Well, you may now want to lift the bed linen and look under the mattress for evidence of bed bugs, when you first check in to a hotel room. Because an incident that was supposed to be a vacation by a Kentucky family to a Disney resort in central Florida became ‘a nightmare’ recently thanks to a ‘severe bedbug infestation’ at a hotel.
You know how painful and itchy bed bug bites can be. The itch is almost unbearable, and you can wind up covered with red welts all over your body. Bed bugs feed on blood and cause extremely itchy bites.
The bites can leave you with permanent scars – both physical and mental – from the trauma.
Christina Streble and her family had traveled 700 miles for a family vacation; the Streble family was staying at Oak Plantation Resort in Kissimmee. When they discovered their daughter was covered in insect bites noticing bites all over their daughters’ arms. But since they were in a warm area, they initially believed the bites were brought on by mosquitoes, however, they realized it had to be something else when more appeared over the following several days.
With the pictures that speak for themselves, the mother of four children recalled, describing the discomfort suffered by her children, “We counted 206 bites on our older daughter and 125 bites on our middle daughter. They were red and inflamed.” And when they decide to lift their mattress at the hotel, they were horrified to find a swarm of the little brown parasites! A seed-sized watermelon bed bug that feeds off human blood and are notoriously hard to get rid of.
“The doctor that saw our daughters said that this was the worst case of bed bugs that he had ever seen. This has been a nightmare,” Christina said.
Up to much to their distress, the Strebles were compelled to return to Louisville early from their vacation. As Christina claimed that after her husband raised the issue with management, but nothing was done.
The family has since filed a consumer complaint. After an investigation, state officials confirmed that bed bugs were indeed found in the resort room. This is the first time since 2013 that the state inspector found bed bugs after receiving a complaint.
The resort said that the bed bugs were confined to only one room and that the room has now been treated. Calling it an isolated incident, a resort spokesperson said,
“We are a 242-unit property. Last weekend, we were at 96 percent occupancy, and this is the only complaint that came out of this resort, so we are a great family friendly resort with a great staff close to Disney, so please don’t let this scare you off.”
Although the family has not asked for any compensation, Oak Plantation Resort planned to reach out to them and offer either a refund or a free week. But given that the family’s kids are still uneasy about what happened, it’s unlikely that they’ll be going back to the resort anytime soon.
“It’s a nightmare. The kids have a hard time sleeping because they keep thinking something is crawling on them,” Christina Streble said.
Sources: TapHaps, WESH-TV, Click Orlando