“Hotels are the number one place for someone to face problems with bed bugs, due to the movement of people,” the assistant professor of entomology at the Department of Agriculture of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH) points out to APE – MEP. Apostolos Kapranas.

He clarifies that the issue with bed bugs it did not appear now in general and especially in Paris, but it has existed for the last two to three decades as travel has increased enormously, old furniture and antiques are used a lot where these insects may live and at the same time the bed bugs themselves have developed resistance to many insecticides.

At the same time, he emphasizes that there is no risk to public health, since bed bugs cause discomfort and skin diseases in people and do not carry diseases like mosquitoes. In any case, it recommends the use of steam cleaners mainly on the mattresses inside the houses and the cleaning by specialized crews in the hotel units. It recommends that travelers, when staying in hotels, place their suitcases on the special stool, away from mattresses, to reduce the chances of carrying bed bugs.

“The problem with bed bugs has been observed in recent years not only in Paris but also in other large cities, in very large urban centers around the world and in America and in tourist centers with many and large hotel units. As far as Greece is concerned, there have always been bed bugs, not in specific places but throughout the territory. This is nothing new. The issue now makes a big impression on us because we see it a lot in the news,” points out Mr. Kapranas.

The places that bed bugs prefer

Regarding the places that bed bugs prefer, he states that “they are very fond of hiding in hidden and dark places, they tend to congregate in mattresses, sofas, wall cracks, cracks in old wooden structures, carpets and rugs and in there they are relatively protected. There, after all, it’s hard to see them because they don’t move around during the day and it’s often difficult to fight them with insecticide sprays.”

How to deal with the problem

“How to repel them by some means is a very big debate as it is very difficult to eradicate them” he comments while noting that “what they don’t like is definitely extreme temperatures, that is, very hot and very cold”.

To deal with bed bugs inside the houses, he points out that “what one can do is a thorough sweeping with a vacuum cleaner, which he will direct to the different cracks of the house if there are any. For mattresses, another way is to use a steam cleaner, several times, especially if a mattress or quilt is not very thick, as the temperature kills the eggs and young larvae that may be present in the mattress.” For clothes and substrates that are smaller in size there is the possibility to wash them in very hot water or to dry them at a relatively high temperature in the dryer.

“If you lift up the mattress to look underneath or look inside it, maybe by opening a zipper you can see if there are any insects or various other evidence that there was a living organism there. Such elements are black spots or some discoloration. This can be seen by a careful study of the mattress. If someone knows what they’re looking at and looks a little closely, they can determine the presence of a problem,” he adds.

With regard to hotels and tourist accommodations, he emphasizes that the staff of a unit should have some training and check the mattresses so that they can identify the problem as early as possible and the necessary actions can be initiated in time. Mobilization is good to have even if a customer complains that something stung him. However, as the problem is greater in hotels and there are many beds, disinfection is recommended at certain intervals, by specialized workshops and disinfection companies, which entails a relatively high cost.

Tip for travelers

The assistant professor of entomology at the AUTH Department of Agriculture emphasizes that travelers should observe hygiene rules, place their suitcases on the special stool and keep their clothes at a distance from the mattress at least, in order to avoid the possibility that it has climbed a bed bug in luggage and be transported through it to some other place.