Travel warning after woman says she brought home bedbugs from abroad
Travellers heading abroad have been warned about the dangers of bringing home bedbugs as a British woman said she faced a “horrific” infestation after visiting Europe for work.
As concerns rise over a reported infestation in Paris during the city’s Fashion Week, Jo Armah-Kinson revealed how she was forced to resort to “drastic” measures after she discovered she was getting bitten after a trip.
“I’d been to three or four different countries, finishing up in Turkey,” the 51-year-old from Litchfield in Staffordshire told i. “We’d stayed in nice hotels, nothing shabby.
“I can’t say I noticed the problem at first – a few bites maybe but it was early summer, which is when you get bites if you’re out and about, but the bites kept appearing. It was horrific.
“One day I lifted up my mattress and I could just see a mass of black where they’d moved in.”
Despite replacing soft furnishings and washing everything on a high heat, Ms Armah-Kinson found the invasion of bedbugs persisted following her travels, which took in Dubai, China and Thailand.
“We still got bites for months afterwards. In the end, we stripped the skirting board from the top room and cleaned behind there – and that seemed to work.
“I think the mistake we made was opening the suitcase and leaving it open on the floor – they can just walk from your suitcase and make their home elsewhere.
“So people returning from Paris Fashion Week – don’t leave your bags open, and give everything a really hot wash – really boil everything.”
Pest-control company Rentokil has reported a 65 per cent increase year-on-year in bedbug infestations in the UK from 2022 to 2023, and now experts are warning more could come crawling in as people return from holidays.
Stephen Wales, 55, a pest control expert from Hertfordshire, said travellers who move from hostel to hostel will be more likely to pick up unwanted passengers, and spread the problem around Europe.
“They get into tiny places and you can’t always see them in your bags or in [scrunched] clothes,” he told i.
“It’s really difficult to put measures in place to deal with them.
“In Las Vegas, you see people walking around with dogs, and they’re not for drugs – a lot of them are sniffing out bedbugs, because big hotels can’t afford to have rooms empty for days, which they’d need to do if pest control came in.”
He said the cost of living crisis and trend for buying things secondhand may contribute to the problem.
“The bugs can get into tiny cracks and fabric linings – I had to treat a house with an infestation caused by a second baby crib,” he said.
“Really check your bags, your clothes, your purchases – put everything in the wash on the highest temperature you can if you bought it abroad or secondhand – but be aware bedbugs are good at hiding.”
Despite the international media frenzy around the punaise de lit outbreak in France, Parisians are reportedly laidback about the situation.
Isabel Stark, a British writer living in the French capital, said her friends “do not seem to be worried at all – they say, ‘On s’en branle en vrai, non?’, which means, ‘In truth we don’t really care, non?’ as well as, ‘on s’en fou’ – ‘we don’t give a shit’.”
However, a meeting has been mooted for ministers to discuss the situation, and any measures necessary as France prepares to host the Olympics and Rugby World Cup next year.
She said the main task for the government was to stop people from being scammed. “Since there has been a mass hysteria, many people seem to be getting caught out and paying thousands for cleaning services which aren’t actually certified.
“We assume trains are cleaned more and know that trains with bedbugs spotted are being taken out of service.”
