 5 years ago. Bed bugs are rare and annoying but not really harmful, though I think people get really freaked out about them. I understand that feeling. I'd certainly change rooms or, if necessary, hotels, to avoid them. I think good hotels deal with bedbug infestations immediately, and the big hotels have someone on call who can deal with the problem. Rooms are taken out of service and treated. By the time you read about a problem on the internet, it's usually been long solved.

Believe me when I tell you that most every major hotel in most big cities has deal with at least one bedbug problem, no matter how nice. Expensive hotels deal with the problem discreetly, and people rarely hear about it.

But I have to say it's just not one of my top 20 concerns when I travel. It truly is a sporadic problem, not a huge one.

Definitely a sporadic problem - but IMHO worth it to take 2 or 3 minutes to check the bed before bringing your luggage into the room. I do it in every hotel, from the upscale to the very basic tourist hotels we are sometimes forced to use when visiting a client.

I have noticed that hotel reviews (TripAdvisor and others) often include a review or two from someone claiming such and such hotel has bedbugs. Once I returned home from a wedding weekend and the hotel location had reviews about bedbugs, and for a couple of weeks I was convinced I had brought the problem home with me. It was all in my head. The wedding had been outdoors and it was mosquito season.
But upon arrival, I also do a quick inspection and then put it right out of my mind.

I think lcuy's daughter would disagree with Doug the Editor that bed bugs are "annoying but not really harmful."

Bed bug bites only become infected if you scratch them and create an infection. In themselves they are not toxic, just itchy. But people can be allergic and have stronger reactions than others. There's another thread floating around here where a poster claimed to have had a very serious reaction. That's just not the case for the vast majority of people, so I'm willing to stand by my statement.

More interesting thoughts, thanks guys.

I guess they're not a huge problem for most people, it seems to be the thought of bringing bed bugs home with that really worries people. I've heard that dealing with bed bugs in the home is a really draining experience.

@Newbe - bed bugs can't be seen by our naked eye, as far as I know most pest control company used canine dogs for detection.

Nonsense, alicia11. They can indeed be seen by the naked eye because they are about the size of a watermelon seed. When they have fed on you, they are dark brown and can be spotted against pale sheets.
http://www.ehow.com/how_2290988_detect-bed-bugs.html

I've had two bedbugs encounters in my life: once in Calcutta and once in New York. Sorry, come to think of it, there was a third time - up high in the Himalayas in Nepal when we had to sleep in very primitive conditions. There may have been other occasions, but can't remember off the top of my head now.

I'm afraid to bring bedbugs home, so before each trip, spray my luggage with Permethrin, especially inside (let dry) and along the zippers. All my clothes are in separate plastic bags and stay in the suitcase; I never use the drawers in hotel rooms (which would be an open invitation for bedbugs to get into my clothes). If I have the time, I'll spray the outside of the plastic bags with Permethrin and let the bags dry. On coming home, I put my suitcase in the bathtub and carefully unpack from there. This may seem like overkill, but you just need to have one or two experiences with bedbugs not to want a repeat of the experience.

In hotels, I do what cd does: check the ribbing of the mattress. Even if there are no watermelon-size bedbugs, but if the ribbings has a bunch of really tiny black dots, there are bedbugs, because those black dots are bedbug droppings. If there are "sofa" chairs, their ribbing can be quickly check too.

Two yrs. ago I had bedbugs at the Hampton Inn Soho in NYC (the one located near the entrance of the Lincoln Tunnel).umps grouped in thress) Otherwise a decent hotel. I woke after sleeping on night one with a few very small red bumps on my hand (bumps grouped in sets of three), and backside, and stomach. Within 24 hrs the itching they caused was intense, and by 48 hrs the inflammation and ithing was so bad I was at an urgent care center getting steroids. It was a nightmare. It was so bad I could not work for 3 wks, I coudl not concentrate, and I could not sleep. I was in NYC as I was on the way to Hyde Park for my aunts funeral, and when I got there I could not give the eulogy as planned, I was too uncomfortable from the reaction to all of the bites.

This was way more than just some annoying event. I have two friends who also ended up on steroids after bed bug encounters. It is too bad,, and I find it insulting, that some people(including a fodors editor) who have never encountered bed bugs feel so sure of the ordeal being just annoying that they are wiling to state that as a fact, without any experience of their own w/bedbugs.

Having had to deal with bedbug eradication in three of our rental units, i can also categorically state that they can cause a real financial loss as well. It ran about $700 for the one bdroom units, plus in two cases we had to buy new mattresses and put the tenants up for a night due to the pesticide treatment.

And from my hotel manager friend (of a good and well known hotel), I know that the hotels cannot manage the problem. They just move people around when they complain, try to keep the room till the bedbug guy comes at the end of the month, and figure its just one of those things that most visitors won't recognize. It is a HUGE problem, but also a sneaky secret.

In defense of Doug Stallings, there is a big difference between uncomfortable and dangerous. No one said it's great to get bedbug bites, but bedbugs do not carry disease, and that is an important point.

Anytime someone has to go on steroids for treatment, I think that qualifies as more than uncomfortable. Steroids carry risk, and a risk-benefit decision has to be made before going on them. In my case, I was on prednisone for 20 days, two 10 day courses, because 10 days in the first round of treatment was not sufficient. The treament certainly can carry risks. So that, to me, was much more than just being uncomfortable. The bedbug bites and reaction were incapacitating, I cudl not work for 3 wks and could not even deliver the eulogy at my aunt's funeral as planned. And I have had two friends who also have had to go on steroids due to bedbug bites during work-related travel.

Bed Bugs are not rare, they are everywhere, especially in Europe, SF and NYC. However, it's rare that they actually bite. Each one feeds once every 3 or 4 months, thank god. Garlic capsules will help convince them that they should wait a few days for a tastier victim.

Icuy - that is frightening! I dont think I have encountered them to my knowledge.

I understand they are theatres, dressing rooms too.

Once I was leary and laid the towels over the bed and slept fully clothed - I was stranded at a dumpy airport motel when the airport closed due to weather in Houston.

All right, emd3, I give up. I hope you never go anywhere where real disease, such as malaria, is a possibility, because if bedbugs lay you down for 3 weeks, you would surely die under more adverse conditions.

NewbE, emd3 didn't share her story so that you could call her a wussy because of her physical reaction to bedbugs.

Her point, and mine, is though bedbugs don't carry disease, they CAN cause serious problems, so to say they are no big thing is not true. It is certainly not being paranoid to peek at a mattress before climbing into a strange bed.

as easytravler said above, "...may seem like overkill, but you just need to have one or two experiences with bedbugs not to want a repeat of the experience."

Newbe, I was never rude in my response to you. You have no idea of my health history and what diseases or maladies I have had or have not had. And you have no idea what I would or would not die of.

It is not a character defect that I had a response to bed bugs that required steroids and affected my life for 3 wks. But it certainly is a character defect to be rude and tell me I would die if I was exposed to some other disease.

Have had too much experience with bed bugs.

1) San Francisco, mid-range hotel: woke-up, looked in the mirror, saw a bite mark (some people may not react for up to 14 days, some never react): found the bug on the wall after my shower
2) Bogota, 5-star hotel: at night, lying in bed, reading. Felt a painful sting: 3 bites in a row, bleeding (they usually bite between 4:00 a.m and 6:00 a.m. and bites are typically painless)
3) Bangkok, multiple hotels: brought them home
4) Morocco, multiple hotels: adopted a strategy for not bringing them home. I did not bring them home, but the friend with whom I traveled brought them back to her home

Lessons learned: 1) they are in all classes of hotels 2) sooner or later you'll probably be bit if you travel frequently, accept it (although I haven't tried the garlic pill suggestion above, which is intriguing) 3) focus on not bringing them home, which is traumatic and expensive to treat.

Blog post (mine) on strategies for not bringing bed bugs home when you travel:
http://www.esmetravels.com/category/travel-tips/bed-bugs-travel-tips/

I was bitten about 2 yrs ago, staying at a Best Western in Northern California. The bites were in clusters of three all on my left arm. They did not appear until about 2 or 3 days later. Oddly enough they left my husband alone.

There was no doubt where the bites occurred since it was our only hotel stay. We checked the mattress at the time, but not thoroughly, later learned that they often rest behind the headboard, drawers, chairs, pictures, etc.

The bites were miserable, far more uncomfortable than a mosquito bite. I think I would have gone out of my mind if I had them on both arms, back, etc.

Years ago, I was bitten up at a London B & B. That time, they were on my back. They were uncomfortable enough for me to see a doctor who confirmed they were bedbug bites and gave me some salve.

I am more diligent when we stay in hotels now; I check the room more thoroughly, but probably not enough. I think it is a matter of luck if you travel enough. Though I do think hotels are more diligent now than they used to be. BTW, The BW denied that there were bedbugs in the room when we wrote to them about the bites.

Three bites in a row is a classic sign.

I don't check for bugs because seeing them is going to ruin any chance of sleep for me for that night, whether I switch rooms or switch hotels.

Instead, I sleep in long sleeves, protect my luggage, and bag my sleepwear.

There's no way a hotel can guarantee that they don't have bed bugs. They can't use dogs every day and they can't spray every day, yet they have new guests every day.