Bed Bugs at a 5 star hotel!! Need advice from hotel workers....

[WHShit]

So, Thursday night, ASSMAN went to a manager conference in Cardiff, Wales. His company always puts their employees in 4-5 star hotels on stay-over meetings. Every hotel he has went to so far has been amazing! One even had a celebrity chef the night he stayed!

The one he stayed at on Thursday was apparantly where the golfers in the Ryder Cup stayed......and he said it was beautiful.

However, when he came home yesterday he said that him and some other managers had gotten a rash of some sort. He said it itched but justthought it was a rash from the soap. I had a look...and straight away knew it was bed bug bites!!!!! He has them everywhere! Big, big, big welts the size of pennies! All over his back, his sides, arms, hands and face...only place he doesn't have them are on his legs and ...um......his unmentionables:o . His dad said "bed bugs" straight after seeing them too! I looked up info and pics of bed bug bites on the internet, and they look the same.

I took pictures and told him to call the hotel and inform his company. I am not a complainer, but that is unacceptable at a 5 star hotel!!!

Any ideas what action to take about this? I know some of you guys work at hotels...what should we do?

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Have the boss write the hotel a letter. Hopefully he will be factual, telling exactly what happened, and he won't exaggerate things or demand various freebies (seeing the letters on PFB has made me cynical; he should go to PFB for examples of what not to do).

As an aside: my family went to Kansas City for a vacation one year and the hotel room we had was infested with cockroaches.

[Mr. Rude]

Mrs. Rude is the exec housekeeper at a major hotel here & they get those little nasties every once in a while. There is jack that they can do about stopping them. They get tracked in by slob type customers. Best to let the hotel know so they can replace all the bedding & mattress. ;)

[Lvl_9_Gazebo]

It's unacceptable anywhere, but bed bugs are making a comeback because certain pesticides used to kill them have been banned. Short of setting fire to the room, there's isn't a lot hotels can do about them -- and that's only a slight exaggeration. They're hell to get rid of.

I agree with what other posters have said here. Write a polite letter detailing the problem and do not exaggerate. Do not demand freebies or threaten to sue becaue I assure you the hotel will have bigger problems soon enough basically stripping the room and starting from scratch. Very likely, the hotel will be more than mortified on its own to offer everything short of a tongue bath.

Bed bugs are not a problem that's confined to roach motels and off-brand places. They've been found everywhere from Motel 6's in bad neighborhoods to the swankiest of the swanky hotels in Manhattan. Every hotel is dreading the day they get their first complaint because these things are spreading like you wouldn't believe.

[Luna]

I saw a news reoprt on bed bugs maybe 6 months ago. Aparrently, they're at an all time high in all hotels from -1 stars to 5 stars all over the place. The report called it an epidemic.

You can't get rid of them, everything must be thrown away and replaced. :(

[Coconut]

I saw a news reoprt on bed bugs maybe 6 months ago.

Was that from Dateline? I saw that too. Yea, apparently bedbugs are making a comeback.

[Barefootgirl]

Was that the Celtic Manor, by any chance? Nice hotel. I've stayed there and I can only assume that even bedbugs have standards, because i didn't get bitten (:D ) Unfortunately, ANY hotel can get bedbugs - if a guest stayed at a hotel with them, and then moved to another hotel the next night, its very possible that the guest will bring the bedbugs along for a free stay...this is NOT fun.

I definitely agree with writing to the hotel. If nothing else, they need to know that they have an infestation problem.