Back From Holiday? Don't Unpack Your Suitcase on the Bed
The flight's landed, the washing mountain awaits, and the suitcase is lying open on the bed while you ferry clothes to the basket. Stop there, because that's the exact moment most bed bug problems begin. August and September are our peak months for bed bug calls, and the pattern behind them is nearly always the same: a lovely holiday, an unlucky room, and a suitcase unpacked in the one place that guarantees the hitchhikers find what they came for.
How they travel
Bed bugs don't live on you the way fleas live on your pets. They feed and retreat, and what they retreat into is your nearby luggage: seams, zips, pockets, the folds of your packed clothes. They're superb travellers, flat enough to hide in a passport pocket and patient enough to wait weeks between meals. Hotels, hostels, sleeper trains, even the nicest accommodation you've ever stayed in can have them, because they arrive with guests, not with dirt. Getting bitten on holiday is bad luck. Carrying the colony home to your own bed is the part you can prevent.
The homecoming routine that works
Unpack somewhere hard and bright, the bathroom or a hard floor, never the bed or a carpeted bedroom. Everything washable goes straight into a hot wash, and it's the sustained heat that does the work, so use the hottest cycle the fabric allows and tumble dry hot where you can. Things that can't be washed can sit sealed in a bag for now. Then check the empty case itself under a good light: run a card along the seams and around the zip housing, and look for the evidence, live insects the size and colour of an apple pip, tiny pearly eggs, and the giveaway pepper-like dark spots. Store the case away from bedrooms, in the garage or shed if you have one. Ten minutes, and it closes the door on the whole miserable saga.
Signs you brought company anyway
The first hint is usually bites, often in lines or clusters, on skin you had exposed overnight, though people react so differently that some hosts never mark at all. More reliable are the physical signs around the bed: dark spotting on the mattress seams and bed frame, blood freckles on sheets, and eventually the insects themselves in the piping of the mattress, behind the headboard, in the bedside furniture. Our bed bugs page shows what to look for. Check within a week or two of getting home; if you catch it early, it's the difference between treating one bedroom and treating your whole house.
If you find them, don't feel ashamed and don't reach for the spray
Two things we say on every bed bug call. First, this says nothing about your housekeeping, they board anyone's luggage, and the spotless homes get them exactly as often. Second, DIY sprays tend to make things worse, scattering the insects deeper into walls and neighbouring rooms without killing the eggs, which is how a contained problem becomes a whole-house one. Professional treatment is systematic and follows up until they're gone, and visits are discreet, unmarked vehicles as standard, which matters double if you run a guesthouse or holiday let. There's more on how we work on our pest control page.
Get in touch
Woken up with bites since you got back? Get in touch, the earlier we look, the smaller the job.
