“People who are really cautious — like my friends who have had bed bugs — put their suitcase in the bathtub… just not on upholstery,” she said, so if there are any bed bugs in the room, they won’t get into it. “Most hotel rooms are carpeted, so just don’t have your bag on carpeting.”
You can also attempt to bed-bug proof the fabric luggage stand in the room.
“Some people travel with plastic trash bags,” Bologna said. “You put the plastic around it and then put your suitcase on it, because bed bugs don’t really hang out on plastic.”
If you do find bed bugs in the room, alert the hotel management immediately.
“If you decide you don’t want to leave the hotel but you want to switch rooms, don’t move to an adjacent room because that would be likely to have the same problem,” Bologna warned.
We also chatted about the best way to score an upgrade, the dirtiest parts of hotel rooms and hacks for cleaning them, and many more hotel secrets.
Need some help with something you’ve been doing wrong? Email us at [email protected], and we might investigate the topic in an upcoming episode.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.