The holidays are right around the corner, and if you’re like most Cheyenne families, you’re probably counting down the days until your next getaway. Whether you’re flying out to visit relatives or road-tripping across the country, travel season brings excitement, and, unfortunately, some uninvited guests.
At Best Pest Control, we’ve watched bed bugs make a serious comeback here in Wyoming over the past several years, and increased holiday travel is a big reason why. These tiny pests are expert hitchhikers, sneaking into luggage, clothing, and personal items without you ever noticing. Once they make it into your home, things can escalate fast: a single female bed bug can lay up to five eggs per day, and adults can survive for 300 days. That’s a recipe for a full-blown infestation before you’ve even taken down the Christmas tree.
The good news? A little awareness goes a long way. We’ve been battling these bloodsuckers for years, and we know exactly how to help Cheyenne families protect themselves. In this guide, we’ll walk you through practical bed bug prevention tips, from inspecting your hotel room to handling your luggage wisely, so you can enjoy your holiday travels without bringing home any unwelcome souvenirs.
Why Bed Bugs Are a Growing Concern During Holiday Travel
Bed bugs don’t care if your home is spotless. They don’t care if you’re staying at a five-star resort or a budget motel. What they do care about is opportunity, and holiday travel gives them plenty of it.
Every year, millions of people crisscross airports, train stations, and hotels during the holiday season. Bed bugs thrive in these high-traffic environments because they get constant access to new hosts. They’re nocturnal feeders, coming out at night while we sleep to feast on blood, which makes detecting them tricky until it’s too late.
Here’s something most people don’t realize: bed bugs can be found almost anywhere. Your couch, your car’s upholstery, movie theater seats, even restaurant booths. They’re not limited to dirty spaces or neglected rooms. What they need is fabric, warmth, and a human meal. Hotels, even clean, reputable ones, are prime real estate because of the constant turnover of guests.
We’ve seen it time and again with our Cheyenne customers. A family takes a trip over Thanksgiving, enjoys a wonderful vacation, and comes home only to discover itchy red welts appearing a week later. By then, the bed bugs they unknowingly transported have already started setting up shop in their mattresses, furniture, and even behind their walls.
The holiday travel season amplifies this risk significantly. More people traveling means more opportunities for bed bugs to spread from location to location. And since they’re rarely seen during daylight hours, most travelers have no idea they’ve been exposed until they’re already back home, and dealing with an infestation.
How to Inspect Your Hotel Room Before Unpacking
Before you toss your suitcase on the bed and start settling in, take a few minutes to do a thorough inspection. It’s one of the most effective ways to protect yourself from bringing bed bugs home. We recommend making this a habit every single time you travel, no matter where you’re staying.
Checking the Mattress and Headboard
Start with the bed, it’s ground zero for bed bug activity. Pull back the sheets, blankets, and mattress pad. Look closely at the seams, piping, and corners of the mattress. What are you looking for? Live bugs (small, flat, reddish-brown insects about the size of an apple seed), tiny white eggs, shed skins, or rust-colored fecal stains.
Don’t skip the headboard. Bed bugs love to hide in the crevices and joints of headboards, especially upholstered ones. If the headboard is attached to the wall, shine a flashlight behind it and along any visible edges. These pests are masters at squeezing into tight spaces, so be thorough.
Also check the box spring if you can access it. Bed bugs often congregate in the folds and seams underneath, far from casual observation.
Examining Furniture and Soft Surfaces
Bed bugs aren’t confined to beds. They’ll happily nest in upholstered chairs, sofas, curtains, and even inside nightstands or dresser drawers.
Inspect any cushioned furniture in the room, paying attention to seams and underneath cushions. Pull out nightstand drawers and check the corners and joints. Look behind picture frames hanging on walls, bed bugs have been found there too.
If your room has a luggage rack (the metal folding kind), use it. These are generally safer for your suitcase than the floor, bed, or upholstered furniture. But give it a quick look first, bed bugs can hide on fabric straps if the rack has them.
The whole inspection shouldn’t take more than five to ten minutes, and it could save you months of headaches. If you spot any signs of bed bugs, request a different room immediately, preferably one that’s not adjacent to or directly above or below the infested room.
Smart Luggage Practices to Avoid Bringing Bed Bugs Home
Your suitcase is basically a bed bug’s dream ride home. It’s dark, full of fabric, and goes everywhere you go. That’s why smart luggage practices are critical during holiday travel.
First, consider using hard-shell luggage if you have it. Bed bugs have a harder time clinging to smooth, rigid surfaces compared to fabric. If you’re using soft-sided bags, that’s fine, just be extra vigilant about where you place them.
Never put your luggage on the bed or upholstered furniture. We know it’s tempting, but this is one of the easiest ways for bed bugs to climb aboard. Use the luggage rack (after inspecting it) or place your suitcase in the bathroom on the tile floor while you check out the room. Bed bugs don’t love hard, slick surfaces, so bathrooms are generally a safer spot.
Another tip: pack your clothes in sealable plastic bags inside your suitcase. This creates an extra barrier between your belongings and any potential hitchhikers. It also makes it easier to manage laundry when you return home (more on that later).
Avoid leaving dirty clothes scattered around the hotel room. Bed bugs are attracted to the scent of humans, and worn clothing is like a beacon. Keep everything contained in your suitcase or in a sealed bag.
When you’re packing up to leave, do a quick inspection of your belongings. Shake out clothing, check shoes, and examine the seams of your suitcase. It only takes one pregnant female to start an infestation at home, so this step is worth the extra few minutes.
What to Do If You Suspect Bed Bugs During Your Trip
So you’ve done your inspection and found something suspicious, or maybe you’ve woken up with unexplained bites. What now?
First, don’t panic. Spotting bed bugs early gives you a chance to contain the situation before it gets worse.
If you find evidence of bed bugs in your room, alert hotel management immediately. Any reputable hotel will take this seriously and move you to a different room. Request a room that’s several floors away from the infested one, if possible, since bed bugs can travel through walls and electrical outlets.
Document everything. Take photos of what you found, whether it’s live bugs, stains, or shed skins. This can be helpful if you need to dispute charges or file a complaint later.
If you’ve already unpacked, carefully gather your belongings and seal them in plastic bags. Inspect each item as best you can before resealing. Avoid moving to the new room with potentially infested items if you can help it.
Now, about those bites: bed bug bites typically appear as red, itchy welts, sometimes in a line or cluster. They can look similar to mosquito bites or a rash. Not everyone reacts the same way, some people show no visible reaction at all, which makes detection tricky. But if you’re waking up with new bites each morning, that’s a strong indicator.
Even if you’re not sure whether you encountered bed bugs, it’s better to err on the side of caution when you get home. Treat your luggage and clothing as potentially contaminated until you’ve taken proper precautions.
Post-Travel Precautions Every Cheyenne Family Should Take
You’ve made it home from your holiday trip. Now what? This is where many families let their guard down, and it’s exactly when bed bugs make their move.
Do not bring your luggage inside and unpack straight into your closet or drawers. Instead, take your suitcase directly to the garage, mudroom, or even the bathtub. Somewhere with hard flooring that’s easy to clean and away from bedrooms.
Unpack carefully and place all clothing, worn or not, directly into plastic bags. Take those bags straight to the washing machine. Wash everything on the hottest water setting appropriate for the fabrics, then dry on high heat for at least 30 minutes. Heat kills bed bugs and their eggs effectively. If something can’t be washed (like shoes or delicate items), putting it in the dryer on high heat alone can still do the trick.
Inspect your suitcase thoroughly before storing it. Vacuum the interior, paying close attention to seams, pockets, and zippers. Consider spraying the inside with a bed bug spray rated for luggage use. Store your suitcase away from bedrooms, a garage or storage closet is ideal.
For the next few weeks after returning, keep an eye out for signs of bed bugs in your home. Check your mattress, bedding, and nearby furniture regularly. Look for those telltale rust-colored stains, shed skins, or live bugs. If you start noticing itchy bites that weren’t there before, take it seriously.
These precautions might feel like overkill, but we’ve seen too many families in Cheyenne deal with infestations that could have been prevented with a little post-travel diligence. Bed bugs multiply quickly, catching them early makes all the difference.
When to Call a Professional Pest Control Service
Even though your best efforts, sometimes bed bugs still find a way in. And here’s the hard truth: once you have an established infestation, DIY methods rarely cut it.
Bed bugs are notoriously resilient. They can hide in places you’d never think to look, inside electronics, behind wallpaper, in electrical outlets, even inside picture frames. Over-the-counter sprays might kill a few on contact, but they won’t reach the bugs hiding deep in your walls or furniture.
Worse, bed bugs are becoming increasingly resistant to common pesticides. At Best Pest Control, we’ve stayed on top of industry advancements to address this challenge. That’s why we offer Cryonite® treatment, a cutting-edge method that uses rapid freezing to eliminate bed bugs and their eggs without relying on chemicals they may have developed resistance to. It’s effective, non-toxic, and safe for use around your family and pets.
For more severe infestations, we may recommend fumigation. This involves enclosing the entire structure and releasing a gas that penetrates every hiding spot, behind walls, inside furniture, even within electronics. It’s thorough and ensures complete eradication.
We also offer targeted chemical treatments for localized problems. Our technicians use powerful, professional-grade products that flush bed bugs from hiding spots and kill on contact. These treatments are mostly odorless and leave no harmful residue in your home.
So when should you call us? If you’re waking up with red, itchy welts. If you’ve noticed rust-colored stains on your bedding. If you’ve spotted even one live bug. Don’t wait and hope the problem goes away, it won’t. Female bed bugs can lay five eggs daily, and with a lifespan of up to 300 days, that means an infestation can spiral out of control faster than you’d imagine.
At Best Pest Control, we’ve been serving Cheyenne families for years. We know these pests inside and out, and we have the tools and expertise to eliminate them for good.
Conclusion
Holiday travel should be about making memories with your family, not worrying about what might be lurking in your luggage when you get home. But with bed bugs making a strong comeback across Wyoming, a little prevention goes a long way.
The tips we’ve covered, inspecting hotel rooms thoroughly, practicing smart luggage habits, taking post-travel precautions, and knowing when to call in professionals, can help you protect your Cheyenne home from these persistent pests.
Remember, bed bugs don’t discriminate. They don’t care how clean your house is or how nice your hotel was. They’re opportunists, and holiday travel season is their prime time. By staying vigilant before, during, and after your trips, you can dramatically reduce your risk of an infestation.
And if the worst happens even though your best efforts? We’re here to help. Best Pest Control has been battling bed bugs in Wyoming for years, and we have the advanced treatments, including Cryonite® and professional fumigation, to eliminate them completely. Don’t let these tiny hitchhikers ruin your holidays or your home. If you suspect bed bugs, give us a call. We’ll handle the rest so you can get back to what matters most: enjoying time with your family.