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Just in time for your lunch hour, a woman who received more than 400 bedbug bites during her stay at San Francisco’s Ramada Plaza Hotel has received $71,000 to settle her claim against the downtown hotel. The out-of court settlement is the largest ever paid to victims in similar bedbug-attack cases.
According to the City Star:
The woman, who wants to remain anonymous, spent three nights at the downtown hotel in October 2005. During her stay, she noticed small blood stains on bed linens and discovered several insect bites on her face and body. She mentioned the “bug problem” to the hotel’s concierge when she checked out.Within a week, her face and body were covered with hundreds of bite marks, causing intense itching. She sought medical treatment and was told that it could take up to 10 days for her skin to fully react to the bed bug bites and related irritants, including bug feces.
A few weeks after the insects has a blood orgy on the woman's sleeping body, she developed "“steroid acne," after treatment for the bites. Nine months later was diagnosed with dermographism, a skin condition where you can, more or less, write on your own skin. It's quite disgusting.
Bedbugs are small, nocturnal insects that feed off of the blood of humans and other warm-blooded animals. You should sleep tight while not letting them bite.
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the dermatographic pic on wiki is pretty disturbing.
And she only got 71K? I'm sorry but for two permanent skin conditions I'd hold out for more.
Larry H. Parker got me $71,000!
ugh, that's disgusting. i read an article that said homeless shelters have huge bedbug problems
I had crabs in college.
They're a problem at fancy hotels too. They're very hard to control and it's definitely not a class issue. There is a freezer truck business that freezes the furniture from whole floors of hotels where a bed bug was spotted. (Extreme heat/cold is the best way to kill them.)
Also bed bugs don't transmit any known diseases -- just lots of anxiety.
Isn't this the hotel on Market that eventually changed its name to Hotel Whitcomb in an attempt to escape its bad reputation?
Brock you suck. I have dermographism, and its not disgusting at all. Hemorrhoids are disgusting.
Leanne: well, they're attracted to Carbon Dioxide and warmth of mammals (but particularly humans), so they have a field day in places like shelters where you have 20 humans sleeping in one room.
Yeah, I wasn't denying the fact that they thrive in shelters. It's just that there's kind of a stigma around them only being an issue for poor people. Any place with a high turnover rate will have issues, since they often travel with travelers -- the fancy hotels just have more money/resources to deal with them.
I briefly had them in my Tendernob apartment, but our landlord was vigilant about spraying and we nipped the issue in the bud.
71k doesn't seem like a lot of money considering the fallout.
Seems like Maya Rudolf (SNL) sued a couple of years over bedbugs in her $15K per month sublet. Bedbugs: they're definitely not just for poors.
Leanne: I hear diatomaceous earth is a good way to get rid of them without having to use chemicals. I've been spraying a lot of smelly chemicals in my decidedly-tenderloin apartment, because i recently started seeing cockroaches. i don't know where i can find diatomaceous earth in downtown. i'm sure it's sold somewhere.
It can take many days for the bites to show and as far as disturbing pictures go, check out the picture of Ross and what the bed bugs did to him!
http://www.badbedbugs.com/bed-bug-bites/bugs-2/
Note to frequent travelers - once you check in, measure up the bed (queen, king, full etc) and head to a nearby bedding store, buy a plastic mattress cover and pillow cover - or pack one with you if you know what size bed you have reserved.
Tear the sheets off the bed and leave them in the hallway. Attach plastic to bed and sheets. Call housekeeping to remake bed.
And for god's sake toss that bedspread into the closet. ewww...
this article has shaped my entire day! hahaha. i've been looking up articles about bedbugs all day long, and apparently the TL is the epicenter of the infestation here in SF.
bed bugs are more likely to stick around if you have pets, because they'll feed off of any mammals. this is the first time i've ever been grateful for my landlord's strict no-pets-allowed policy.
as soon as i get home i'm spraying harsh chemicals all over my apartment. this freaks me out! i definitely have gotten bitten in my apartment before, but i wrote them off as mosquito bites - every place i've ever seen in SF has no fucking screens on the window, what's up with that?! what if they were bedbugs though? arugh.
You can get diatomaceous earth at pet stores, as it's also used for flea problems. My Tendernob apt also had bed bugs a few years ago & I also had a great landlord who chemical bombed the hell out of the building... thank gawd there are still some good landlords out there
A great landlord who "chemical bombed the hell out of the building"? You're kidding, right?