Bed bugs are arguably the best hitchhikers you want to avoid. These creepy crawlers are extremely agile and can move from room to room and even onto your luggage in one night. Five of the most effective ways to Protect Yourself From Bed Bugs when traveling abroad. Look at this guide to Protect Yourself and your babys From Bed Bugs.
This is exactly why hotels, temporary housings, and motels are the perfect hideouts for bed bugs since those places have fresh new hosts almost every day.
Whenever you travel, make sure you know how to protect yourself from bedbugs. Sometimes you will not even notice the first bite. So, always be on the lookout.
Inspecting and taking precautions against bed bugs is actually very easy. Just follow these tips and you should be safe & sound.
Protect Yourself From Bed Bugs When Traveling
1. Inspect The Place Before Unpacking
Even the fanciest places can be infested with bedbugs. These things spread out fast, so make sure you do a proper inspection before relaxing. First, take out the mattress and check every corner.
You may not find bugs straight away since they mostly hide under the cover of the mattress and only come out during the night when people are fast asleep.
Your job is to find any tracks of the bugs on the cover. Look for black marks which are poop stains, wastes of shredded skins, and pale-colored excretory waste.
An adult bed bug will generally be the size of an apple seed, but the smaller ones can easily escape plain sight. So, do not go looking for the bugs, instead, keep your eyes peeled for the tracks.
Inspect the bed sheet, cushions, headboards, and pillows. Cheap hotels do not have proper maintenance or bed bug control systems to fend them off so choose your destination wisely.
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2. Keep Everything Zipped Up
Despite the infamous name “Bed Bugs”, these creatures do not lurk around only in beds.
They can create their homes inside backpacks, clothes, and even inside the seam of a mattress. They can also be in the bed’s headboards, the groove of the table, or inside the comfy couch cushions.
Even the carpet can be infested. The best thing to do would be to store your luggage on a steel rack and hang everything else. Make sure you leave nothing on the carpet or the bed.
Bed bugs have a difficult time climbing smooth surfaces. So, putting everything on a clean metal rack would be the safest option. Even then, keep all your bags tightly zipped.
3. Properly Wash Everything Once You Reach Home
After reaching home again, do not unpack. Keep it tightly zipped and send it directly to the laundry. Make sure you stop every possible way a bed bug can travel.
If some bugs manage to come to your house, it will not take long for them to populate. Send your luggage to the laundry and take a nice long bath.
4. Use Heat Or Plastic Bags To Kill The Bugs
Heat and plastic bags are the best ways to kill bed bugs. Similar to killing lice, you can store the bugs in airtight plastic bags. Leave the bag for a few days and they should all be dead.
You can also use your hairdryer to heat up the bag and instantly kill them.
Steam vapor cleaning is an effective way to eliminate bed bugs, but since you will be traveling, here are a few items you can take with you to prevent bed bugs.
1. Mattress Protector
If your plan requires you to stay in hotels for long periods, then always carry a mattress protector with you. The mattress protector will seal the mattress completely.
If there are bed bugs inside the mattress, then they will automatically die of starvation. Mattress protectors or encasement are lightweight and easy to carry around.
2. Travel Sheets
These are like sleeping bags you take with you when camping. You can lay them on the bed, zip them up and sleep in a comfy sheet without worrying.
3. Pillow Protectors
Pillows are also a paradise for bed bugs. So you should also worry about it. Just like mattress protectors, pillow protectors will seal off your pillows and keep you safe from bed bugs.
4. Insect Interceptors
These are pads that you can put under the legs of your bed to elevate them and keep the insects and bed bugs from crawling onto the bed.
5. Extra Laundry Bags
Bed bugs are often found on unused or dirty clothes. Once you return from your visit, make sure you store all your used clothes in these laundry bags instead of keeping them in the suitcase.
They are made of nylon and are machine washable.
6. Bug Heater
You can find compact but powerful heater bags. You can store your items inside the bag and power it up.
It uses heat to kill the bugs instead of harmful chemicals. Bug heater bags come in different sizes. Purchase the portable ones so you can carry them around with you.
7. Luggage Liners
Once you have your mattress and pillow sealed up, you may want to seal off your precious luggage to keep them away from harm’s way. The liners can be zipped up to completely seal the luggage from exterior forces.
5. Report Sighting Immediately
The tips and items we mentioned are there to protect you from bed bugs. But if you ever see bed bugs then do not be timid. Instead, call the manager immediately.
Let them know that you found bed bugs and ask them to allocate you to a different room. If the hotel is not entirely full, then shifting you to a clean-room should not be a problem.
Final Thoughts
Bed bugs can survive without feeding for weeks and even months. Sometimes you will not even notice their bite marks. But if you see unexpected bite marks after your travels, get checked immediately.
Bed bugs like cold & dark places. Although rare, they can also be found in bus, train, and plane seats.
Luckily for you, if you consider all the tips and take some items mentioned above with you on your travels, you should be completely safe from bed bugs.
