The six pins · Pin 06 of 06
Pin 06 · Bed bugs when you travelBed bugs when you travel: the room, the luggage and the trip home
Check the bed and the spot where your bag will sit before you unpack, keep your belongings closed until you have, and treat your clothes and bag when you get home if anything looked wrong. Broadly, that is the travellers’ advice of Western Australia’s Department of Health and of the national code of practice on bed bugs that NSW Health links to, and the two differ on spraying luggage, set out at the end.
General information, not medical advice. For bites, see healthdirect or your doctor; your state or territory health department’s page is the official place to check about an infestation.
How bed bugs hitch a ride
Bed bugs can walk short distances to nearby rooms, and travel much further in people’s luggage and belongings, which is how they move between premises around Australia and overseas, HealthyWA says. Victoria’s Department of Health names world travel as one reason infestations have increased: bed bugs picked up at high-turnover accommodation can travel home in luggage, shoes and clothing and start a new infestation there.
They are found more often in low-cost, short-stay accommodation, HealthyWA notes, but can be anywhere people sleep, including hotels, trains and charter boats. Victoria adds that many hostels worldwide have banned travellers’ own sleeping linen in shared accommodation as a precaution.
The code of practice this page draws on is A Code of Practice for the Control of Bed Bug Infestations in Australia, 4th edition, March 2013, from the Department of Medical Entomology at Westmead Hospital and the Australian Environmental Pest Managers Association. NSW Health links to it from its bed bugs page.
From packing to unpacking at home
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Packing
The code suggests thinking about what goes in the bag: clothing that can safely be washed or dried at high temperatures, with anything that cannot be heat treated kept sealed in zip-lock plastic bags. It says hard luggage without outside pockets may resist bed bugs better than soft bags, while soft bags that are not nylon can be washed hot.
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Arriving, before you unpack
Until the bed has been checked, the code suggests leaving luggage outside the room, in the middle of the room where there are fewer hiding places, or on a table you have already checked. Then look along the edges of the mattress, its seams and beading, especially in darker spots where the bed meets the wall, and check where the luggage will go. HealthyWA likewise suggests checking bedding and under the mattress stitching for signs or live bugs.
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If you find signs
Ask for a different room, the code says, and do so even if you see only spots of blood and no live bugs, because there is no way to know how well the room was treated or what stage the treatment is at. The signs HealthyWA lists include live bed bugs or their cast skins and dark spots of excrement or blood on sheets, mattresses or skirting boards.
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During the stay
The code advises against unpacking belongings from the luggage, and suggests keeping the luggage inside plastic bags throughout, then throwing the outer bag away when you leave. HealthyWA suggests inspecting your luggage again before departing.
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Home again
If you had any bite-like reaction or suspected bed bugs, the code says to assume your luggage and clothes are infested: keep the luggage away from the bedroom, in a garage for example, hot wash or hot dry all clothing, treat the luggage with heat or cold, and consult a pest manager if there is any chance an infestation came home with you.
Why the source of a bite is hard to pin down
A bite can take nine days or more to appear, the code says, so after a trip with several stops it may be impossible to tell where it happened. Victoria’s page puts the delay for a reaction at up to 9 to 14 days.
Spraying the outside of your luggage
HealthyWA
Suggests travellers think about treating the outside of a suitcase with a spray-can insecticide, on the basis that it might kill bed bugs or keep them off while the bag is on the move.
The code of practice
Says spraying luggage with synthetic pyrethroid insecticides gives poor residual control against modern resistant bed bugs, is unlikely to offer real protection, and has no evidence that it works, so other ways of protecting luggage should be used.
They also lean differently on looking through luggage: HealthyWA suggests inspecting it on arrival and before leaving, while the code says inspecting luggage for bed bugs is probably not practical, because the eggs are too small to see easily and can be laid in any small crack.
Both are published sources and neither is quoted here as the last word. The step both share, checking the bed when you arrive, does not depend on settling it. Whenever a pesticide product is used, HealthyWA says to read and follow the label instructions.