Anonymous

The morning of Wednesday, November 20, 2019 I was preparing to leave to check out of the hotel to head home. On the bed nearest the door (the room has 2 beds), I saw a bug crawling. As I approached it, I noticed it was light brown in color and looked a bit like a tick. I grabbed a tissue from the bathroom and picked up the bug. It was difficult to kill but I finally did squish it in the tissue and noticed 2 things: 1) a very distinctive smell that I can’t fully describe and 2) the inside of the bug had clearly two parts: one that appeared to be its insides and another that appeared to be blood. My body went cold – a traveler’s (and my) worst nightmare. I immediately googled bed bug images and saw instantly that my worst fears were confirmed – I was holding a dead bed bug in my hand. I left the tissue on the bathroom sink and hurried to get out of the room. I grabbed my sweater that had been draped on the desk chair for the duration of the trip (except when I wore it to breakfast in the concierge lounge Monday and Tuesday mornings) and took the tissue downstairs to ask the front desk clerk for a manager. As it was very early, I was told that there was no manager on duty, so I handed the tissue to the clerk telling him I found a bed bug. His demeanor immediately changed, and he became very distantly formal telling me they would need to do an inspection of the room. I pressed him, asking exactly what was going to be done, and he told me he’d ask the restaurant manager to come speak to me. After several minutes, the clerk came back alone and said he’d just give me the names of the hotel manager and another higher-up manager. He told me I’d hear from them as soon as possible. Throughout my interaction with this clerk, I got the distinct impression that I was not believed or that I was somehow a guilty party somehow responsible for this. I left the hotel, dropped off my rental car and arrived at the airport in time to have breakfast. While I was eating breakfast, I happened to look down to the cuff of my sweater and saw a SECOND bed bug crawling. I yelped, grabbed my phone to snap a picture, and then flicked it as far as I could. When I looked at the photo I saw it was blurry but I did not care at all. I immediately found the card that the hotel clerk gave me and called the hotel manager. I will say that speaking with the hotel manager was the best part of this entire ordeal. He was sympathetic, kind, apologetic, and promised that I would be taken care of. He advised me to put my luggage into the bathtub when I got home and warned me that I may need to get rid of it. I was very, very upset while I was talking with him – in tears because I was so disgusted and so afraid that now I was going to have a bed bug infestation at my home with my two children. I was also so afraid that I was going to be sitting on an airplane for several hours and that I’d have to wonder what, if anything, was crawling on me. After being somewhat calmed down by the hotel manager – he said someone would be in touch that day to help, so I paid my breakfast bill and went directly to the giftshop to purchase a sweatshirt to wear. I found one on sale, purchased it, then went into the restroom to take off my sweater and the shirt underneath. I threw both of them away and put on the purchased sweatshirt. When I got home (where there are no bed bugs), I took all of my belongings (suitcase, backpack, wallet) out of my car and put them into trash bags that my wife picked up on her way home from work along with a can of bed bug spray for my car. Living in Florida, my hope was that any bed bugs would die inside of black trash bags if left them in the sun. My items remain outside – I am too afraid to go look at them and have no idea if they became hot enough to kill anything alive. I took my clothes off outside, immediately put them into washing machine on hot and then dried them. I received a call from corporate on Thursday, November 21. She asked me what happened – I told her, and she asked me if I had any bites. I said no, thankfully because I had yet to see any. She said that sometimes it takes a few days for them to show, so to keep an eye out. Later that evening, I started to get itchy so took a shower. Before getting in the shower, I saw at least 5 bug bites on my body – on my foot, neck, under my breast, and on my ankle. I took photos of them and sent them to her. I asked her how long it would take to receive test results from the room and she said she hoped to have them that day or the next. I received no updates from her the next day (Friday, November 22). On Saturday, November 23, upon taking off a pair of leggings that I had brought with me and that had been in a drawer in the hotel room, I saw what appeared to be a dead bed bug. I sent her those photos and was extremely upset, asking her for an update on the room results. On Monday, I received a one-line email “I’ll try to get back to you at some point today, Erin”. I cannot explain to you how disturbed I am by this response. It shows absolutely no concern for the nightmare I am living, no regard whatsoever that I have status with Marriott (I thought that actually meant something) and the fact that I had been as forthcoming as possible with her – even explaining that I know the risk I take when I travel but that my situation had become untenable – and it had. I lay awake at night wondering if there are bugs in my bed or in my children’s bed. I wonder what I’m going to do with my suitcase, backpack and wallet – there’s no way I am going to use them again, so I wonder how I’m going to pay to replace them. I wonder if my car now has bed bugs, I wonder if will have a full house infestation, I hear my daughters tell me they don’t want to get into my car or come near me because they are afraid I have bed bugs. All of this, rational or not, THIS is what I have been living for the past 8-9 days. Corporate later emailed and asked for a time she could call me the following day (Tuesday) and I received her call at noon. She told me that she had sent the results of the inspection to me last Friday. She did not. When I told her this, she flippantly said “well the room was clean”. She continued on to tell me that even I admitted this was a risk that I take traveling all the time, it is a risk that she takes when she travels, that they can’t control who brings in bed bugs and, since the room was shown to not have an infestation, I must have been the one to bring them in and that I should contact the last hotel I stayed in. I was FLOORED and was shocked silent. I repeated back to her what she had said to make sure I was understanding correctly and to make sure my wife, who was in the room, could hear exactly what she said to me. She continued on saying that because the room was clean, there was nothing they were willing to do or provide to me as a result. She then asked again “well how many bites did you have? Because you didn’t have any when we first spoke”…she made several comments like this as if I am some sort of con artist who is trying to get thousands out of Marriott and who actually brought bed bugs into the hotel room. She finally told me “well as an act of good will, I can maybe give you $100”. It felt like she was throwing pennies at some sort of druggie and I said, “no thank you” and hung up the phone completely shocked and numb.

• Bedbugs Found
• Requested Refund