But clienst are moving textiles from bags, if you have any bedbugs on textiles it’s same problem no?
I can put some like your advice, but it can be hard to force clients to only use them
Not according to the Boston Globe articles which have interview many scientists, etc over the years. The bed bugs are most likely to travel ON the suitcase, not in. They are most often located in the lower portion of the bag [depending on how it has been used] on the outside. It isn’t the clothing inside that are the carrier. This is why people who spread them have not always been bit themselves.
That is why the tub idea is so very good. I am not going to implement that, but the luggage rack was a way of providing a “comfort” that was also practical from a bug and cleanliness point of view.
Very good information,thanks. What about the electronic repeller (link that i posted)?
I didn’t look at that link since I am unlikely to use an electronic device inside such a small suite of rooms.
I meant for our appartment if it s something that can give some results
I haven’t tried the electronic one, but when in doubt read Amazon reviews. Notice carefully that the positive reviews DON’T say “verified purchase,” and that many of the reviews were given in exchange for a free product.
Overall, it might be worth $35 to try it, without hoping for much.
I’ve been meaning to post a topic called “You WILL Get Bed Bugs - Eventually”. Because we got them earlier this year and I have never even seen one in my whole life before that. I think if you host long enough most people will eventually get them. It’s kind of inevitable because they are everywhere. On airplanes, in hotels, on buses and subways - pretty much anywhere people travel.
But it doesn’t have to cost $4,000. I can’t speak for other countries, but we found a very good exterminator on Yelp by reading reviews. I can only speak for the United States, but for here - you don’t want to use one of the big national companies like Terminix or Orkin. They’re terrible. And they have a whole system setup through years of experience to SCAM people out of as much money as they possibly can when they get bed bugs.
Look for a locally-owned extermination company. Preferably you want a small business. There are many local exterminators who work very hard to be better than the big companies because that’s really the only way they can survive - on referrals.
In our case, we found a guy who had just started his company a couple of years ago and he was hungry and doing everything he could to build a good reputation for himself. He charged us a total of $600. You’ll more likely have to pay something around a thousand - unless you can just luck into a good deal like we did. He only had a couple of reviews on Yelp but they were both positive and they both referred to him as the “owner”. Ideally that’s what you’ll be able to find - a very small company where you can deal with the owner. Owners know they have their reputation at stake and they’ll bend over backwards to do a great job. And if they’re that small, they don’t have to charge $4,000 to keep their company afloat. They’ll be happy with around a thousand dollars to come out twice and spray your place.
My strongest advice though is DO NOT TRY TO TREAT THIS WITH OVER-THE-COUNTER PRODUCTS OR OTHER HOME REMEDIES. The heat treatment will not fix the problem. Forget about these crazy electronic repellers - they will do NOTHING. And your bed bug problem will only grow as you wait for them to work. You will only waste your time. You get what you pay for and they will not help you at all. We did that at first, in a bid to save money on an exterminator, and all it did was extend our problem for several more weeks. FIND AN EXTERMINATOR ASAP. Let the pros handle it. Just make sure you get a good pro.
I don’t know why people are so reluctant to use an exterminator - I guess it’s the cost. But people are so desperate to do anything but that - that they end up making the problem much worse - and in the end the only thing that will really fix it is an exterminator. So in your attempt to save money you’ll not only pay for the exterminator ultimately, but you’ll waste all kinds of money on these desperate attempts to save money.
The exterminator should use a pesticide called Transport Mikron - there are a couple of others they could use as well that are just as good (good info here about the best pesticides:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KU73x9hPMY)
but you want to make sure they’re using one of the three (the other two are mentioned in the Youtube video).
Our guy used Transport and our problem was solved within 13 days. I only wish we had called him at the very start. We went on with this problem for about 2 months until we finally called somebody. We were fooled by all the postings online by people who have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about - but they sound like they do. We tried one home remedy after the other. They all sounded like they should work - but NONE of them did! Just call an exterminator and that’s it. Don’t try anything else. You’ll just be wasting money that you’ll eventually need to spend on an exterminator.
You may be thinking, what would a 1- or 2-man business know about pest control. Well, in our case, the guy we found had worked for several of the national pest control companies for more than ten years. He was also licensed by the state. So he definitely knew what he was doing. He also knew the big companies charge a LOT more than it actually costs to do the job. They charge so much more because they have a huge bureaucracy to support and they have huge marketing budgets. You don’t need a huge company to get rid of bed bugs - you just need a single individual who knows what he’s doing.
Mattresses: As far as your mattress - you don’t necessarily need to get rid of it. You can if you like - but don’t replace it until after the bed bugs are all dead. If you do it before they’re dead, they’ll just resettle into the new mattress. We didn’t replace our mattresses and we’ve been bed bug free for about 8 months now. We did however, put bed bug covers on them. And we did replace the one wooden bed frame with a metal bed frame. (We found bed bugs all over the wooden frame - but hidden from view). Bed bugs can climb up metal frames just as easily as they can wood - but they can’t live in them. So now no bed bug can live in our frames or in the mattresses. They can live in other places though, but they can’t live in their preferred places.
The exterminator we used was so awesome about understanding our situation with Airbnb. He was completely willing to write whatever letters we needed and he did everything he could to help us get back up and running ASAP.
Since our infestation was still very light by the time we called him, he said he could do the two treatments ten days apart. The protocol says 14 days, but he said 10 days would work in our case. After the last treatment he said he’d wait three days and come back and do an inspection. Protocol says wait at least 7-10 days, I believe, but he said 3 days would be fine - and in the end he was right. He cleared us and Airbnb turned our listing back on. He also helped us get back online a week to week and a half sooner than we would have had we used one of the big companies that would bend over backwards to ensure that the whole process took absolutely as long as possible - draining your pocketbook every step of the way.
Do It Yourself: You can do it yourself actually, and save a LOT of money. However, you better know what the hell you’re doing. There’s a reason these people are licensed by the state - because it’s very dangerous work if you don’t know what you’re doing. It can be dangerous to the person performing the work and it can be dangerous to the people living in the home. So be very careful if you choose to go this route. The guy we used put on a whole body suit for protection. He also used a respirator so he wouldn’t breathe in this poison. In other words, this stuff is very dangerous if not used properly! He made us leave home for five hours. When he finished spraying - which took about an hour - he opened all the windows and we still had to be out of the house for four more hours before it was safe to come back in. So it is quite dangerous if not done properly.
This website has everything you need starting with the pesticide at $55:
You can also get the spray tanks ($50-$100) there and all the protective gear you should wear ($100)
But besides having the right equipment, you need to know what you’re doing and how to apply the pesticide. And to do that you have to know a lot about bed bugs and their habits. It’s not like you can just put on all this gear and go in and spray and everything will be fine. You have to know where to spray! And to figure that out, you have to understand bed bugs. You really have to know what you’re doing or you can end up making the problem worse.
If you go online and do a lot of research and make sure you’ve got it right - then you can end up saving a ton of money doing it yourself. You could do the whole thing for around $200. But I offer this method with a great deal of caution. It really isn’t as easy as it looks. In fact, I had thought about purchasing this equipment and the pesticide just to have it on hand in case we get bed bugs again. It would be nice to be able to instantly take care of the problem without having to spend a fortune. But I haven’t done it because I’m not sure I know enough about it to get it right. Even if I copied our exterminator exactly and used all the information he gave us… I’m still not sure I know enough. And the one thing I do know is - if you don’t know enough it can be very dangerous.
How Does Airbnb Respond: This was one of our greatest fears - how would Airbnb respond to finding out we had bed bugs. Would they permanently cancel us as a stain on their system? We were the ones who actually told them. Our guest got bitten and we wanted to refund their money and we wanted Airbnb to help them find another place to stay. So I called them and told them about it. I was really afraid they might cancel us permanently. I mean bed bugs are something that could give a company like Airbnb a big black eye forever it they didn’t take strong action against hosts who had them.
But it turns out they were quite awesome about the whole thing! They first thanked me for telling them and for doing what we could to help our guest. Then they told me that we needed to have an exterminator take care of the problem and write them a letter when we were bed bug free. And far from terminating us as I half expected, they gave us $300 to go towards the expenses! That shocked us! It was the last thing we were expecting. But it left us thinking what a great company!
In the end we were so fortunate, because our guest never mentioned it in their review. They knew it wasn’t because we had a dirty place (because we don’t), and I’m sure they knew it was because we have so many different people sleeping in our home. But they were very kind not to mention it. In fact, they left a really nice review!
While not permanently cancelling us, Airbnb did immediately shut down our ability to accept new reservations after we told them. But oddly, they didn’t cancel the reservations we had already had on the books. That seemed strange to us.
After the exterminator came to spray, we had to wait 10 days for him to come back and spray again. That’s to kill any bugs that may have hatched since the first spraying. After three or four days after his second spraying, he came back and did an inspection. He didn’t find anything, so he gave us a letter we could show to Airbnb saying we were bed bug free.
Airbnb accepted the letter and turned our listings back on. It seemed to take a couple of days before they actually came back on because we didn’t get any inquiries for the first 4-5 days. Normally we get at least one or two a day. But slowly the inquiries started trickling back in and it seemed to take forever before we got our next booking.
We used to stay really booked up all the time and if a room was available during the next 30 days it would get snapped up very quickly. But now we just sat and waited and got nothing for about a week. Finally, we got a booking! I found out that by being shut down, that it really hurt us in the search results. Apparently, if you haven’t had any bookings for the last couple of weeks, you really slide down in the search results. And it did take several weeks before our bookings went back to normal. The next month was one of our worst months. But the month after that climbed back up into the lower end of our normal range. And by the month after that we actually had a record-breaking month!
Bottom line is - bed bugs will hurt you, they’ll shut you down entirely for at least a couple of weeks, and they’ll slow you down for a couple of months after that, but then everything will slowly go back to normal. The trick is - take care of the problem as soon as you find out about it. The earlier you take care of it the better. The newer and lighter the infestation the easier it is to take care of.
4 Likes
Big thanks for your information
2 Likes
@JonYork Thank you! A huge thank you. I have bookmarked this post for eternity – because I will get bed bugs, eventually.
2 Likes
Typically bedbugs are spread when a single pregnant female tired of the attention of male bedbugs with their hypodermic penis (Yes its true, bedbugs reproduce by the male injecting his seed directly into the abdomen of a mature recently fed female. If fact the horny buggers will tend to mate with anything female or male that has just feed.) leave the area of congregation and find a nice cozy place in a suitcase. Wherever the suitcase is the next time the bug needs a meal (they feed aprox every week) will become its new home.
It takes 3 weeks for eggs to hatch and another 5 to 6 weeks for bugs to reach their reproductive stage.
Once the babies start reproducing you got real trouble. pregnant females will start laying eggs everywhere.
The earlier you catch the infestation the easier it is to stop.
As a host I use white sheets and carefully inspect for any tiny spots (bedbug poop or blood from victims)
I use encasement’s for both the mattress and box spring and I tear the bed apart a weekly basis and carefully inspect the frame and headboard looking for bugs, shed skins (bedbugs molt 5 times before reaching sexual maturity) and poop. I also remove the drawer from the nightstand and check it and the stand with a flashlight.
Catch them early and there is a good chance you can deal with them yourself.
1 Like
Bed bugs are truly very terrible. My sister also noticed bed bug symptoms so I am also trying to find some DIY methods to kill them. Got to know about heat treatment method and will surely recommend it to her. I wonder if anyone has already tried it.
I do not have any idea about those special countries or places.
I prefer to have heat treatment by taking help from professional.
I remember a colleague who had them in her small flat. Before the Local Authority came in to fumigate, she dismantled her wooden bed frame plus anything else she could take apart that was wooden. Apparently they like to nest in wooden nooks and crannies as well as mattresses. She was advised to put all her bedlinens through a very hot wash in the launderette too. This was about ten years ago, and I remember learning that the incidence of infestations was rising exponentially.
What if I guest is claiming there is a bed bug bite to get a refund? How does Airbnb handle this problem? Don’t they have to show evidence to get a refund?
You have to prove that you don’t have them.
The guest doesn’t have to prove that you do have them, they just need to complain.
Your listing gets shut down, your incoming guests are canceled until you get it it in writing that you have had a treatment/ or that there are none.
1 Like
Four-year old topic, now closed. Feel free to open a new topic if you have anything else to contribute to it.
1 Like