Bed Bugs are nasty.
Spending a night in a hotel room should not result in welts, the destruction of your furniture at home, and a weeks long fumigation process. Shouldn’t happen. 
But bed bugs can happen even at a 5 star hotel that is very clean. A traveler unknowingly brings them into the hotel in a suitcase and just like that the hotel has a bed bug problem.
According to the Centers For Disease Control, “bed bugs hide hide during the day in places such as seams of mattresses, box springs, bed frames, headboards, dresser tables, inside cracks or crevices, behind wallpaper, or any other clutter or objects around a bed. Bed bugs have been shown to be able to travel over 100 feet in a night but tend to live within 8 feet of where people sleep”.
The good news is that bed bugs are not known to spread disease. The bad news is that I wouldn’t wish them on anyone. They can create major headaches.
Is a hotel responsible for bed bug bites? Can you sue the hotel?
The answer like the answer to so many things is maybe.
We have successfully brought bed bug claims against hotels. We have also declined a number of cases.
What we look for is evidence that the hotel knew of a problem and failed to act. If a hotel doesn’t know or doesn’t have any reason to know it has bed bugs than there is possibly no claim. For example, the traveler before you brought in bed bugs. They were hiding under some wallpaper. You hit the unlucky lottery and are bitten. Upon the hotel learning about this they treat the premises for bed bugs.
Hotels can’t be wilfully blind to bed bugs. Bed bugs are a foreseeable risk to their customers. Hotels have to have inspection and treatment procedures. They must take actions to prevent bed bug bites.
We look at any prior publically available reports – complaints to the Department of Health, town, or lawsuits to try and determine how a hotel handles bed bugs.
If our investigation reveals that the hotel knew or should have known and failed to act properly than the hotel may be held responsible for the damages caused by their failure to follow safety rules including medical bills, damage to property, pain, and anxiety.
Contact us if you’d like us to review your bed bug case for free. We are only licensed in Connecticut.
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