Bed Bugs in Guest Bedrooms: What Should You Check?

Why the Rest of the Room Matters More Here

In an occupied bedroom, everything radiates outward from a bed somebody sleeps in every night. In a guest room the host arrives for two nights with a case, a coat and a bag, puts them down somewhere, and leaves.

So the room has two kinds of place worth checking: the ones a population would spread to, and the ones an arrival would be put down on. The second list is the one nobody has.

The Arrival Points

• The luggage rack. Check the webbing, the hinge, the frame joints and the feet. It is doing its job by being the place cases go, which also makes it the place to look
• Wherever cases actually get put down, if there is no rack — the floor by the door, the end of the bed, a chest
• The chair. Coats and clothes end up on it. Seams, piping, under the cushion, and underneath
• The back of the door and any hook — where coats and bags hang
• The chest or dressing table top, and behind anything standing on it

The Wardrobe and Drawers

Lower risk than people fear, and worth a proper look in a room used by visitors, because guests unpack into them.

• The structure rather than the contents: corner joints, drawer runners, drawer backs and undersides
• The rebate a thin ply back panel is pinned into
• The underside of any shelf
• The rail fixings, and the top of the carcass
• Any spare bedding stored in there — a very common arrangement and a poor one

The Soft Furnishings

• Curtain hems, and the fixings of a wall-mounted blind, in a long-running case
• Cushions and throws kept on a chair or the end of the bed
• A rug, particularly its edges and underside, and particularly one that lives beside the bed and never moves
• An upholstered stool or ottoman at the end of the bed

The Perimeter

Same as anywhere: the skirting line and carpet edge on the wall the bed stands against, socket faces on that wall, and behind anything hanging above the bed. Activity here means it has been running a while, which in a guest room can be a very long while.

Ascot: A Routine That Fits a Room Used Occasionally

1. At every changeover: the bed's piping while it is stripped, and the luggage rack. Three minutes
2. Twice a year: everything on this page, plus the full bed. Twenty minutes
3. After anybody mentions bites: all of it, properly, and write down what you found
4. After a long empty period: all of it, because an empty room has not cleared itself