"Passengers Encounter Bedbug Infestation on Multiple Turkish Airlines Flights" !! Holy crap!

[A HERETIC I AM]

13. I used to travel away from home a lot more than I have been recently...

and stayed in hotels all over the place. I've been pretty lucky I suppose. I've been staying in hotels on an off all my life, and regularly as part of the jobs I've had since the late 1980's, but I have only had maybe 2 encounters in all that time. I had one specific bedbug episode that will live with me forever!

It was in a hotel in Chattanooga. I felt them crawling on me before I felt the itch of the bites. Using a plastic drinking cup I caught 2 or 3 of them on the bed and took them to the front desk at about 2 in the morning. I had a fairly early wake up (I really didn't sleep much after that) and got to the front desk to check out around 7:30. They had an exterminator waiting there for me to leave! The manager was all apologetic and offered me free lodging whenever I came back through town. Needless to say, I never went back.

I did get bitten in a couple different places and each one was 3 bites. The articles I read about them called that distinct pattern of bites "Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner"!! They frickin itched for days afterward.

I'm as careful as I can be when I am in a hotel these days. Never set my luggage on the floor, the bed or any furniture, only the countertops, check the mattress for evidence of them, etc.

I never really thought about a plane being infested though!

I read one of the reasons they seemed to go away for several decades and now they're more common is because DDT was used before and was very effective. But we all know how bad that shit turned out to be.