It was the Farmington, New Mexico Days Inn that hotel guests claimed had the recent bed bug troubles.

But KOB reports that the local Best Western is now publicizing their pro-active campaign against bed bugs. They say exterminators are coming once a month and spraying when needed. The video (below) shows Ladybug Pest Control peering into the cracks where the floor meets the wall, and looking closely at overturned box springs.

Note to hoteliers: being seen to be pro-active about bed bugs is good for business.

See the video on this story, from KOB, below.

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None Found

Farmington, New Mexico paper The Daily Times reports that the Days Inn which was recently in the news and where travelers claim to have been finding bed bugs at least since the summer of 2007 is now getting professional treatment.

The problem of bed bugs in New Mexico lodging, however, is not as easy to treat. According to the Daily Times:

Besides distress and disgust on the part of bite victims, it’s maddening because no regulations exist in New Mexico to ensure lodging establishments deal with the problem correctly.

The Department of Health has no bedbug-related regulations.

Because the biting insects don’t spread disease, New Mexico Environment Department is not involved, either.

Unless the business at which a customer was bitten is a member of New Mexico Lodging Association or Convention and Visitors Bureau in Farmington, the onus is on the bite victim to seek redress from hotel management.

The treatment by Albuquerque’s Ecolab is going floor by floor, since guests are still staying in the hotel. The hotel also replaced all the bedding and carpeting. And the hotel manager.

But make no mistake: bed bugs don’t come to hotels with bad managers. Bed bug infestations can happen in any hotel at any time, and so hotels need to have a plan for detecting bed bugs and treating them, before they get out of hand. They should not be waiting for guests to point the bed bugs out to them, since bed bugs are notoriously difficult to detect.

Similarly, the owners of hotels should not be assuming employees know about the problem: managers, cleaning and maintenance staff and others who work in hotels need to be trained on how to prevent and detect bed bugs, and on what is needed to treat them properly. They need ongoing professional advice from people who know bed bugs.

And, in addition, we should not assume all hotel owners know enough about the bed bug problem, or give a hoot about it. Government regulation serves the purpose of setting standards and enforcing them. I don’t want to get all big government on you, but personally, I don’t want to leave it up to chance as to whether my hotel management gives a darn about bed bugs or not.

People who suggest that the hotel industry will lose money and begin to regulate itself do not understand how long bed bugs can breed and bite people and continue to spread before even being seen by a hotel guest. In the case of this hotel, we have a pair of police officers this month, and a pair of couples who filed suit after being bitten by bed bugs in different rooms on different floors in the same Days Inn in summer 2007 according to another Daily Times article that has now gone offline.

How many people do you think were bitten by bed bugs in that hotel, and potentially brought them home, in the space of more than a year? I would guess many, but I would also suspect most of them did not see the bed bugs or complain about them.

The story of the Days Inn came to light two weeks ago when some local police officers found bed bugs in their hotel room and discovered there was no public body or official they could complain to. There was only the hotel manager.

Note to travelers: check whether your hotel is a member of the New Mexico Lodging Association, so you at least have someone to complain to about your hotel room’s bed bugs, until the laws in this state get better.

People of New Mexico, you might want to tell the Department of Health that infectious diseases aren’t the only health problems that can plague people; bed bugs cause plenty, from psychological distress and anxiety, bed bug bites and related skin problems, and other allergic reactions, to a lack of sleep, which researchers tell us may bring on a whole host of illnesses.

The use of money to pay for everything from extra laundry and plastic bags to pest control treatment which may get into the high thousands can also have implications for a person’s health, when someone on a budget has to choose between paying for medication and healthy food, or dealing with the extra costs related to bed bugs. People also sometimes resort to extreme and potentially dangerous measures to get rid of bed bugs, which can cause definite health problems too.

So, yes, bed bugs are a health problem. Even though they are not known to spread infectious diseases at this time.

I’d really like public officials who deny that bed bugs are a health problem to move into a hotel room infested with bed bugs, and determine first-hand whether they’re just a “nuisance,” as we’re so often told. I have a hunch they’d discover a list of negative health effects pretty quickly.Similar Posts:

• Police officers get a bed bug rude awakening in New Mexico

KOB.com in New Mexico reports,

Tuesday’s Farmington Daily-Times reports three Santa Fe Police Department employees who recently stayed at the hotel had bug bites all over their bodies.

They say hotel managers told them “it was not the hotel’s problem.”

Not the hotel’s problem? Whose problem is it?

That is a delightful response to a customer complaint of blood-sucking insects in a bed paid for for the night. The hotel has assigned a new manager to this Days Inn, but that hardly solves the problem of guests having to put up with bed bugs.

Apparently, there’s no one to complain to:

The police officers also discovered that no state agency has authority to do anything about the problem.

That is a very distressing statement.

The Daily Times of Farmington reports that State Sen. William E. Sharer, R-San Juan notes this is not the first time bed bugs were found in this Days Inn:

“During the summer of 2007, I was informed of a bedbug infestation occurring at the Days Inn in Farmington,” Sharer wrote to Albert Vigil, secretary of New Mexico Department of Health, on Feb. 5. “Unfortunately, a second incident has recently occurred at the same motel.

Sharer expressed frustration that “no governmental agency has clear authority to regulate this issue because there are presently no enforceable standards.”

No enforceable standards? Governments can set enforceable standards regarding bed bugs in homes and hotels.

I hope the people of New Mexico, and those who travel there, will start asking their politicians about this. They might start by writing to State Senator Sharer himself.

Update (10/1/2008):

More from the Daily Times today.

Apparently a lawsuit was already pending, filed by four plaintiffs who claim to have been bitten by bed bugs in the same hotel in summer 2007. Their attorney, Rich Valle, says the two sets of two clients were staying on different floors in the hotel and met at a local urgent care center, after seeking treatment for their bites.

Valle claims the hotel got what seems to be sound advice about treating for bed bugs, but didn’t take it:

A local exterminator recommended the hotel treat rooms adjacent to those in which the 2007 bug biting incidents happened, Valle said. He estimated the cost of the additional treatment at $150, a charge Valle said hotel managers opted not to pay because they deemed it excessive.

Days Inn management offered one of his clients a “bed bug discount” after he complained, Valle said. A similar $15 per bug discount was offered to the police officers after they took a bug to the front desk clerk working Sept. 21.

“I hope some of this changes,” Valle said. “I hoped our lawsuit would make this stop.”

Before Valle read a related story in Tuesday’s edition and contacted The Daily Times, a woman identifying herself only as “Bernice” called the newspaper to say she sustained bites at the same hotel about one year ago.

“I tried to contact the hotel manager, but I never heard back,” she said. “I finally gave up.”

No regulations exist to oversee cleanliness issues at lodging establishments in New Mexico. Unless a lodging business is a member of New Mexico Lodging Association, consumers have nowhere to turn for redress.

Let’s not think for a moment that this particular hotel is the only one with bed bug infestations that are being allowed to get worse and worse.

This can happen in any hotel, chain or family-run, expensive or cheap.

Obviously, the hotel industry needs guidance about bed bugs, and what is required to get rid of them. And if no one on the government end of things gives a hoot, citizens are not only going to increasingly get bitten by bed bugs, they’re increasingly going to bring them home.Similar Posts:

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