If you watch the evening news, read internet headline stories, or browse through your local newspaper, you are sure to see that bed bugs are problematic for people across the United States. Now-a-days, hotels and motels should be very diligent in their bed bug inspection procedures or suffer the wrath of public embarrassment and accusations if a bed bug infestation is discovered at their establishment. An added incentive for the hospitality industry to be diligent should be that travelers have the right to sue for damages because of their bed bug encounters.
A woman who stayed at the Ramada Plaza Hotel in San Francisco was recently bitten over 400 times by bed bugs. Within a few days of her stay at the hotel, her face and body were covered in hundreds of bite marks and she had intense itching. She was advised that she was not only having a reaction to bed bug bites, but to the feces of the bed bugs as well. It is reported that the treatment that she received for the bites developed into steroid acne, which later developed into dermographism; which is a condition where you can actually write on your skin. As one would expect, the woman in question decided to file a lawsuit against the hotel. Rather than have the matter heard in court, the hotel offered the woman $71,000 to settle her claim, which is the largest amount of money offered to a person who has fallen victim to bed bug bites at a hotel.
It should be noted that each person who is unlucky enough to be bitten by bed bugs has a different type of reaction to the pest. Some will have an intense allergic reaction that could even lead to anaphylaxis shock, while others have no reaction at all. Reactions vary, as much as people do.
Any commercial establishment should engage in a good commercial pest control program to keep bed bugs under control before they become a problem.