As a hotel manager, you want to avoid bed bugs at all costs. Read on to learn about what you can do to avoid this nasty pest from ruining your guest’s holiday, your maintenance budget and, above all, your hotel’s reputation.
Protocols and cleaning routines for bed bugs
Revising hotel cleaning routines and having protocols in place for how to act when discovering a bed bug can help in tackling a bed bug problem before it becomes an epidemic infestation.
Train your housekeeping staff
You can train your housekeeping staff to identify the early signs of a bed bug infestation. Teach them to spot bed bugs in all stages of life and how to look for them by pulling back the sheets and inspecting the mattress seams, especially the corners, for pepper-like stains or spots or even the bed bugs themselves. Adult bed bugs are reddish-brown and have the size of a flat apple seed. But it’s not just the mattress that needs to be checked, but also behind the headboard, inside a couch or chair cushions, behind picture frames and around electrical sockets. If they see anything, they should notify the management.
Detect bed bugs early
Bed bugs are notoriously good at hiding, as they often only come out at night to feed. They can therefore be very hard to find. Even better than visual inspections is using the Nattaro Scout® detection trap. This device can be put in a hotel room if it is suspected of having a bed bug problem. The detection trap has a lure with a patented scent that resembles an aggregation of bed bugs. If there are any bed bugs in the hotel room, they will be drawn to the trap and once they climb into it, they can’t get out. This is a very clear way of knowing if there are bed bugs in the room. The housekeeping department can have detection traps handy to use in these situations.
Continuous monitoring of bed bugs
Nattaro Scout® detection trap can also be used for continuous monitoring of bed bugs. If a hotel room has a recurring problem, or to see if a bed bug treatment has been 100% successful, a Nattaro Scout® detection trap can be put in place for a longer time to see if there are any bed bugs left in the room. All that housekeeping staff need to do is to replace the lure every 4 weeks.
Preventive bed bug tape
Another worthwhile investment is placing Nattaro Safe® bed bug tape on hotel beds, behind headboards and other fixed furnishings such as skirting boards as a preventive measure that also functions as a long-lasting treatment of bed bugs.
From experience, we know that bed bugs like to hide behind headboards and if they establish themselves there, they can peacefully develop into a larger infestation. Headboards are also a difficult and time-consuming place for hotel staff to conduct ongoing checks. As headboards are most commonly fixed to the wall, they are also more complicated for Pest Control Technicians to treat. With Nattaro Safe® bed bug tape framing the entire headboard, every bed bug that comes into contact with the diatomaceous earth inside the bed bug tape will dry out and die within a short period of time. Thus, breaking the life cycle of the bed bugs and preventing an epidemic increase of the infestation. In cases where there are many hiding places in a room, additional pest control measures may be needed.