Checking a Hotel Room When You Arrive: Brent

This is the guest’s side of the story: what you can do yourself on arrival, whether you are away for a holiday, working away, or staying near Wembley for a match or a concert. It takes a few minutes and a phone torch.

Before You Unpack

Leave the suitcase closed and off the bed. The bathroom floor, a hard floor near the door or a metal luggage rack away from the wall are all better than the bed, the sofa or the carpet under the bed. Put coats and bags there too. Then look.

Where to Look in a Few Minutes

1. Pull back the sheet at the head of the bed and look along the mattress seams and piping, especially at the corners.
2. Look at the underside of the mattress edge if you can lift it slightly.
3. Shine the torch down the back of the headboard and into any gap between it and the wall.
4. Check the seams and cushion edges of any sofa or armchair in the room.
5. Glance at the edges of a luggage rack and any bedside drawer.

You are looking for small brown insects, pale shed skins, tiny white eggs and dark spots that look like marks from a fine felt-tip pen. Our guide on blood spots on sheets explains what those marks are and what else can cause them.

If the Room Looks Clear

Most rooms will look clear, and that is the normal result. Keep a couple of habits for the rest of the stay: use the rack rather than the bed for the case, keep the lid shut when you are not taking something out, and do not leave clothes on the floor or the spare bed. None of this needs to spoil the trip.

If You Find Something

Photograph what you see, with something for scale if you can. Close the case and move it out of the room, then go to reception. Ask for a different room, and ideally one that is not next door, above or below, since bedbugs can travel between neighbouring rooms.

• Do not move your belongings into the new room until you have checked them on a hard surface.
• Keep anything worn in that room bagged until it can go in a hot wash or dryer.
• Ask the hotel to note your report, and keep your photographs.

What the hotel does next is its job, not yours. If you run a hotel or short let yourself, our hotel page for Brent covers the other side, and the London guide on what a hotel should do when a guest reports bedbugs explains the response in full.

When You Get Home

Unpack on a hard floor rather than in the bedroom, put clothes straight into the wash on the hottest setting the labels allow, and vacuum the seams and pockets of the case before storing it away from the beds. If you see signs at home in the weeks after, keep sleeping in your own bed and ring us rather than trying a shop spray.

Bites on their own are not proof, because other insects bite too and some people do not react at all. If you are unsure, an inspection from £120 settles it before you spend money on treatment. The Brent page explains how treatment works in a busy household if they have got in.

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