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Guest Says Bed Bugs Attacked Her at Waldorf-Astoria Hotel

by Fran Golden Subscribe to Fran Golden's postsPosted Oct 7th 2010 02:30 PM

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hmerinomx, flickr

The Waldorf-Astoria is one of the best-known hotels in the world. Apparently bed bugs are familiar with the luxury property too, at least according to a Florida woman.

The woman, who is from Coral Gables and asked not to be named, tells the New York Post she had welts and rashes after a stay at the fancy hotel on Sept. 25.

The bed bugs attacked her in a $330 per night room, she tells the newspaper. "We were grossed out," says the woman, who works for an investment bank and was traveling with her mother, sister and boyfriend.

When she complained to hotel management, she says she was moved to a room in the hotel's swank Towers, that goes for more than $700. And she got a free night. But first, she says, hotel workers grilled her and asked her to display her bites. "It felt like you were getting blamed for the fact there was a bedbug in your bed," she says.

The woman says she had to take anti-inflammatory pills for a week because of the bites.

For its part, the hotel denies there were bed bugs in the woman's room. "No bedbugs or trace of bedbugs was found in the room in contention," Robert Allegrini, a spokesman for Hilton Worldwide, which runs the Waldorf, tells the newspaper.

The hotel does admit it gave the woman an upgrade.

And asked whether bedbugs have ever been found in the Waldorf, the newspaper says Allegrini said he didn't know.

Bed bug infestations have been reported in New York recently at Bloomingdales and the offices of Elle magazine, among other places.

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citizen

Do you peple have ANY clue what you are talking about??? Bedbugs have NOTHING to do with "nasty" hotels or "pig" neighbors. They dont care about filth or cleanliness. They are not attracted to ANYTHING except HEAT AND HUMAN BREATH. PERIOD. They feed EXCLUSIVELY on human blood. They dont care about your garbage or your dirty floors. They arent interested in your bathroom or your ash trays or your dirty laundry. ANYONE can get them. ANYONE!

October 08 2010 at 4:25 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Kris

Oh, we tracked where guests were coming from that brought them in and it was primarily Florida and Canada.

October 08 2010 at 4:02 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Kris

Bedbugs plague all hotels in NYC. I managed a very large property for years and was connected to many others. People would go stay at one hotel, get a bedbug infested room, and then call their travel agency to be switched properties. The travel agencies don't tell they hotels that the guest is coming from a bedbug infested room because the new hotel wouldn't take the guest. It's not dirty people spreading them. Bedbugs will attack royalty just as fast as they'd attack a bum.

To make matters worse, there is usually no sign of a problem for a few weeks after they're transported into the room. That's when you either get a guest complaint or you see the blood stains on the sheets. By that point you're lucky if they haven't already spread but you can be sure there are tens of thousands of eggs. There is nothing to do at this point but shut the room down and throw away everything and call an exterminator which is what we'd do. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.

Trust me, the Waldorf Astoria has bedbugs and that's not a knock against them. It's all you can do in NYC to keep them to just a few rooms but you'll never get rid of them unless you shut the whole place down and then you can bet you'll have them back within a month anyway if you have a large property like they do.

Oh and there's the other problem of giving someone a new room. Now you've spread it again to a new part of the hotel. Nothing you can do though. It has to be done.

October 08 2010 at 3:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Ellie

Since when would you think Liberals LIKE ILLEGALS WHO LIVE 20 PEOPLE TO A CONDO????? We hate what's happening in this country, too. The thing is, we need a better way of keeping them out. YOUR WONDERFUL BUSIE'S FENCE WAS AN EXPENSIVE, STUPID WAY OF MAKING PEOPLE THINK HE WAS TRYING TO KEEP THEM OUT, IT JUST MADE IT EASIER. Your bedbugs have NOTHING TO DO WITH THE LIBERALS, so knock it off, idiot!

October 08 2010 at 12:41 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
dana

wasn't paris hilton there for a visit not long ago ? um , makes one think ,did she or didn't she ?

October 08 2010 at 12:30 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
YoFrankeee

Bed Bugs have as much to do with the cleanliness of the people who occupied those rooms prior to your stay as they do with the hotel's inept housecleaning staff. Some of these disgusting slobs bring more nasty things INTO the room than you'd ever find on your own.

October 08 2010 at 11:46 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to YoFrankeee's comment
Janice

Bed bug infestation has very little to do with the property itself. They are coming into the U.S.with the increases in foreign travelers coming from places where pest control is non-existant.Bed bugs were all but annihilated in the U.S. 35 years ago with chemical treatments that are illegal to use anymore so new treatments that are more eco-friendly but less efficient have had to be found.Properly treated and maintained furniture and bedding can be saved if diligence is used in initial treatments.

October 08 2010 at 1:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Andy

Waldorf shouold sue AOL.
Aol has an obsession with bedbugs. What's up with that?

October 08 2010 at 11:11 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
tammie

vixen i had bed bugs due to the pig that lived in the apartment in at before i did. & i did get rid of them. it was a hassle but it worked. first i bought this rid-off type of spray from target for like $10 & sprayed the crap out my place. then i called an exterminator. while he was doing his thing i took every thing capable of being washed to the laundry mat & tossed out everything that could be replaced, such as pillows, sheets, & anything under or around my bed. i didnt go back into my apartment til i was stripped down & then washed those clothes as well. its been almost a yr & never saw another bug again. i still vacuum twice a day & dont bring anything into my house unless i know where its been. & that includes people! =)

October 08 2010 at 9:48 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
truthteller

It does nothing to the eggs. Each female bedbug lays 400 eggs. You will kill the adults, but bring the eggs home with you.

October 08 2010 at 9:01 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
truthteller

It doesn't work. Bedbugs are impossible to get rid of.

October 08 2010 at 9:00 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply

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