Hotel stowaways: How to avoid bringing bedbugs home from your holiday

• Bed and bed frame: Because they bite people at night, bedbugs often hide in the bed or bed frame. Especially under the bed, in cracks and crevices in the bed frame, or in sockets next to the bed.
• Luggage rack: Bedbugs travel in luggage and therefore often remain in luggage racks, especially in crevices, corners and gaps. It is unlikely that it will settle into the clothing you are wearing. Bedbugs don’t like vibration.
• Bedside tables and cabinets: Bedbugs have many ways to hide in wooden furniture. Because hotel guests store clothing and travel items in closets, bedbugs tend to nest there.
• Pictures, mirrors and curtains: Bedbugs often hide behind pictures on walls, mirrors or curtains, where they remain undisturbed and can quickly find their way into closets or beds. That’s why it’s worth visual inspection.
• Chairs, sofas and armchairs:Bedbugs are attracted to exhaled CO₂. Therefore, all areas where people spend a certain amount of time and breathe in CO₂, such as chairs, sofas and armchairs, are attractive to bedbugs. They can also hide well in cracks and crevices.

“You usually only recognize an infestation when you notice bedbug bites on your skin,” says Zehnder. There are also traces of blood on the mattress and blanket. Bed bugs cannot be transferred from person to person. A bite is harmless and a skin reaction does not always occur. If so, it looks like a mosquito bite; reddish and a few millimeters in size. Unlike mosquito bites, bed bug bites often create a line on the skin, called a bed bug mark. “Insects look for blood vessels and bite until they find them.”

Whether out of specific suspicion or just to be on the safe side, Zehnder recommends taking the following precautions after the trip:

• Have your luggage checked by an expert: Some pest control companies offer trunk inspection with search dogs that can detect bedbugs in a short time. If the dogs find the luggage, it is placed in a 60-degree thermal cell for several hours. This will kill all bedbugs.
• Pack your luggage in plastic bags at home: If you don’t have the opportunity to use a heat cell treatment, you should place all suitcases, bags and other belongings individually in airtight plastic bags when you arrive home – ideally by the front door. This prevents pests from spreading throughout the house.
• Clothes Shake over the tub: The individually packed luggage can then be opened over the tub and the clothes shaken individually and thoroughly. If bedbugs fall out (they are reddish-black in color) they are clearly visible in the white tub and can be flushed down the drain.
• Wash the laundry at 60 degrees: Even if you shake it off, you cannot be sure that all bedbugs have been removed, so you need to wash the laundry at 60 degrees. This kills any remaining parasites.
• Freeze non-washable luggage: Delicate clothing or luggage that should not be washed (books, bags or shoes) can be placed in plastic bags and stored in the freezer for seven days.