Travel Tips for Avoiding Bedbugs

  Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. The holidays are joyful times when we travel to see friends and family. But if those trips involve staying in hotels or motels, we now need to make sure we don’t pickup unwanted hitchhikes --- bedbugs. The fanciest hotels in New York and the lowliest inns in Berlin have all had bedbugs --- they’re not signs of poor sanitation although clutter can make it harder to control them. There are things you can do to protect yourself from encounters with these blood-sucking insects. When you walk into a hotel room, put your suitcase in the bathtub and begin a thorough inspection of the mattress, box springs, and headboard. Pack a small flashlight that can shine a bright beam of light into crevices as part of your pest control kit as bedbugs can fit in spaces as narrow as a credit card.