How to inspect a room for bed bugs?
Preventing bed bugs
To check a room efficiently for bed bugs, you need to know how they move and where they hide in a room. Bed bugs are typically introduced to a room with travelers’ luggage. Once in a room, bed bugs go and hide in a dark and safe place such as under the bed or behind curtains.
At night, when a human is sleeping in the room, the bed bugs sense the exhaled carbon dioxide (CO2) and start to move around searching for the food source. The most common route is by climbing the bed legs to get from the floor into the bed.
After the bed bugs have bitten the sleeping humans, they go back to hide again. They either stay somewhere on the bed, in furniture or in cracks around the room.
For this reason, the traditional way to check a room takes at least 15 minutes per room and should ideally be performed every 2 weeks. Many hotels perform room checks only once per a few months or even just once a year, which offers some protection but can leave infestations unnoticed for a long time giving it time to spread and become uncontrollable.