Wise travelers search their hotel rooms for bed bugs before settling in.  (Our Travel FAQs are a good place to start learning how.)

However, it’s worth noting you may find things besides bed bugs lurking in the room.

Friday night Michigan resident Frank Escamilla rolled in to town to look into buying a house in cheerful Stumptown. He stayed at the most budget-conscious place he could find: the Thriftlodge on East Burnside and SE 9th.

“The whole building smelled like urine, especially in the rooms. It was pretty gross,” says Escamilla. Things quickly got worse. Just to play it safe, Escamilla decided to check under his mattress for signs of bedbugs. No bugs droppings in sight, but wedged between the two boxsprings supporting the mattresses he spotted a black plastic bag. Gingerly, Escamilla picked up the bag and dumped it out on the bedside table—out rolled a cotton swab and three hypodermic needles.

(Emphasis mine.)

Yikes!  A helpful reminder to be cautious while doing your inspections!

The Thriftlodge claims to lift up the bed mattresses for inspections once every three months; they might want to re-think that one!

What’s the strangest thing you’ve found in a hotel room?

See  Thriftlodge Guest Finds Three Needles Under Bed | Blogtown, PDX | Portland Mercury.Similar Posts:

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WMTW reports that a 38-bed non-profit detox shelter in Portland, Maine closed for two nights due to a bed bug infestation.

PORTLAND, Maine — A Portland detoxification shelter closed Sunday night because of bed bugs.

The Milestone Foundation at 65 India St. will have an exterminator visit Tuesday and has plans to reopen Tuesday night, said Kevin House, a shelter attendant.

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Bed bugs have infested the main lobby and nearby offices in the Oregon Health and Science University Hospital in Portland. Staff saw bed bugs crawling from a patient’s fanny pack:

Hoping to squash a bedbug incursion, Oregon Health & Science University Hospital has sealed off part of its main lobby for decontamination after discovering the insects escaping from a patient’s belongings Saturday.

Hospital staff spotted the unwelcome visitors crawling from a fanny pack that had been stored for safekeeping with other patients’ belongings for two weeks, according to a hospital spokeswoman. A search revealed more bugs in the offices surrounding the patient admitting area.

I hope all the other patients’ belongings were inspected and treated.

The good news is the hospital seems to be taking bed bugs seriously:

“We talked to our outside experts who deal with bugs, and they said you need to treat it aggressively and quickly,” Liana Haywood, a spokeswoman, said.

They’re taking all office furniture offsite for “decontamination,” though it isn’t stated how the lobby and offices are being treated.

Haywood also said,

“We don’t have any estimates exactly on the costs,” she said. “We decided it’s more important to protect patients and employees rather than let it become a lingering problem.”

You can read the full article from the Oregonian here.

Update (9/26):

Watch the fascinating video from WNCT in Oregon, here.

It looks like the footage someone forgot to edit. There’s no voiceover, just video of the hospital lobby and bed bugs in a jar, and soundbites from several unnamed sources: a hospital administrator (saying bed bugs “really do not pose any type of health threat”) juxtaposed with those of a PCO or entomologist Philipp Kirsch, who says, “there are many people that have very strong dermal reactions to the bites”.

The latter also states, “we treat them as if they’re anthrax, or some exotic virus… It really is a tsunami that is coming. They’re going to be everywhere.”

And here’s a properly edited video from KOIN Local 6.
Thanks to Phillipp Kirsch for pointing us to it!

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Or so it would seem.

Earlier this week, there was the bed bug bill in the U.S. Congress.

And yesterday, an article in the Maine Switch (a website for those in Greater Portland) about the city’s yearly trash pick-up of bulky trash items. Not surprisingly, the day is a yearly impromptu festival for bargain hunters and curb-crawling small-time entrepreneurs:

Just like spring flowers, the sprouting of ratty recliners and beat-up toys on the sidewalk is a sign of the changing seasons in Portland. These cast-off belongings cluttering the grassy strip between the pavement and the sidewalk represent the city’s annual bulky waste pick-up. And like a siren song, yard sale buffs, bargain-hunters and freegans can’t resist this annual opportunity to turn trash into treasure.

I’ve known people who’ve practically furnished their whole apartments with curbside finds. One of the best was the gorgeous sleigh bed a friend found a few years ago. One of the worst was a couch covered in cat hair (and god know what else), which, thankfully, only made a brief appearance in another friend’s apartment.

But the main point of the article, discussed at length, is the dangers of bed bugs lurking in used items.

Oh, but beware those mattresses. Should you haul one home (like one hapless Craigslist poster did recently), you may gain some unwelcome roommates.

“If you’re picking up a mattress or other pieces of furniture, you need to be conscious that they may have bed bugs,” says Doug Gardner, Portland’s director of health and human services. “There’s no way to tell with 100% accuracy.”

That is until you install your lovely find in your home and begin to wonder why you’re suddenly covered in little red bumps.

Unfortunately, unlike Doug Gardner, the author mostly fixates on “mattresses,” whereas any used items might potentially bring bed bugs to your home. Although to her credit, the author later notes wooden furninture is also a problem, I’d stress that other items are also potentially infested. Many, many people throw out everything they own, even though it’s almost never necessary (and they’re not usually acting on the advice of bed bug experts). Throwing everything out can cost you lots of money, won’t get rid of your bed bugs, and will spread them to neighbors and others.

The article has two other Bedbugger points of interest.

First, because of bed bugs, Portland started giving their refuse collectors Tyvek suits last year for the annual bulky trash pickup day. Unfortunately, the city isn’t itself attempting to warn trash pickers about bed bugs, for example here, or here on this PDF flyer. Even a brief one-line warning would help. I understand from this article that they don’t want to seem to be condoning the practice of trash picking during the bulky trash days, but warning against it would not do so and would be germane to avoiding further spread of the problem.

Second point of interest: if you have bed bugs and rent in Portland, the article notes that your landlord does need to get rid of them. If not, you can call the city inspections department:

If apartment renters find themselves assaulted by bed bugs and can’t get their landlord to respond, [city inspections director Jeanie] Bourke’s office fields the complaints. Her team of inspectors then makes sure the landlord hires a pesticide company to spray the place down and that the residents follow a tightly regimented routine requiring the washing of everything and the sealing of clothes and mattresses in plastic.

Thanks to the Maine Switch for focusing readers’ attention on the dangers of trash picking in 2008.

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• OHRL addresses bed bug concerns in residence halls – Pace Press

Bed bugs in dorms at Pace University in New York

• The Portland Mercury | Blogtown, PDX | Rent Down At Grove Hotel

Speculation about bed bugs in Portland SRO. People are talking about bed bugs–this has got to be good.

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According to WCSH6.com, Bed bugs are spreading in Greater Portland (Maine).

The brief article describes how Raymond Leavitt sees “dozens of bed bugs” at night in his Portland apartment.

Officials with the Portland Housing Authority, who oversee Franklin Towers where Raymond lives, say bed bugs are a problem in most of their properties.

They say they aggressively attack the bugs, but they can only hope to manage the problem, not get rid of it.

Ron Keeler of Modern Pest Services says intensive professional treatment combined with a follow up program can be successful. Experts say it doesn’t matter how clean or dirty your home is. Once bed bugs get in, an infestation can happen quickly.

If bed bugs are a problem in most of the public housing buildings in Portland, you can guess this is probably even more true in cities with more widespread infestations. Public housing officials in some other cities are a bit more reticent about admitting it, which is a shame. Because having bed bugs in your building doesn’t mean you’re a bad building manager. It’s what you do once you discover them that makes all the difference. Similar Posts:

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