*gulp*

two weekends from now, YB and i will be staying at a hotel that, last june, had bed bugs.

and i am doing my best not to panic.

one of trix’s friends is getting married in niagara-on-the-lake, which is just a stone’s throw from the U.S. border (relatively speaking), so we’re heading down early and spending a couple of nights in buffalo. it’s just too close not to.

thing is, before booking our favourite buffalo hotel, we each (independently) doublechecked that it hadn’t had any bed bug reports since our last stay there (feb. 2010). we’ve stayed at this hotel multiple times over the years. it’s very affordable, in a convenient location and always clean. nonetheless, we wanted to make sure it had remained that way since last we visited.

it had not.

a quick check over at the bed bug registry revealed that, on my birthday (!) last year, someone stayed in one of the rooms, and both she and her daughter were bitten by bed bugs. she gave the room number, said the hotel immediately shut down her room and the ones surrounding it, and gave her a full refund.

i felt sick as soon as i read the report, and could feel panic rising. i emailed YB, and she said she, too, had just seen the report and wondered what we should do.

for several days, we weighed our options:

1. skip buffalo altogether

2. go to buffalo but stay somewhere else

3. go to buffalo and stay at our usual hotel, employing every precaution we knew of and hoping the hotel had fixed their problem in the eight months since the report

normally, i wouldn’t go anywhere NEAR a hotel if bed bugs had EVER been found there, but this place has always been our home away from home while cross-border shopping, and i wasn’t entirely sure i wanted to give up on it outright.

so.

i called the hotel.

i said to trix, “if they deny they ever had bed bugs, we’re not staying there.”

but, when i phoned, the front-desk clerk said yes, they did have a bed-bug issue last summer, but that it had been fully resolved.

“so, there haven’t been any further incidents?” i asked.

“no, it’s been resolved,” she said... sounding a little annoyed, as though i wasn’t the first person to call with these questions. i did, however, find her honesty refreshing.

i relayed the info to YB, and we continued our deliberations. what to do? what to do?

staying in a hotel that once had bed bugs might mean some bed bugs still existed... but it might also mean it would be a location that has become hyper-vigilant about preventing their return.

staying in a hotel that had never had bed bugs (at least in terms of online reports) might mean there aren’t any on the premises... but it might also mean that past bed-bug issues were never publicly reported OR that the hotel might be more lax in terms of maintenance and prevention.

the more we thought, and the more my mind raced through a series of horrible scenarios, the tougher our decision-making became.

for some reason, my mind kept drifting to, “whichever choice we make will be the wrong one.” my deeply embedded terror over bed bugs was whispering that they’d show up no matter where we stayed, and i really started to think about skipping the U.S. shopping – no small sacrifice considering it’ll be presidents’ day weekend and, with it, presidents’ day SALES.

then i started rationalizing: wait. i’m a smart person. i’m hyper-vigilant. i can strip the beds in the room and fully check every nook and cranny. it’ll be about a 15-minute process, but 15 minutes well-spent. i can take sound precautions to prevent bringing any bed bugs home with me if there are any in the room that are so well-hidden i can’t spot them. there are jumbo-sized ziploc bags into which i can put my clothes, and i can put those bags into one i can either wash or throw away after check-out (as opposed to bringing my things in a suitcase or gym bag).

all important preventative measures.

still, i was seriously uncertain, as was trix.

and then a funny thing happened: the report on the bed bug registry disappeared. they have a policy in place that no report will be removed unless it’s been two years with no subsequent reports, or if the property in question resolves the issue and the report’s original author gives permission for the report to be taken down.

i checked and rechecked, and only a cached version of the report for our hotel existed.

which means the site took it down.

which means the hotel contacted the BBR and requested it be removed.

which means the original author said, “okay. i believe they fixed the problem. you can take my review off the website.”

for some reason, i found this new development somewhat comforting, and also a bit of an eye-opener. it’s entirely possible, after all, that some of the seemingly report-free hotels HAVE had bed bug reports, as well, but the problems have been resolved and the reports removed without me ever knowing they existed. so, choosing another hotel on the grounds that it has no reports on record actually doesn’t guarantee anything.

the key is being prepared and cautious. two things i can certainly do... and two things a once more-skeptical YB has now also realized are very important.

ever since her co-worker had bed bugs last summer/fall, and came to work ravaged with itchy red bumps day after day and tales of her bed-bug horror, trix has been much more tuned-in to what a potential nightmare these teeny, bloodthirsty, resilient insects can be. then, just before christmas, she found out that another friend had inadvertently brought bed bugs home from a hotel in las vegas – bed bugs that subsequently infested his family’s house here in toronto, resulting in a few thousand dollars’ worth of extermination costs and a healthy dose of psychological trauma.

anyway...

after a brief discussion, we both agreed to fully prep ourselves and our stuff accordingly, and to book our usual hotel. we will be on high alert and very careful. again, the hotel says it’s resolved the problem, so hopefully that’s true and the entire place is completely bug-free. right now, i’m still feeling mighty anxious, but i’m hoping that subsides once we check in with our hazmat gear and give our room an all-clear.

after all, target popcorn, auntie anne’s pretzels and a new pair of keen hiking shoes await me across the border, and they’re worth the extra hassle.