If you are like most people, you don’t like bugs, and the thought of having bugs crawl around on your skin or bite you while you sleep is a horrifying proposition. Unfortunately, cases of bed bug bites in places of public accommodation like hotels, motels, inns, casino resorts, or even nursing homes, is becoming far too common.
Bed bug lawsuits are essentially premised on a theory of premises liability, much like an action against action your neighbor’s homeowner’s insurance if you tripped on their broken porch step. The difference is, a business like a hotel or motel, for example, which is open to the public and stands to make money from the public, generally has a higher duty of care which it owes to the public to ensure that the business’s premises are safe from potentially hazardous conditions which might stand to injury the business’s customers. This duty of care imposed upon a business to keep their business premises reasonably safe is generally much more onerous than the duty imposed upon a homeowner to keep their home reasonably safe.
The theory is, that since the business stands to make money from the customer and the customer has been induced or invited onto the business’s property by virtue of the services the business offers, the business should be held to a higher standard with regards to keeping the premises reasonably safe than a typical homeowner in keeping their home reasonably safe.
Whereas a homeowner typically only has a duty to warn their guests of dangers in their home that the homeowner is aware of (because, obviously, a homeowner is not expected to be psychic – they cannot warn of dangers they are not aware of), a business has an affirmative duty to take preventative proactive action, by conducting reasonable inspections of the business premises and timely remediating any hazards that are discovered.
The presence of beg bugs in a hotel room are one such hazard.
Bed bug bites are more common than you may think, with an estimated 1 in 5 Americans having had a personal experience with bed bugs in a place of public accommodation.
Very often, bed bug infestations are incredibly hard to control. For one thing, containing the infestation is difficult and in most cases involves motels, for example, if beg bugs are present in one room, they are very likely present in other, if not all rooms, as often, hotel staff such as housekeepers or maids may unknowingly pick up bed bugs from one room and unwittingly infest another room. Similarly, bed bugs are notoriously difficult to maintain in nursing home settings, as very often residents in such facilities do not have excellent eyesight and may therefore not even notice bedbugs in their room or on their clothes. Then, when these residents go out of their room for meals in a common dining room or venture elsewhere in the facility, the bed bugs spread.
Additionally, beg bug infestations are notoriously difficult to remediate and often require multiple visits from a pest control professional or even a bed bug specialist. Methods like fumigation or heat treatment may be required more than once or in combination, and can often be quite expensive for the business owner. As such, in any individual bed bug case, it is important to know whether the business has ever had a case of bed bugs in the past as it is very possible that, while the business thought they had remedied the problem, the infestation still persisted without their knowledge.
To that end, it is very helpful in crafting a bed bug action, that you check the business’s reviews online on such sites as Trip Advisor or Google, for example. More times than not, guests who have had experiences with bed bugs in their hotel room are certainly not hesitant to voice their concerns online and virtually chastise the business owner. These prior reviews, if verifiable, can be critical pieces of evidence to establish that the business has prior knowledge or notice of a potential bed bug problem within their establishment.
Further, with regards to notice, if you find yourself waking up a guest in a hotel room, covered in insect bites, it is critical that you complain to hotel staff, preferably management, immediately and fill out a written complaint or incident report. Without such a document, you give the hotel a potential defense by enabling them to claim that the bites did not occur at their business as you never brought it to their attention. “If it really happened, why didn’t you tell us?”
Additionally, if you have been bitten by bed bugs, it is also important that you see a medical professional – even if it is an urgent care, rather then your primary care provider –
that same day. Without a medical diagnoses confirming bed bug bites, you open the defense up to claiming that the itchy red bumps all over your skin are nothing more than hives, an allergic reaction, or a rash. Confirmation of insect bites is therefore critical.
Finally, photographs are paramount. As the millennials say, “pics or it didn’t happen.” Without photographic evidence of the bites, it can be very difficult to make a strong case for bed bug bites if the defendant’s insurance adjusters cannot actually observe the bites for themselves. Photographing any and all bites immediately will help show their extent and severity and can greatly impact an adjuster’s willingness to pay out on the claim.
To recap, if you have been a guest in a place of public accommodation such as a hotel, motel, inn, casino resort, movie theatre, or even a nursing home, and have sustained bed bug bites remember the
Four Cs:

- Complain – File a complaint or incident report with management that same day;
- Capture – Take photographs of all the bites everywhere on your body that same day;
- Confirm – Seek a confirming diagnosis from a medical professional as soon as possible, preferably the same day; and
- Call – Call Lento Law Group, P.C. for legal representation. Our team of experienced attorneys have handled countless bed bug cases and we know what it takes to win.
Provided you follow these four steps, you will have put yourself in a good position for a successful bed bug action, and with Lento Law Group at the helm, we will fight to get you the financial recovery you deserve. Call us at 1-833-Lento-Law