World, Bed Bug Registry Map – Infestation Reports

Bedbugs crawl around in a container on display during the second National Bedbug Summit in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 2, 2011. (JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images)

NEW YORK (CBS 2) Its summer and this is the time of year when bedbugs are most prevalent. But its also the time of year when people travel.

That can be a bad combination, but there are things you can do to battle the nasty critters.

When CBS 2s Kristine Johnson caught up with Charlotte Reed, she was leaving for vacation and hoping to return with a tan. However, she said was worried that some color wasnt going to be the only thing shed bring back with her.

Bedbugs can travel anywhere, Reed said.

Like a lot of travelers, she said shes concerned about bedbugs catching a ride back to her home on anything from her luggage to her dog.

My dog sleeps in the bed with me, so, just like Im exposed to bedbugs at night in the bed, so is she, Reed said.

Experts say bedbugs will use your pets to get to you. Its one of the ways theyve now spread to all 50 states.

Pets can transport bedbugs. Just mechanically, the bedbug hitches a ride on your pet and gets into your house, said Kimberly May of the American Veterinary Medical Center.

So what, if anything, can you do to protect yourself while traveling? Entomologist Jeffrey White said when you get to your hotel room thoroughly inspect for bugs before you bring your pet through the door. The bugs are often visible to the naked eye.

More:
Seen At 11: Battling Bedbugs On The Road

A lighthearted look at news, events, culture and everyday life in New York._____________________

By Nina Pajak

As a mild lunatic, Im always gratified when someone from a fairly legitimate news outlet reports on the things which at once torment and endlessly interest me. In this case, I am referring to an extraordinarily important article posted on Yahoo! yesterday entitled: The Dirtiest Things in a Hotel Room Revealed.

How can you not look?

There arent a ton of surprises here. At least, not for those of us who think about these things. The TV remote and light switches rank among the filthiest items travelers can touch, second only to the actual cleaning carts used by hotel maids to wipe bacteria around and transfer it from room to room. Sharesies!

More: NYCs 5 Most Notorious Hotels

Ive long suspected that virtually everything in a hotel room functions as a petrie dish teeming with every invisible germ, sneeze, globule, pathogen, virus, flake and oogie from thousands of anonymous strangers. Being one who scours for bed bugs or evidence thereof does not help dispel this theory. I see more hairs, stains and smears than anyone ought. Then again, Im not dead yet.

More: NYC Hotels: Where Not To Stay In The Big Apple

I once worked with a woman who once had been a higher up at a major hotel chain. She confided some pretty horrific secrets, most of which I forget now due to my self-preservationinstinct to block out the information. But I do remember one fact which Ive never been able to set aside.

She told us that when she stays at a hotel, she never uses the drinking glasses provided in her room. Why? Because of what she knew about the cleanliness of the hotel at which she worked. When turning rooms over, the maids would look to see if the glasses were obviously dirty. If they were not, theyd wipe off the rims and put them down on a new paper cap, good as new. Its sort of like when an exterminator, while helping my brother with his bed bug problem, told him hed never go to the movies anymore for fear of the pests. One must do as the experts do.

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Nina In New York: The Dirtiest Things In A Hotel Room Are All The Things