Bedbugs in hotel

Rumana03

So a few weeks ago I was in Turkey on holiday with my family. On the last night, I felt itchy all night and could not sleep. Woke up in the morning to probably over 15 bites all over my body. My daughter was the same. Checked the beds and I could see a blood stain on each one. Also found a dead bed bug in my bed. We let the hotel manager know and he came to see the evidence.
We checked out that day as planned and moved to another hotel for the last night of our holidays.

Once back in the UK I contacted booking.com to make a complaint about thw hotel and request a refund. They said they would contact the hotel and try to resolve it with them. And if this doesn't work they will get another team to look into it and resolve. After not hearing from them after a few days, I called them. Booking.com was now saying the hotel owner is saying why did we tell him the issue on the day we are leaving...well that is because that last night was when I noticed the issue. So they said they will contact the hotel again to ask for the refund. In the meantime as it was taking so long to resolve they gave me £35 goodwill gesture.
Over a week later I phoned them to check what is happening. The hotel owner is now claiming we bought the bedbugs with us from the UK...now hearing this made me so angry as it is the supidest thing I ever heard. If someone was going to lie about this then they would say it from day one and not on the last day. Also the infestation in the room must have been so bad for us to have so many bites so definitely it can't have just happened recently. Booking.com now refusing to give me the refund as they claim they can only give it if the hotel agrees.

Has anyone else been in this situation? And Is there anything else I can do?

Literally we had our luggage in the shed for the past few weeks as I was too scared to bring anything inside the house in case of infestation. 

Leavemealone

Did you take pictures as evidence? Visit a GP upon return? 

Brie

Do you have a chest freezer big enough for your luggage?  I'd suggest taking out all the clothing and putting that directly into the wash and then putting the luggage in the freezer.  Don't know if it will work but this is the recommended way to ensure posh sweaters bought in charity shops don't cause an infestation of moths as the very cold air kills all the larvae.  

Only time I've actually been somewhere with bedbugs was about 60 years back on a returning home after a distant family holiday and stopping at a cheap motel.  It was icky.

Rumana03

Yes I did take photo evidence which I provided to booking.com. I did not go to the GP though.

Since we came back the luggages were in the shed. Only today were the the clothes taken out, bagged up then taken and washed. Also tumble dried.
The clothes we wore home were all put in the bathtub. Then I steamed them with a clothes steamer then washed the clothes. Used a dehumidifier machine to dry the clothes and then steamed the clothes again before putting away.

It's been over 2 weeks and we haven't had any itching or spotted anything to suggest an infestation. I also sprayed my mattress and all around the bed with a special bedbug killing spray (it's safe to use).

Rumana03

I've also left bad reviews for the hotel on booking.com, tripadvisor & google. I know this won't help me get my refund but I do need to warn others not to book there since booking.com do not seem to care and are still allowing bookings for that hotel.

LinLui

So the bedbugs only bit you on the last night? How many nights did they not bother biting you? 

Bedbugs are endemic worldwide,  so I'm not sure why you think its stupid to suggest they came from the UK. They've been identified in 5 star places in the UK. 

It's not pleasant, but it's a fact of modern life unfortunately. It doesn't mean someone has been irresponsible. They also have mosquitoes in Turkey. They bite too. Are you sure they aren't mosquito bites?

Sorry. Bites aren't pleasant.  But I think you're being somewhat unreasonable. 

HampshireH

I don't think expecting a full refund is reasonable.

1 nights refund yes as that's the 1 night you were affected. You've worried about bringing them home but had no concerns about going to another hotel and sharing them there. Very odd.

Rumana03

We stayed 6 nights so the other 5 nights I didn't notice anything. It's possible we may have been bitten but maybe less so it wasn't noticeable. They did have some mosquitoes so I whenever I felt a little itchy I just assumed it was that. But that last night the bedbugs were biting us all night. How did I know it's bedbugs? Because I found a dead one in the bed I slept in. I must have squashed it whilst sleeping. Massive blood stain where I must have squashed as well. Also another thing I noticed is the blue headboard of the bed had two black marks on them which when I first noticed it thought was odd because they looked like felt tip stains but were large circles....now thinking back to it, it was probably a sign of the infestation. Also that night when I was about to go to sleep something black was crawling next to my pillow..I didn't see what it was but I whacked it off the bed. Must have been a bedbug.

Yes I did move hotels but we were very careful & I used a hairdryer on the luggages and packed all the worn clothes into the bags. The stuff we would wear the last day was in the wardrobe which has no signs of infestation so I assume were safe to wear. 

Yes the UK does have bedbugs but I definitely did not take bedbugs to that hotel as we don't have them in our house. And we were fine throughout the holiday. It's only at the end that myself and my daughter got bitten. 

To the person who said it's unreasonable to ask for a full refund...why? They clearly knew they had an infestation but they refused to deal with it and carried on as normal. Even the day we checked in the wardrobe had white powder all over it which I thought was weird..now I think maybe they had put something there to try and kill the bedbugs. The stains on the headboard also suggest that the infestation is old and not a new one. And I'm sorry but ending the holiday with such bad bites that we were itching for days and then even to this day I still have marks from it on my body, how is refunding one day going to make that up to me? All the clothing we took on holiday was new...they had to be washed ajd dried on high heat. They don't look new anymore. The stress of it all is not nice. I had to buy a clothes steamer to use in the house and bedbug killing spray. All these additional costs but I'm not asking them to pay for it. I expect to get the money back for my stay though because it was the worst hotel I have ever stayed in (and not just because of the bedbugs). And booking.com are happy to keep letting people go and stay there with the knowledge of this.

NoodleDoodleMan

Perhaps you could identify the hotel in question, that would be useful to read comments from other guests. ?

I'm confused with this following bit.

"We checked out that day as planned and moved to another hotel for the last night of our holidays."

Had you already planned in advance to stay that one last night in another hotel - and if so, why ?

Or was the move a result of the experience in your first hotel the night before ?

Rumana03

NoodleDoodleMan said:

Perhaps you could identify the hotel in question, that would be useful to read comments from other guests. ?

I'm confused with this following bit.

"We checked out that day as planned and moved to another hotel for the last night of our holidays."

Had you already planned in advance to stay that one last night in another hotel - and if so, why ?

Or was the move a result of the experience in your first hotel the night before ?

The hotel is Grafen hotel in Istanbul. I did see some comments mention bugs (but it was beetles). One review I saw mentioned blood on the sheets.

We originally thought of moving hotels on the last night of our holiday because our flight was early morning meaning we would have to leave the hotel after midnight. Thought maybe we should move closer to the airport to make it easier. So we had only booked those 6 nights at this hotel and left on the day we were supposed to. There were issues with the hotel from day one but I wasn't planning to mention it during our stay & was planning to leave a review when we returned.

NoodleDoodleMan

I had assumed that was the senario in respect of the last night, thanks for the clarification.

As for the full refund claim - if you only complained following the final night of your stay that suggests you were satisfied with the previous days.

In which case it seems reasonable that a refund is only appropriate for that 1 night/day.

Did you raise the other issues you mention above with management from day one - and are they relevant or connected to the infestation issue ?

Incidentally I've just found the only TripAdvisor review - from you.