Oh great!!! Just great!!! In October will spend 3 nights in a motel traveling from Wisconsin to Arizona. Maybe I wil opt to sleep in the car. LOL I have heard that literally all motels, high class and dumps alike, have bedbugs.

Off-topic, sort of: there is a bed bug registry online (http://www.bedbugregistry.com/) where you can research the hotel or building where you intend to stay, and also learn what to look for when you check in...Our son just went on a long-awaited trip back East this summer, and I spent a lot of time agitating about bed bugs and Lyme disease(!) Thankfully, he had a great time and did not catch bed bugs or Lyme, nor have any signs of MRSA (whoo hoo! finally done after a full year).

Keeping luggage up off the floor, and spraying a repellent on the outside of your suitcase (such as permethrin, which is safe once it is dry) will help keep bed bugs out. And, if worst comes to worst, and your stuff gets bugs in it, tumbling items in a hot dryer kills bed bugs, as well as putting things into black trash bags in the sun for a few days. The key is to check it all out before you bring stuff into your house after your trip! Leave it in the garage until you have looked everything over.

On-topic: ugh, how terrible that MRSA is now involved. The one thing that made the bed bug issue not so awful was the reassurance that no one would catch a disease or anything! Bed bugs in theaters are a nasty new trend.

I read a peer reviewed journal from a Vet school, can't remember which, when I was first diagnosed about how MRSA can live in the noses of dogs--thus when dogs are taken around nursing homes for "therapy" they spread MRSA from patient to patient.

My daughter contracted Mono, she developed swollen glands 10 days after her first bites of the bed bugs in her dorm room!
she was fully bitten when her glands began to swell. we had her go to urgent care and they diagnosed Mononucleosis! Since then she has suffered two more relapses with the swollen throat.