- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
Strip your hotel bed when you first arrive and look for bedbug signs along the mattress and in the box spring. Also check the headboard.
There are also precautions you can take to avoid bringing bedbugs home. Old fashioned, hard metal suitcases are better than cloth ones, because bedbugs can't grip on to metal. Always keep your luggage closed and on a luggage rack, away from the bed, or in the bathtub. You can also keep your clothes in plastic bags and then throw them in a hot wash and dry before putting them away or even bringing them into your home.
Bedbug bites are often first mistaken for mosquito bites, but they linger for weeks. They can also blow up into welts and cause asthma. They can take up to nine days to appear because the poison from their saliva has to work it's way through your system.
Perhaps global warming is another cause of the increase in bedbugs?
