Bed Bugs on Airplanes?! Yikes!

October 04, 2017

Bed bugs are gifted hitchhikers. They don’t hop or fly but they sure can crawl, especially when motivated by the promise of a good hiding place, such as your checked baggage. While your bag is in the plane’s cargo hold bed bugs “may have hitchhiked on someone else's luggage on the plane and transferred to yours,” suggests Brian DiCicco, CEO of Pest Management Inc.
 
Bed bugs love upholstery, too, so they might also be lingering in the taxi or rental car you used to reach your hotel. Ah, yes, your hotel. Lest you think bed bugs only linger in fleabags – with all due respect to fleas – the National Pest Management Association (NPMA) points out that a “bed bug infestation is not a sign of unclean or unsanitary conditions. Bed bugs don't discriminate and have been found in world class hotels and budget properties alike.”
 
But after all this effort to stow away and hide out, what is it that bed bugs really want? You. “Bed bugs use exhaled carbon dioxide and body heat to locate a potential blood meal,” says Mike Deutsch, an entomologist with the Arrow Exterminating Company, adding that “when hungry, bed bugs will travel 30-40 feet to and from their hiding places and their sleeping hosts when seeking a meal.” The critters may already be waiting in their favorite places – the headboard, mattress and box spring, or the bedding itself – but bed bugs also may be hiding “anywhere in a room,” suggests Deutsch. “We have found bed bugs inside laptop computers, cell phones, clock radios, TVs, and other electronic devices. We have also found [them] in book bindings and even inside newspapers that are delivered to your room.”
 
If they don’t join you in your destination, bed bugs also have the potential to hook up with you on the plane or cab ride home, of course. So what’s a traveler to do? There are several steps you can take to protect yourself and bite bed bugs before they bite you.
 

Know what you’re looking for

Bed bugs resemble other small insects, so if you’re trying to spot bed bugs or signs of them while inspecting your hotel room upon check-in, know that the bug looks “similar to a tick,” says Ashley M. Marratt, CEO of informational Web site The Bed Bug Answer. Further, “a bed bug “is a small rusty-red or mahogany colored, oval-shaped insect,” says entomologist Lynn Frank, technical director of the Suburban Exterminating Company and “signs of bed bugs can include adult insects, slightly smaller and lighter colored ‘nymphs’ which are young bed bugs that have not fed yet, and bed bug eggs which look like small grains of rice,” says entomologist S. John Barcay, a senior scientist at Ecolab, which has treated more than half a million hotel rooms for bed bugs since 2003.
 
Adds Barcay, “other signs of bed bugs on the mattress are small drops of blood in a row or black spots that look like mold -- this is actually digested blood from their previous meals.” To put a finer point on it, the spots are “bloody fecal matter,” Maratt says, “smaller than the size of poppy seeds.” The black spot will “stick to the surface. If it falls off, then it's not a bed bug spot. Take a wet towel and wipe the spot to see if it smears and if so, then it may be fecal matter.” DiCicco notes that maturing bed bugs “can sometimes leave behind exoskeleton pieces as well, which are translucent” that Marratt says are “the color of a popcorn kernel shell.”
 

Protect yourself in your hotel room

 Even if your check-in inspection doesn’t turn up signs of bed bugs, you should still go into bed bug avoidance mode. Keep your suitcases and clothes off the bed and carpeting at all times, all sources urged. Place your bag on a luggage rack if one is provided and you might even take it a step further by moving the rack into the bathroom, as “bed bugs do not like tile or metal and are rarely found in these areas unless the infestation is extreme’ says Mike Canizales, co-founder of Sniff K9’s.
 
If your room didn’t come equipped with a luggage rack and you choose not to share a bathroom with your luggage, avoid unpacking as much as possible and put your used clothing “ in a plastic bag before packing back into your suitcase,” suggests  Michael Colongione, president and owner of GotchA! Bed bug Inspectors. “Take the items from the plastic bag directly to the washer when you return home.” Likewise, if you do any shopping on vacation, he says, bag your purchases and wash any new clothing once you’re home. Machine wash hot and, several sources suggest, use an extra hot and long dryer cycle for any garments you bring home from the trip -- bed bugs won’t survive heat above 113 degrees Fahrenheit, DiCicco says.
 

If you find bed bugs

 Should you find bed bugs or signs of them in your hotel room upon check-in, notify management and ask to switch to a different room “with no history of bed bugs and that is not adjacent to, above, or below the infested room,” advises travel risk management firm iJET Intelligent Risk Systems, “ noting that a “bed bug infestation can be a limited, low-level problem -- for example, an infestation in just a single room -- and may not be enough to warrant changing hotels entirely.” However, if you discover bed bugs after you’ve already settled in or spent the night, DiCicco suggests you’re within your rights to ask management to “have your clothing dry cleaned and luggage steam cleaned,” he says, and then “inspect the next room before even starting to get settled.”
 
If you or any of your traveling companions think you’ve been bitten by a bed bug or have seen bed bug evidence in your room, “make a log of where and when you were bitten, together with photographs” says attorney Elena Rivkin Franz,” at which point you could of course ask for a different room or ask management “to pay for new lodging elsewhere,” Franz says.
 

If you get bit

 Deutsch says that while the actual bite of a bed bug is painless, “most people report an intense itching at the site. Some people will have a reaction similar to a mosquito bite that will last a few days. Other people will have violent reactions resulting in large areas of raised and swollen skin at the site of the bite.” He adds that “since bed bugs have not been shown to transmit any diseases, the primary potential problem with a bed bug bite is a secondary infection caused by constant scratching.” Before using any ointments or meds for your itching, consult your doctor.
 

Prepare your bags for the trip home

 Colongione says you can help dissuade bed bugs from coming home with you by spraying your “suitcase, hotel bed, or rental car with an EPA approved over-the-counter spray” that “kills the bed bugs and their eggs, which the human eye cannot see.” If you’re driving home, upon leaving your hotel, “immediately seal any luggage in large plastic bags -- such as lawn or leaf bags -- prior to loading your car,” iJET advises, and once you get home, DiCicco says, don’t bring your bags directly inside – while outside your house or apartment zap your luggage again with any spray product your bought or wipe your bags down with alcohol. You should also “inspect and vacuum your suitcases thoroughly before bringing them into the house, the NPMA says, and further, says iJET, “luggage can be sterilized using the steam function on many household irons.”
 

The one thing about bed bugs you absolutely did not want to know

 If you are scouting for bed bugs at any point during your trip, you can rely on more than your eyesight to gather evidence. “Other signs of bed bugs may include a foul smell,” Marratt says. “The odor has been described a number of ways. Most say it resembles spoiled raw beef, a musty odor, or a sweet odor. After all, it is old blood you smell.”

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