How to Treat Bed Bugs While Making Customer Service Your Top Priority

By Nathan Gawlik
Nathan Gawlik's experience includes being a General Manager of a Hampton Inn and other front line roles such as a Banquet Captain, Front Desk Agent, Housekeeper, Catering Event Manager, and Director of Sales.

How to Treat Bed Bugs While Making Customer Service Your Top Priority

There aren't many things that make guests feel more uncomfortable and unclean than discovering bed bugs. This is especially true with cleanliness on everyone's mind in a post-COVID-19 world.

While bed bugs haven't been shown to carry disease, according to the EPA these pests leave small bite marks across the body that, in rare cases, can cause an allergic reaction. Depending on the individual, these bite marks can become inflamed or even cause a whole-body reaction from a single bite. These extreme cases warrant immediate medical attention.

Costs in dealing with these little critters can be sizable. Treatment can be upwards of a few thousand dollars for a single room. That doesn't take into consideration the cost of a lost customer, damage to an inn's reputation, or refunds. In order to be prepared, it's important to educate yourself and your staff.

Know Your Enemy

Bed bugs spend most of their lives in hiding, typically living no more than six months. However, if conditions are right some bugs can live up to a year without any food. Once fully mature, these bugs can reach a quarter of an inch in length. Bed bugs like dry, cool room conditions, and are known to be mostly nocturnal.

Hotels and other frequently traveled areas are known to be hotspots for bed bugs because these little creatures often hitch a ride from one place to another on guest luggage, clothing, or even shoes.

Prevention

The best and most obvious way to limit the spread of bed bugs is to use bed bug mattress encasements. These are often waterproof and also protect your mattress from spills and other damage. Of course, this does nothing to keep bugs away from other nooks and crannies where they can frequently be found.

Little more can be done to prevent bed bugs beyond providing training to ensure early detection is possible.

Signs of Bug Activity
There are several ways to determine if you have bed bugs. Here are a few ways to spot the tiny insects:

Black or crimson flecks or droppings
A pale-yellow exoskeleton that is shed as they get older
Cream or silver-colored eggs
Bugs themselves are light brown or reddish-brown, flat, and oval-shaped between .15 to .25 inches long.

Why It's Important to Check
Bed bugs can spread FAST. According to Orkin,a single pregnant female can lead to an infestation of 300 adults and over 1000 eggs in just 3 months.

Places to Check
Bed bugs are so small that they can be hard to detect. Train your housekeepers to check the following areas twice a month:

The edging of the mattress (pull the sheets or protector back and check)
The boxspring
The crevices of upholstery
Baseboards

Check the following once a month or at least once a quarter:

Behind the headboard. Behind the headboard is a great place to check for bed bugs, since it is rarely disturbed.
Under furniture. Check the underside of desks and flip-up couches to check around the feet of the furniture.
Vacuums. It's easy to overlook vacuums, but if eggs are picked up by the vacuum they can easily be spread throughout the property.

Treatment

I can tell you from experience that prevention is far cheaper than treatment. There are several advertised methods to rid your property of an infestation, but there are only two surefire methods: chemical treatment or heat. The latter can be more expensive but has a higher success rate according to professionals in the industry.

Contacting a professional is the safest and quickest way to ensure the problem is addressed. Typically, these companies provide a 3-month guarantee and will return for free if the problem isn't addressed on the first treatment. If you decide to have a professional treat the affected rooms be sure to ask what they drive and details on their uniform. An Orkin van in the driveway doesn't make a great first impression on arriving guests.

If you would rather do it yourself, there are heaters available for rent. It's imperative that the room temperature exceeds or maintains at 113 degrees for 60 minutes. This will kill any adults and eggs.

The larger the room, the longer it will take to heat. The average hotel room of about 450 square feet takes two industrial size heaters about 3 hours to get up to temperature.

It can take several hours before the required temperature is reached. Before you begin, tape around windows or anywhere heat can escape. Also, take a styrofoam cup and tape it over ceiling sprinklers. Most sprinkler systems are designed to go off if the temperature reaches 155 to 165 degrees Fahrenheit, but it's better to be safe than sorry. Remember heat rises. If the temperature on the wall is 113 degrees it's likely a few degrees warmer on the ceiling and a few degrees cooler on the floor.

Measure

Know the size of the affected area before you contact a provider or head to the store. This will determine the size of the heater needed. Likewise, get an infrared thermometer if one isn't provided with your package. When taking the temperature of the room, take it at knee height, as these bugs will try to hide in baseboards if cracks exist. The best thing to do is to flip up the mattress, flip over the furniture and pull back the baseboards if possible. This way the heat is sure to penetrate the affected area.

How to handle it with a guest

The guests and the property have fallen victim to the same surprising circumstance. It's likely bed bugs were brought into the property by an unknowing guest at some point - leading to a service disruption down the road. This is a nightmare scenario for any innkeeper or front desk agent. Failing to handle the situation appropriately can make a bad situation much worse.

If a guest finds bed bugs:

First, provide them another room if possible.
Lead the individual out of earshot away from other guests.
Offer to dry clean the guest's belongings. At the very least, a great precaution is to throw everything in the dryer for at least 20 minutes on high. This should kill any bed bugs. Then wash and dry the clothes on the hottest cycle.
Steam clean their suitcase if possible.
Suggest they rewash everything in hot water exceeding 113 degrees.
Provide a plastic bag for their clothes or suitcase.
Call a professional exterminator to assess the issue as soon as possible.
Put the room out of order until it can be treated.

When it comes to service recovery a good rule of thumb is take the guest at their word. The art of de-escalation is seeking common ground. This means validating any concerns and addressing them quickly. If someone feels as though they have been wronged, calling into question their motives is a great way to sow divisiveness. If an easy and cost-effective solution is to move a guest to a different room they are more comfortable in, make it your duty to provide that level of care to the best of your ability.

Photographic Proof
On a final note, if the guest has taken any pictures of their experience, ask that they delete them. Having a reputation that your inn has bed bugs can be a hard stigma to change. If a guest shares their photos on social media or TripAdvisor it can have lasting implications for your property.

If they refuse to delete them, ask that the guest send them to you. No one takes pictures if they don't intend to share them with others. If they feel they have been taken seriously and adequately compensated, perhaps sharing them with just you will satisfy their desire to share them on a public forum.

Summary

There is no doubt that what your guest just experienced was gross and deeply personal. Discovering creepy crawlies on you is enough to make anyone feel unclean, violated and certainly result in loss of sleep. Many properties pride themselves on their sleep quality as afterall, that is ultimately what guests come to your property to do.

Commiserate with your guest as this goes further than sympathy. Validate their concern and call it what it is: simply gross and embarrassing for all involved. Ask yourself how you would want to be treated in a similar circumstance and do what is within your power to make it right.

Getting a report of bed bugs at your property can feel like a death sentence. But it doesn't have to be. Remember, it's how you respond that can bring that customer back and make them a lifetime loyal guest and advocate.

For more information on service recovery and an actual bed bug online review example, see our article here.

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