Anyone who’s ever dealt with bed bugs knows the hassle of coping with irritating bites night after night, not to mention the intensive battle to rid the environment of bed bugs once and for all.
Even if you haven’t had personal experience with bed bugs, you definitely don’t want them showing up in your multi-bed facility and causing problems for your guests.
Unfortunately, the rise in global travel has led to the spread of bed bugs throughout the U.S. in recent years, bringing infestations to otherwise clean and reputable facilities and harming businesses in the process.
How can you prevent infestations and ensure the health and safety standards your guests expect?
The first thing you need to understand is how bed bugs travel. This knowledge can help you to prevent infestations from the outset, instead of having to deal with them once they’ve already taken root.
How Do Bed Bugs Travel?
Bed bugs are resilient little suckers that can go up to several months without a meal.
They travel the same way they live – by hiding in textiles and plush surfaces.
In hotels, hostels, and other facilities, they live in carpeting, bedding, and the seams of mattresses where they can hide away during the day and come out at night to bite warm humans and drink their blood.
Bed bugs can hop on luggage, purses, gym bags, and even clothing to hitch a ride to new destinations.
Once they find a hospitable environment, they nest and start breeding. A female can lay hundreds of eggs, and once they hatch, the nymphs can mature in about a month with suitable food sources.
If unchecked, a single bed bug can set off a chain of events that spawns up to three or more generations (potentially hundreds of thousands or even millions of bed bugs) in the span of a year.
How to Prevent Bed Bug Infestation
Stopping an infestation of bed bugs once it has started can seem like an insurmountable task, especially in facilities featuring dozens of beds and a rotating buffet of guests for bed bugs to dine on.
That said, understanding how bed bugs travel can give you clues as to how to prevent infestations before they start.
First and foremost, you need to clean thoroughly to pick up any stray bugs that may wander into your facility on guest luggage or clothing.
This means frequent vacuuming, including under beds and other furniture and treating with portable heat sources (like steam cleaners) that kill bed bugs and eggs on a regular basis.
In addition, you’ll want furniture that is resistant to bed bugs, such as bed frames and mattresses from a company like ESS Universal that specifically designs for bed bug resistance.
Heavy-duty metal framing that is welded on all four sides provides more than just durable, safe, and stable bedding for guests. It also leaves no room for bed bugs to hide or nest.
Then there are foam mattresses that deliver comfort with hypoallergenic and cooling properties even as they keep bed bugs at bay.
With zippered, machine washable covers that are resistant to moisture and bed bugs, as well, you’ll have the perfect preventive tools in place to divert bed bugs and stave off infestations.
ESS Universal manufactures and supplies high-quality, cost-effective commercial grade furniture products. View our entire line of commercial furniture products including our popular waterproof foam mattress for institutional use, single metal bed frames, single over single bunk beds, single over double bunk beds, and triple bunk beds.
