Those unwelcome guests

We all have unwelcome, non-paying guests living hidden in our rooms: some are peaceful and don't cause any particular disturbance, others are really dangerous and difficult to evict.

Today we're talking about bed bugs.

These really unsympathetic pests often travel in the luggage of our guests, in the holds of airplanes and ships.

Then, as per expected, our guest arrives in the room and puts the suitcase on the bed to unpack it. The game is done.

The preferred habitat of bed bugs (scientific name cimex lectularius) is mattresses, pillows, and bedheads.

But they don't dislike the wooden ceilings and beams, where they seem to find all the comforts.

By day they hide, by night they come out for night raids in search of blood to suck.

I guarantee that an unfortunate infestation of these pests, in addition to the damage to the image of your hotel, will involve the closure of the room for a long time: I have seen rooms in which the bugs had arrived in the electrical pipes of the sockets and, through these, move to adjacent rooms.

The thing to consider well is that if the infestation can be confined to a single room, it will be more or less easy to eradicate it. But if, heedless of this, we begin to move something from that room to another...dear colleagues, I guarantee that the problem will become very difficult to manage.

What can we do to prevent this tragic eventuality?

The first thing is to train the cleaning staff to recognize the traces of the presence of these pests: the sooner we notice them, the greater the chances of a successful treatment.

The second is to rely on specialists, which almost never correspond with normal pest control companies: eradicating these pests is quite another matter.

The treatment will normally require the room to be unusable for at least a week during which time several very aggressive treatments will have to be performed. So, if someone tells you they are coming and gets rid of them, avoid wasting money and time.