Bed Bugs?

Funniest post of the day so far, Tek.

I'm surprised and relieved that many of you hold the opinion that the bed bug problem was over-hyped.

The bed bug "problem" really has been blown out of proportion and a good chunk of it is because of the internet and sites like Trip Advisor.com . In other words people go to hotel find something to bitch about it and if its a minor issue ( example: no Mountain dew in the Pepsi machine ) well they start posting online stuff like how the hotel "has bedbugs" to get back at the hotel.

My aunt works for the Wyndham hotel chain and the other day they had a guest who was quite nice and pleased with his stay at her hotel. The only complaint and even the guest had said it was a minor one was that the TV set only offered one ABC affilate but still he had wrote a letter to the staff saying how great his stay was at her hotel.

Well imagine my aunt's surprise when she had checked out the review of this man's stay on Trip Advisor mentioning such things like how he had seen "nude men smoking cigars and drinking beer in the hot tub", "a dead rat was found under the bed" and of course "I was biten by hundreds of bed bugs..it was so bad that I had to call 911". Trip Advisor had to take down that "review".

Carrie M. said:
*cue the poster who will tell me that I'm an insensitive jerk because they've been traumatized by bed bugs for years and I don't appreciate all that they've been through.*

Hey Carrie sorry for overreacting in the other thread. I was fresh out of bad experience with them. It was frustrating to hear that something I'd experienced first hand was being written off as full media hype or a bigfoot type thing.

Just curious has anyone on here had an experience with bedbugs aside from me? I do feel the media has overhyped it but do know a few friends that have had them in their places and my father got bites while at a hotel in NYC.

Cropsey said:
Just curious has anyone on here had an experience with bedbugs aside from me? I do feel the media has overhyped it but do know a few friends that have had them in their places and my father got bites while at a hotel in NYC.

Even though I myself had never had a problem with bedbugs I know many over the years who had, then again I can't say that I wasn't surprised either. Doing such things such as buying used mattresses and blankets on Craigslist, renting rooms by the hour at adult clubs or visitng places known for a lack of housekeeping. Last year for example several of my gay friends had vistted one of those "clothing optinal" campgrounds in Tennessee and ALL of them came back with bed bug bites.

Of course all of them seemed to overlook the fact that the campground didn't provide hosuekeeping for its cabins and how they are not responsible for anything you could be in contact with in those cabins. Oh nevermind the part about how the place was in question run in part by a company that makes gay porno even though all of this info was right their on their website. Talk about red flags !!!

The thing is it's not limited to the sketchy motels. My experience was in a Hilton, my dad's experience was in something high end as well - can't remember off hand. So it's not always a reflection on the cleanliness or quality but rather who was in the room before you or next door.

The Hilton was very cool and professional about it and seemed to have a protocol in place for it. I calmly showed them my bites the next morning. Manager moved my to a suite on a different floor. They took all of my clothes and bags and said they would take care of them. Later that day everything was returned to me cleaned and pressed and I got the whole stay comped. That was the positive part of a fairly horrible experience. Itching aside it did take several days before I was able to get a solid night's sleep.

I still travel regularly but always check the room before unpacking. They do hide well but will usually leave signs that they're around. Also always keep bags on the rack.

Cropsey said:
The thing is it's not limited to the sketchy motels. My experience was in a Hilton, my dad's experience was in something high end as well - can't remember off hand. So it's not always a reflection on the cleanliness or quality but rather who was in the room before you or next door.

Totally true. It's not a cleanliness issue.

If anything it's the places that frequent travelers stay that are most likely - and often that's the high-end business person.

It's one thing getting bitten by them - they are basically like mosquitoes with out wings, big deal. But knowing they are living in the cracks in your floor, walls, television and remote... thats a little creepy.

The biggest thing I gather from bedbugs is how hard they are to get rid of. Uck!

Everyone reacts a bit differently to the bites and some don't react at all. But for myself and it was way worse than a mosquito bite. Each bug usually feed three times so you get a clusters or rows of bites. That's sort of the calling card where you know you're dealing with a bedbug rather than something else. Initially the itch is similar to a mosquito but then gets more intense as it heals up and is more like poison ivy. About two days later mine swelled up and were sore almost like a bee sting then itchy again as that healed up. The other frustrating part is the bites stick around for awhile and were still fairly itchy and very visible for about 3 weeks. I'll take mosquitos over bed bugs anyday.

But someone's making money on the fear all the same.

"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American Public."
---H. L. Mencken

I only had one experience with bed bugs, and it was LONG before all of this hype. It was a Budget Inn near Cedar Point. I woke up with bites all over me. :( They are definitely nasty little buggers even though they have been around forever. Luckily they didn't go home with me!

The press can take anything and create fear with it, whether it's anthrax or bed bugs. Tomorrow it will be something else. And companies make money from this fear with products that may or may not help with the problem.

-Tina

The press doesn't create fear, stupid people do.

Jeff said:
The press doesn't create fear, stupid people do.

I see it as symbiotic. The two feed off of each other.

The press doesn't create fear.

Stupid people don't create fear.

The press & stupid people together create fear feeding off of each other in an endless loop.

Either that or it's the stupid people in the press that create the fear. ;)

Or Maverick.

Did somebody say something about there not being a spoon?

A spoon? You don't eat pancakes with a spoon!

Walt Disney World has a pretty aggressive bed bug program in effect right now. They have a beagle on staff trained to sniff them out. There have been, and continue to be, cases of them though not in a large percentage of their rooms.

When found, the laundry facility is involved in treating any personal effects by bringing them to a room at the laundry where that stuff can be heated to very high temperatures to kill the bugs.

The room infected is sealed off and a similar method is used to heat the room to very high temperatures.

I guess the good news for Disney is that they aren't experiencing sell out capacity on property so they can easily move affected guests as treatments are necessary.

Pluto isn't a beagle. You're thinking of Snoopy. He's doing inspections at Breakers.

If the press couldn't make money off fear, there would be no explanation at all for the existence of Glenn Beck... ;)

Please bill. We got rid of Aamilj. Don't conjure him back up. ;-)

Lord Gonchar said:

The press & stupid people together create fear feeding off of each other in an endless loop.

That's more like it. ;)

-Tina

coasterqueenTRN said:

Lord Gonchar said:

The press & stupid people together create fear feeding off of each other in an endless loop.

That's more like it. ;)

-Tina

I agree..goes hand and hand.

Example...Yahoo does a story about how 10,000 people had applied for jobs at Las Vegas area McDonalds restuarants. They "imply" its a recession thing even if this sort of thing happens year after year good times and bad. People who read it starting assuming fear by posting crap like how they know so and so who was turned down for a job because Micky D's checked their credit ( they don't ) or how this is a "sign" of the end of the world gotta get those shot guns ready.