Balancing bed bug fears with clothing care when travelling

November 6, 2024 8:24 AM

I'm going on a short trip soon where I will be staying in 2 different hotels (that seem very nice!) I have some new clothes I would love to wear during this trip. Looking for general advice on my bedbug precautions and specifically whether a post-trip heat treat of these new items is needed, and if so if my idea is properly balancing actually treating them without ruining them. More below!

I am on the anxious side when it comes to bed bugs. I would usually just run all my clothes on high heat in the wash and dryer when I get home, but I'm a bit worried that would ruin some newly bought clothes that I would otherwise love to wear on the trip.

I was looking at this question and thought there was a great set of advice. Ideally I would love to balance being really careful while also... not wrecking some clothes I just bought.

Specifically, the clothes I'm worried about are:
Pair of pants, 48% Polyester, 38% Cotton, 14% Rayon
Pair of pants, 100% Cotton

In the other thread (and after brainstorming), some ideas I'm thinking of doing are:
- Keeping suitcase and most of these clothes on the desk, away from the bed and soft furniture, while I check the bed
- Not having any clothes touch the bed except a pair of pyjamas that I keep in a completely separate bag and ziplocked (or sleeping naked which I find uncomfortable personally :( ) and then treat with hot wash + dry when back home, along with the bag they were in
- Perhaps the above would be enough? But I am wondering whether it's best just to treat all clothes anyway, in which case drying DRY clothes on high heat, then washing the way I normally do (cold, and then hang to dry) might be okay and avoid damaging/shrinking the clothes?

I also am more anxious than my partner who I live with, who will definitely check the bed with me but likely won't be (let's say) eager or willing to do all the precautions above. So... I also have to accept some extra peace around that.

I guess my question is: does the above sound reasonable? And, if I felt I should heat treat the pants I'm worried about, would heat drying them while they were dry as the only heat treatment both be worth it/effective but also not shrink or ruin them?

Thanks for all/any thoughts!

posted by jerboa to Travel & Transportation (8 answers total)

Can you put them in the freezer for up to a week?
posted by deludingmyself at 8:45 AM on November 6

I had a bedbug infestation in my bedroom a few years ago: dark dots all over the mattress, fitted sheet, bed frame. In researching them, I came to believe that they're hard to get rid of, but they're not as contagious as lice, despite popular understanding. They like to hide out in the floor or a mattress, and come out and feed on people at night. They don't move fast, reproduce quickly, or flock to clothing. They're not that small, you would see if one crawled over to your suitcase while you were checking the bed. (They also rarely come out during the day.)

The treatment my apartment provided involved not killing them all at once with heat or gas, but using a fungal poison to kill the colony over time. (Which worked!) So I just lived with bedbugs for weeks while they died off. They didn't spread to any of my friends' apartments, they didn't spread to my parents' house or my partner's parents' house when we stayed overnight. My whole apartment had bedbugs, they were in the building.

My precautions after having them are just to check the mattress, and if there's no bed bug sign, hope for the best. But I did learn when heat-treating my clothes that a lot of clothes can tolerate a dryer if you put them in dry.
posted by little onion at 9:02 AM on November 6

Just to assuage your fears, I travel frequently domestically and internationally and stay in hotels and have never, ever had an issue with bedbugs. Your precautions are far more than necessary so I'm sure you will be fine. I would be more concerned about the risk of ruining your nice new clothes by washing them in hot water. The one thing is add to the list is to check the recent Google reviews for the hotels a few days before your trip. If you see anything alarming (complaints about dirtiness etc) then change hotels. If you think general anxiety is driving your bedbug concern you might wish to address that in the future. (Not saying that it is, maybe you just really hate the idea of them!)
posted by emd3737 at 9:13 AM on November 6

little onion: a lot of clothes can tolerate a dryer if you put them in dry

^ This. Dry cleaning clothes apparently involves heating them to a higher temp than the 120º that kills bedbugs.
posted by capricorn at 9:13 AM on November 6

Back when I was worried about a bedbug infestation (turned out to be fleas from a housemate's pet!) it seemed like a good treatment method was to wrap up anything fragile in a pillowcase and put it through the dryer for an extended period on a high setting - not washing first. Wash in cool water or whatever process is needed afterward.
posted by Frowner at 9:23 AM on November 6

I’ve been in this position, and I just put delicate clothes directly in the dryer for a bit, and they were not damaged.
posted by heurtebise at 9:35 AM on November 6

Hi all! Thanks so much for the kind and helpful advice so far! Feeling calmer and more informed already :)

One note: I don't travel often but did find a few bedbugs upon an entering-the-room-inspection on a trip last year! We were very careful and didn't bring any home thankfully. The whole thing both increased and decreased my base level anxiety about it, if you know what I mean! And some of this is definitely about reducing some general anxiety, emd3737, you are totally right. <3
posted by jerboa at 9:36 AM on November 6

My precaution is just to always use the suitcase stand that almost all hotels give you (better than the desk!) and not leave loose clothes on the floor or bed, otherwise not thinking too much about it. But my personal bedbug trauma is further in the past than yours…
posted by advil at 9:49 AM on November 6