Bed bugs at Bonnet Creek :(

I wouldn't necessarily write off a hotel because they had bedbugs at one time or another. They can happen at any hotel - it's what the hotel does when it happens that counts. You can get them in your luggage when you fly, or when you leave the luggage at bell services as well. The best thing to do is a thorough inspection of the room before you bring your luggage in, especially if you are driving to a hotel. I always leave my luggage in the car, check in, go to inspect the room for bedbugs and major maintenance issues, and then I bring the luggage in.

Sorry OP that you had to go through this. I would definitely be questioning the fact that the linens were soiled from the previous guests - that is wrong on SO many levels!
 
Like the others, I'm sorry this happened to you. As a GM of a property in Orlando, I know that bed bugs can be anywhere. They are at Disney. They can be at Wyndham. They have probably been in every hotel in Orlando. I cannot confirm, but with the number of International travelers and US travelers that go through airports, etc. they are going to transfer. Cleanliness of a place has nothing ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with bed bugs. If the condo had been vacant for a while it is easy for the bed bugs to multiply and housekeeping miss them. They hide very well, and are usually hiding in the box springs. The bed bug fecal matter could have occurred after housekeeping changed the sheets.

That said, the way that the hotel handled the situation is completely unacceptable. They should have dried your belongings, washed them, and then dried them again. You should have been transferred to another room so that the entire room could be treated.

I hope that you received your money back. If not, please call the Health Department. They will assist you with matters like these. I know our hotel ensures that every guest leaves satisfied with their stay.
 
Here is what I don't understand, each guest is required to strip the beds at the end of the stay at Wyndham Timeshares. It should be easy to see them in between guests by housekeeping. I would think that would make them less likely to have them.

I am checking into Bonnet Creek tomorrow and now I am having second thoughts.

I wouldn't worry about bed bugs. Just do a quick search once you get to the room. Even the Disney resorts get them.
 


so sorry this happened to you.

in your situation just might not go to Disney for a year or two.

hope you and your family get better soon and you get a lot better!
 
Thank you. I know that there are some good sites for finding checklist for bed bug inspections. For us, we pull off all the sheets and check those and then we check all the corners/tufts of the mattress to see signs of blood, feces or the actual bugs. Then we lift up the mattress and do the same for the boxspring. We also normally do a good check around the headboard and open up any drawers nearby. I know there are WAY more things you can do, but this is what we do on our initial inspection. It helps to have a flashlight for the dark areas, but trust me in most cases you can see the bugs if they're there. Especially if they've had a meal recently...gross but true.

Although I always check for bed bugs, I have never went far enough in my search. I always just pull away the sheet and look at the mattress edges. Now I will scoot the mattress and check the box spring also.

I'm sorry to read what your family went through. It makes me truly sad for you. I'll be praying you didn't carry any home.

I will also be mentioning this to my son-in-law, who recently started doing a lot of traveling for work. You may very well have saved another family from this horrifying experience.

At this point all I want is not to have them in my home or car...of course, it is sad that we had to throw away so much and go through all the discomfort...but my thoughts focus on "oh, please...not my home...not my car". To get them treated would cost us upwards of $2000 or so we were told by a company here. We did have someone come out and do a thorough check and put down traps to see. He said we'll probably need to keep an eye on it for the next 3-6 months...just to make sure. The sad part is that it will likely consume my thoughts for that amount of time and I doubt I'll ever forget this. Still, I just keep focusing on how good the rest of our trip was...crazy thing is that this trip was our "make-up" trip from our last trip in May...we got robbed on the way home. My husband says I need to stop visiting Disney. :confused3

I know bed bugs can be financially and emotionally draining. My sister's neighbor got them and depleted his savings trying to fight them. He ended up with 6 or 7 full size freezers in his garage where he was doing rotations of all his belongings. I'm not sure what the rationale behind that was or if he kept his clothes there, I just remember him having them.

About a year into it, he became so depressed that he had to see a doctor and get on medication. He said at one point he was suicidal over it. He thought he was going to have to burn his home to the ground. He eventually got rid of them using the super heat method, but not before the entire episode took a toll on him.

If you do end up having to treat them, don't waste money, time, or energy trying to exterminate them any other way. Nothing works but the heat. Although there are no real bright sides to bed bugs, at least there is a known method of getting rid of them now. I can't imagine the horror of trying one method after another only to have them keep coming back.
 
sorry that happened to you OP... what room was it? I feel all scratcy just reading this stuff yuck!!
 


Here is what I don't understand, each guest is required to strip the beds at the end of the stay at Wyndham Timeshares. It should be easy to see them in between guests by housekeeping. I would think that would make them less likely to have them.

I am checking into Bonnet Creek tomorrow and now I am having second thoughts.

Wyndham no longer requires guests to strip the beds.

My daughter took bedbugs home from a Marriot Resort and they were he11 to get rid of.
 
WOW! I am so sorry to hear this happened to your family but I do think you should report it to the BBR as well as at least letting the person or service who you rented from know so that they can deal with Wyndham directly. Can you imagine the poor family or families who rent it next? You dont have to approach it from a refund point of view if that is not what you are after, just an informative email so that they can take care of it and make sure it doesnt happen again, I would hope!
 
That's horrible. The kids didn't get any bites (thankfully, I hope)?

I have been checking the kids like crazy...even 3 weeks later. I feel like one of those monkies at the zoo...checking them over every day. Our 7 year old and 5 year old had a spattering on their arms and legs (my 5 year old were the large welts...my 7 year old just had a bunch of smaller pustule type things)...nowhere near the amount that my husband and I had. It doesn't appear that the 2 babies got them, but they were in cribs, so maybe that's what helped them? We have traps in all the bedrooms right now, and I about had a heart attack yesterday when I saw a bug in the one by my girls' bunk bed. Thankfully it was only a little centipede type thing.:crazy2:
 
I wouldn't necessarily write off a hotel because they had bedbugs at one time or another. They can happen at any hotel - it's what the hotel does when it happens that counts. You can get them in your luggage when you fly, or when you leave the luggage at bell services as well. The best thing to do is a thorough inspection of the room before you bring your luggage in, especially if you are driving to a hotel. I always leave my luggage in the car, check in, go to inspect the room for bedbugs and major maintenance issues, and then I bring the luggage in.

Sorry OP that you had to go through this. I would definitely be questioning the fact that the linens were soiled from the previous guests - that is wrong on SO many levels!

You're absolutely right...it can happen anywhere. Sad, but true. Just checking the room can save a lot of heartache. Also, when you return home...don't bring anything in the house until you've checked it or washed and dried it. From now on, our luggage will be stored in our shed. Not taking any other chances.
 
Like the others, I'm sorry this happened to you. As a GM of a property in Orlando, I know that bed bugs can be anywhere. They are at Disney. They can be at Wyndham. They have probably been in every hotel in Orlando. I cannot confirm, but with the number of International travelers and US travelers that go through airports, etc. they are going to transfer. Cleanliness of a place has nothing ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with bed bugs. If the condo had been vacant for a while it is easy for the bed bugs to multiply and housekeeping miss them. They hide very well, and are usually hiding in the box springs. The bed bug fecal matter could have occurred after housekeeping changed the sheets.

That said, the way that the hotel handled the situation is completely unacceptable. They should have dried your belongings, washed them, and then dried them again. You should have been transferred to another room so that the entire room could be treated.

I hope that you received your money back. If not, please call the Health Department. They will assist you with matters like these. I know our hotel ensures that every guest leaves satisfied with their stay.

I had thought about that...that maybe the room hadn't been used for a while, but when we checked in they told us that we couldn't have the room right away because they were still prepping it/turning it over from the last guests. So, maybe they just told us that because we were checking in early?

Also, I want to give credit where credit is due...they did wash/dry ALL of our clothing and personal blankets. They offered to wash our pillows but we tossed them. They also did transfer us rooms that day...3 floors up...which is why it didn't make sense that they didn't treat the whole condo. Funny enough, when we got to the new room, we realized that they had set all the washed laundry on our BEDS. Gah! Granted, it was the new (hopefully) bed bug free room, but still, there was a whole dining room table cleared off right by the door. I say hopefully bed-bug free because our treated and untreated stuff got moved to that room for the rest of our stay!

Aside from getting some certificates for food, a stroller rental, and some diapers...we didn't get anything, and we had to ask for those things. The AGM said they couldn't give out any cash/refunds...just some replacements. You sound like you're a GM that cares a lot...hopefully if/when we ever come to Florida, we get a place run like your's instead.
 
WOW! I am so sorry to hear this happened to your family but I do think you should report it to the BBR as well as at least letting the person or service who you rented from know so that they can deal with Wyndham directly. Can you imagine the poor family or families who rent it next? You dont have to approach it from a refund point of view if that is not what you are after, just an informative email so that they can take care of it and make sure it doesnt happen again, I would hope!

I spoke to my husband about this, and he's emailing them today. I agree that it should NEVER happen to anyone else.

so sorry this happened to you.

in your situation just might not go to Disney for a year or two.

hope you and your family get better soon and you get a lot better!

Yeah, my husband says returning home after a trip to our happy place with the idea of paying another $2000 each time (for replacement of belongings OR bed bug treatment) just doesn't seem so cost effective. The last two times...doing a budget Disney vacation hasn't really worked in our favor. :confused3


sorry that happened to you OP... what room was it? I feel all scratcy just reading this stuff yuck!!

It was on the 10th floor, facing EPCOT. Can't remember the exact number right now...I'm at work and that info is at home. Sorry!
 
Wow i am so so sorry this happened to you. I can't tell you how disturbing this is to hear considering we just booked our stay at WBC for october.

I am glad you are getting the word out though. THey really should be checking more if it has been an issue. And I agree they should have done more for you. Goodness that would have ruined my whole vacation.

I do think it is a good idea though for the renters of these places to know about this problem...I am sure they would not want their business ruined by guests not wanting to stay there and they may have more pull if they all demand that the place is checked and treated proerly. If I were you I would contact vacation upgrades and vacation strategy and farrells since those rent out to so many people at this place. I would not want other families to haveto go through this. Also if you do have anything with the room number on it it totally would not hurt as another poster mentioned to report it to the board of health...it does not sound like they really treated it properly if they only did the bedroom. It would be better for them to go inspect it.

All that being said i know what an emotional toll this must take on your family. My son's class had an outbreak of headlice last year and though I only found a few eggs on his hair and treated everyone in the family immediately I was so freaked out and tore through my house cleaning everything.....I imagine bed bugs would be much worse. ugh

So freaked out now!
 
Ugh, what a nightmare! I am so sorry to hear that this happened to you an your family. Pretty sure my family thinks im nuts for checking for bed bugs the *second* we walk into the hotel room, but honestly, this is my worst nightmare. OP, again, so sorry this has happened and I hope everything will be fine both in your home and your car. :hug:
 
We ended up with bed bugs after a vacation. Only my son and I reacted to the bites so my husband thought we were having allergic reactions to something (which we were, the saliva is an allergen but only about 50% of people are allergic). Turns out the main infestation started in my daughter's pack-n-play, which we brought with us on the trip!!!! It was so unbelievably infested it was sick, but she had not a welt on her (not allergic), otherwise we would have figured it out sooner. Long story short, we replaced mattresses, furniture, and even the carpet in the master bedroom in addition to having all the horrid toxic spraying done. We spent over $3000 and I still have nightmares about it.

So sorry you have to go through this! You should be saving every single bill and expense up and present it to the timeshare, they should reimburse you for all of it.
 
Well now i'm going to be paranoid at every hotel I stay at. I goes everyone just makes the assumption that only dingy little models get bed bugs, yet its more common in the nice and fancy "clean" looking resorts. Ick!
 
We ended up with bed bugs after a vacation. Only my son and I reacted to the bites so my husband thought we were having allergic reactions to something (which we were, the saliva is an allergen but only about 50% of people are allergic). Turns out the main infestation started in my daughter's pack-n-play, which we brought with us on the trip!!!! It was so unbelievably infested it was sick, but she had not a welt on her (not allergic), otherwise we would have figured it out sooner. Long story short, we replaced mattresses, furniture, and even the carpet in the master bedroom in addition to having all the horrid toxic spraying done. We spent over $3000 and I still have nightmares about it.

So sorry you have to go through this! You should be saving every single bill and expense up and present it to the timeshare, they should reimburse you for all of it.

So you're saying that the bugs got into the pack and play that you brought from home and then in turn brought the bugs home with you??? Thats terrible :eek:
 

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