The facts -
-With another couple, we booked a 5 night rental of a 2-bedroom vacation condo in Key West.
-Booking was made through a Key West vacation rental management company.
-Evening #2, we sat out on our balcony until we were all getting bit. The balcony overlooks a nature preserve, so we assumed we were getting bit by no-see-ums.
-The next morning, the other couple was complaining of all the bites and how itchy they were. DH and I had no bites. And bugs LOVE DH.
-After 2 more nights, other couple not only has bites on their legs but also on their torsos. They got very little sleep due to the itchiness. Again, DH and I have NO bites.
-Now we are all thinking the couple’s bed has bed bugs.
-I contacted the property manager, who expressed concern, even asking if we needed another place to stay. They cannot get a pest control company in because it is Sunday.
-Wife of other couple flew home today, one day early, since she couldn’t take another night.
-Husband of other couple is sleeping on the sofa in the living room tonight, using spare blankets from our bedroom.
We check out tomorrow morning (Monday).
We think we are entitled to some % refund of our rental cost. But how much would you ask for?
might not be bedbugs. could have been the outdoor bugs. if it was bedbugs, you all need to bring nothing back into your homes, need to heat treat everything,
Did you or the other couple look in the bed, in cracks around the bed, with a flashlight? I don’t think you can speculate on bed bugs, especially since there were bugs outside.
Even if you were not bitten, I would be cautious about bringing your things back into your house. Bag everything for the suggested amount of time then wash and dry.
You’ve gotten good advice but pulling back sheets and checking is the first thing I do in any hotel room. Just because it’s a nice place, doesn’t mean they aren’t there. And bed bugs scare the blank out of me. I am so sorry you may be dealing with this!
We had a bed bug issue once at a beach house. Luckily, I discovered them before we were ever bitten. Being somewhat familiar with them, it sounds unlikely that whatever was biting all of you while you were outside were bed bugs. Not saying that the other couple does not have them in their bed, but hopefully it’s all some other kind of bug because if it’s not you will need to get rid of anything that can’t be washed and dried at a high temperature before taking it into your home.
Regarding a refund, it will depend upon the language in the rental agreement. Most say that they simply owe you an opportunity to change properties in the event of something like this. Of course, the rental company could make an exception but in most cases they are not obligated to.
Good luck! I’ve experienced how disappointing and disruptive this can be on a trip you have been looking forward to.
Thanks everyone. Even though DH and I have no bites, we will treat our belongings as if they carry bed bugs. I will review our rental agreement.
Clarification - we only sat on the patio together one evening (evening 2) and went inside when we first felt bites. After that, I was the only one who ever spent time on the patio and that was not in the evening. We never left any of the patio doors standing open.
Wife who went home early, called this morning to tell us that she counted 125 bites. Husband didn’t count, but he appears to have close to that number. And they have bites clustered together and in lines which is indicative of bed bugs. DH and I have no bites.
Refund? The woman with the horrible bites should sue the owners and the rental company. Find out whether previous tenants were bitten. Find out if the housecleaners noticed or knew there were bedbugs. Take photos of the bites and of the evidence of bugs on the bed. If they knew or should have known of this infestation, your bitten friend would have an excellent case.
Then flood the reviews about the condo telling about the bedbugs. Tripadvisor, Yelp, Bookings, all of them.
Bedbugs are a huge annoyance but they are part of travel, unfortunately. Typically they do not discriminate between high and low end establishments. They are brought in by travelers from all over the country and around the world and it happens all.the.time. The appropriate owner response would be to offer a partial refund and put the unit on hold until the problem is resolved. I can’t imagine blasting someone on social media and threatening to sue for a problem that was presumably unknown and out of their control.
IF it was bedbugs, the absolute biggest issue is you want to avoid bringing them home. If I were in this situation, everything, including my shoes (you can track in eggs) would be left outside of the house, not even in the garage. You come inside, straight to the shower. Then you put everything in 130 degrees for an hour. You can bake things in the oven, if you are in a hot climate you can put everything into sealed trash bags and put them into your car, left in the sun with the windows closed, for a few hours. You need to do this with the suitcases, too. Bedbugs and their eggs are very heat-sensitive. I’d leave the car out in the sun this way the next day, too.
As for the rest of it - if you manage to return home without bringing home bedbugs, consider yourself to have dodged a bullet. You have no way of proving it. You should report it to the people who rented you the condo. Then, if you want to have a battle, go ahead, but you’ll probably lose, unless your house winds up infested - in which case there is no amount of money that would compensate you, in my opinion!
Did you get pictures of the bugs or their residue? Without that it’s going to be difficult to prove anything at this point.
Live others, we travel often and always check. Even with checking, we don’t always bring our stuff directly in the house with us afterward - esp if we’re suspicious.
We did get a hotel room with bedbugs in it once quite some time ago now - caught one, took pics of it, killed it, and took it to the hotel person at the desk to show them. They called management and we got - nothing - not even an apology. Since I had made the reservation from a third party website I called them. They apologized and refunded my money, then were going to take it up with the hotel themselves. I posted a review - with the pics.
Fortunately no critters made it home with us - or at least didn’t survive being left out in the hot car for days.
But without proof? I can’t imagine much would hold up TBH.
Google bedbug lawsuits. Lots of 5 figure settlements. There’s bedbug lawyer.com. If a hotel rents an unsafe room with an infestation of bugs, they should be held responsible.
My kid and her BF discovered a family of mice in their AirBNB. They sent a photo to the host, and their stay was comped immediately, no questions asked. With big apologies. Glad I did not see a pic of the mouse they caught until much, much later… it was a deer mouse!
(Deer mice can carry hantavirus).
At the very minimum, the entire stay for everyone here should be comped.
I feel like you have to shut down the bed bug talk - until you can find some physical evidence of bed bugs. If they are there, you should find evidence.
I also was wondering about fleas. Did the place allow pets? My daughter had fleas in her apt once. While she didn’t have any bites her roommate whose bedroom was on the main floor had so similar to what you described- and they too thought it might be bedbugs but couldn’t find any. Fleas it was.
I was thinking fleas as well. I am very allergic to flea bites, my parents were not. My bites were always the indicator as to when our cat had fleas - they never had any noticeable bites.
I recently stayed at a very nice condo in Hawaii in which I three times in 5 days discovered giant brown roaches hiding in the bathroom. I wasn’t happy about it. The mgr refunded essentially the equivalent of one night’s stay, which I thought was fair - it was otherwise a very nice place. I suppose that if I’d complained to Airbnb, I might have gotten a full refund, but I didn’t. I felt as if the one night’s refund was fair. It’s not as if the place was infested - they do come in from outside, and seek the darkest, dampest place to hide. But boy were they icky!
If I were the owner, I would certainly want to know if there was a possible that there was something in my property so I could get an extermination there as quickly as possible to evaluate and treat. Depending on what was found, I’d try to make it right with the renters. But I think you need to start from the assumption that the owners didn’t knowingly put you in an infested unit. Something could have come in with a previous renter, for example.
And note to self, given that I live in a rural area and keep mouse traps set year round and catch something, usually deer mice, a couple times a month, don’t rent out rooms!
Roaches? Pretty normal stuff in Hawaii. I don’t bat an eyelash if I see one. I do report them to whoever I rent my condo from, but there is zero expectations of any refunds.
(Our first experience with bugs in Hawaii was during our first trip to the islands… in Kauai, a roach crawled out of an AC vent in our rental car. Right in the middle of our drive on a very tight road. The kiddos in the back seat were terrified. I was driving so could not get my flip flop off to whack the thing. Mr. B was slower than the roach… so the roach escaped its capital punishment. When we told the rental place that the car was infested, the dude just shrugged, “Ah, a roach? Guess we’ll bomb it.” We still laugh when we talk about that roach encounter!)
We still laugh when we talk about that roach encounter!)