Upon arrival at the city, travellers Arthur and his wife Sue finally found a nice-looking hotel and approached the front office. The person-in-charge was polite and since the room rate was reasonably priced, they checked in straight away. They were so tired and in need of a good rest and the comfy beds look so inviting. After unpacking their luggage, they cleaned up and went to bed. After a few hours, they woke up from sleep, scratching their skins and every part of their bodies. Well, hello bed bugs! Don’t surprise that most travellers had been victimized by this bed bugs bite in hotel or motel rooms regardless of the weather conditions or seasons, after all, it is partially their fault for carrying it at first place.
Problems caused by bed bugs
Bed bugs could be easily transmitted from the tourists. Normally, they transmitted through baggage, luggage, shipment boxes and travellers that carrying them from other places into hotels and places of accommodations. These types of pests like to hitch on luggage bags, clothes, rucksack or travellers belonging without anyone realizing it and when exposed to suitable temperatures or habitat, it multiplies rapidly.
Bed bugs usually inhabit on beds, sofas, luggage racks, furniture, hidden cracks and seat cushions. Drawn to carbon dioxide and humidity formed in the air by the human breaths on their beds and subsequently, these bugs would then be looking for the human blood. Bed bugs can even live in a year without a blood meal; they are resilient and are remarkably difficult to kill. Although they are less active in cold countries and tend to hibernate on cold seasons, when migrating to hot weather countries through travellers, they breed actively and multiply more than their normal rate. They are thirsty for blood and are hyperactive in a warm climate. Normal house insects spray or pesticides could not eradicate these bed bugs pests and professional help is required in this area especially within the premises of hotels, resorts, guest houses and accommodations that cater the tourism industry.
It is noteworthy that the hotel industries are most infected by bed bugs, especially in Asia due to all year warm climate and have to spend large sums of capital expenditures to eradicate them. These bed bugs can survive in any nations and states if the conditions of their habitats are conducive for them to breed and multiply. Even 5-star luxury hotels are not immune to these nuisance pests.
We will demonstrate to you that prevention is much simpler and cheaper than eradication.
What they Look Like and How to Spot It?
These bugs are oval-shaped and small in sizes with six legs and they can be reddish-brown or dark yellow in colour with their sizes can be 4 to 6mm long. From the top, they are visible as flat bodies with apple-shaped body profiles. Bed bugs do not have wings; only adults bed bug has wings but their wings are dysfunctional. These creatures, however, do not spread diseases but might leave dark spots when they left the sheets and red spots on the mattress from blood-feeding. People can see adults bed bugs with the naked eye but it is difficult to see smaller bed bugs.
There are four types of bed bugs such as Cimex Lectularius, Cimex Adjunctus, Cimex Hemipterus and Haematosiphon which were commonly found indoors. Cimex Lectularius are household bed bugs that inhabited the temperate countries and can usually found in any part of the world. Cimex Adjunctus are bat bugs that can be found in tropical and temperate climate areas. These pests usually nourish blood specifically on bats but can suck human blood as well. Cimex Hemipterus or tropical bed bugs live in tropical climate regions such as in Southeast Asia. Lastly, Haematosiphon is indoor Mexican chicken bed bugs which are found mainly in North America. This type of bed bugs normally feeds on birds’ species which populate the poultry farms and the countryside. Knowing to detect these type of bugs is significantly essential for hotel owners in order to treat, prevent manifestation and control removal pest effectively.
At early stages, hotel guests that might have been bitten by bugs are left with red itchy swollen lumps on their bodies. Guests with bad experiences might not come to stay at those hotels again. This is bad for hotel owners because losing more customers means lower profitability. In the long term, guests will lose confidence with those hotels and their bad experiences may destroy the hotels’ image and future business through word of mouth, social media, or online reviews, etc. Neglecting on the threats of bed bugs can be costly since the bed bugs can also harm hotel assets such as bed, furniture, towels or sofas, etc. Therefore, it is very important to regularly inspect and detect the pests early in the day.
As preventive measures, the hotel needs to control bed bugs manifestation issues beforehand.
- Before guests arrive, hotel staff need to a thorough inspection of the bed bugs in the hotel rooms.
- Provide training for hotel employees to handle guest complaints about bed bugs and train them on detecting hidden bed bugs manifestation as well as to take initiative action to treat the room with proper pesticides or cleaning tools.
- Get a licenced or a professional pest controller for check-ups, inspections and spraying at regular intervals.
Finally, we at the Atalian Global Services offer the best professional pest control measures and we are equipped with special pesticides that can treat the bed bugs problems on a permanent basis. Do contact us today; we provide alternative solutions to beat bed bugs problems with no more worries from you!