Bed bugs: how to avoid bringing them home - help please!

[Blu]

Ugh.
We checked out of a hotel last night and drove home having discovered bed bugs in our bed and DS's bed.
When we got in, we all took of our clothes in the hall and put the, and our bags, in bin liners and knotted the tight, then we all showered before going back to bed as dawn approached.

What can I do to avoid bringing these horrors into our house?

DS's bear was in bed with him....

Any expert advice or experience very much appreciated.

if the bear cant be washed (some toys cant)
steam clean it or put it in a bag and freezer it for a couple of weeks .

EUGW ...BED BUGS.

Thanks Riven.

The hotel was on the S Coast - I'm not going to name and shame yet - I have asked them to show me the evidence that they have called in professionals to deal with this, I have reported them to Laterooms .com and suggested they sell no more vacancies until it's dealt with, and I have told the hotel that as well as the refund, i will be giving them the bill for any professional decontamination.

Does anyone know if deep freezing kills bad bugs? Our woollens and poor bear will not survive a hot wash...I will run the Dyson attachment over bear....

Grrrr - it's wrecked our w/e, of course...

Anyone know how hot is hot?
60 deg OK, or hotter?

Oh God what a nightmare for you.

If you've got anything that can take hotter than a 60 degree wash then I would do it hotter, yes.

How did you know there were bugs? Could you see them? Did you start itching right away?

Have to confess, although I am quite robust about nits, fleas and worms (oh yes we've had them all) bed bugs are my worst nightmare. My sister was staying at a hotel in China which had them and iirc had to bin all of her clothes .

throw way any paper items - they lay eggs on paper. hot wash everything you can.

DP woke and said he was being bitten - we thought it could have been mossies as we had been outdoors at dusk and night time at an astronomy open evening. But he insisted there was something in the bed...we invstigated, and yes, saw a few adult bugs, and some tiny barely visible ones. Then we looked in DS's bed, and saw a mix of adult and babies in his bed too. We found about 15 in total, without looking too hard.

We have video and photographic evidence!

We were only in the hotel room from about 10.30 p.m, to 2 a.m, could they already have laid eggs in books etc?

Our clothes were in our bags on the chair

Am washing at 70 degrees, vacuuming everything, including inside out and along all seams and inside pockets, and putting everything that can't be hot washed in the freezer. Our nightclothes will be washed at 100 degrees.

Also, we had to get dressed and drive hom - I'm planning to vacuum out the car...anything else I should do?

Oh you poor things.

I think there was a thread on Mumsnet just a couple of days ago about bed bugs. I'll have a look.

Thanks Namey.

Can't seem to find it. Think it must have been on my local forum. God, I bet the hotel are bricking it. New York is infested, apparently.

How horrible for you. I have a fear of bed bugs. Were you all bitten? Have you seen your GP they can carry disease you know.

oh, blimey.

DP was bitten, DS and I have no bite marks, but in DS's bed there was a tell tale small fresh blood stain

tbh I am only keeping calm because I am at full tilt wshing, vacuuming etc and trying to be as preventative as possible.

OK, the DH of a MN-er works in pest management, and I have received helpful advice, including a tip about microwaving anything that can't be hot-washed, as long as it doensn't have any metal parts and is dry.

he reckons that by doing what i am doing, and infestation is unlikely.

Phew! I night's sleep tonight!

It's bloody hard work microwaving, vaccuuming and ewashing absolutley everything!

And my skin is crawling. Yuk.

I have e mailed the tourist office and the environmental teams at the relevant local council, hoping that they will ensure that the hotel cleans up it's act and gets it sorted.

Don't be too harsh on the hotel, unfortunately it just takes one guest bringing them in and there they are... have come across them in a 5 star hotel before. I have some professional links with the hotel, and I know that along with more standard steps they destroyed the furniture from the affected room (which felt a bit drastic, but their approach was that they could take no risks, bed bugs could damage their reputation so much.

Unfortunately I didn't discover them until I had got home so couldn't do what you did - I had pest control people out a couple of times, the first time was relatively non-toxic-to-children pesticide, which clearly wasn't bed bug toxic enough, the second time was some kind of freezing treatment which seemed to do the job.

How old is DS? If he has a car seat possibly worth washing the covers as well if he sat on it in the same clothes.

Can I also suggest you vaseline any bed legs? we had a minor infestation and did this as they then can't climb back up the legs into the bed if they have left the bed before you do everything. I actually bought a new mattress for DS's bed to be safe. I also put down carpet tape (got it in Maplins) to catch any critters crawling about!

desertgirl - no, that is why I will not be putting the hotel name on here or TripAdvisor etc - I'd rather they out it right than I put them out of business. But I have told Environmental health and the Tourist office so that their problem solving can hopefully be monitored.

Vaseline on bed legs is a good tip - thanks!

NOTHING that we had in the hotel has gone upstairs yet, even though most of has now been boiled, vacuumed, frozen, microwaved and washed. And if not is in sealed plastic bags. I will empty and wash the vacuum cleaner cylinder, and change the filter.

We weren't in the room long, got there late and din't unpack, and didn;t put stuff on the beds.