Bedbugs: Not Just in Albergues

[InOrlando]

I've posted on this topic before, so I apologize if this seems repetitive. However, it bears repeating:
You will avoid bedbugs if you spray Permethrin on *the outside* of your sleeping bag, your liner sheet, and your pack. In my experience the summer of 2010, this works. Prepare your equipment, and enjoy your Camino.

But you should NOT let down your guard if you decide to take a break from the Camino's albergues to spend the night in a pension or hotel for a much needed rest.

I avoided the bedbugs (that bit others in beds next to and above mine) in albergues all the way from SJPP to Ponferrada. It was in Ponferrada where I decided to check into a private room with bath. I put my sleeping bag and liner aside, and slept inside the bleach-scented sheets of a quiet, friendly *hotel.* I awoke to the red welts, pain, and--later--scars of bedbugs because I got careless. When you travel the Camino Frances, you must assume that bedbugs are possible in all accommodations--not just in albergues.

And when you get home from the Camino, stop in the car port, garage--anywhere--and empty your pack, stow it in a black plastic bag (outside your home, until you can subject the bag and its contents to the highest heat possible), and throw the sheet and all of your clothes in a hot washing machine. Enter your pristine home naked, if you can. And get in a hot shower.

I now carry my silk liner with me whenever I travel. The globalized bedbug menace will not catch me unawares again.

[Covey]

A couple of time this year I met Pilgrims who had been badly bitten whilst staying in hotels along the Camino Frances. The assumption is that the little buggers only live in albergues where hygiene is possibly not at its highest level, but articles in UK newspapers in recent months have chronicled the bedbug problems in New York.

Sadly they have become so common that I take my Permethrin treated silk sleeping bag liner with me whenever I stay in a hotel irrespective of where it is. This might sound a little OTT but prevention is much better than being bitten, and the risks of getting them in your home are high because they hitch a lift and are like cockroaches, very very difficult to get rid of!

I met a very very good looking girl this year in Pamplona who had been badly bitten in Zubiri and had about 20 bites across her chest, up her neck and on one side of her face. She was freaking out with worry that the bites would leave scars/marks on her skin. It was not so much the discomfort of the itching etc, but the fact that the bites were on her face which did not add to her good looks! Her morale was not helped by me mentioning that the bedbugs were likely to have hitched a lift in her sleeping bag which she promptly went off and burned.

[Tanya Yaksich]

I soaked my sleeping bag and liner in permethrin. However in july i mostly slept on top of the liner. I intend making a fitted sheet out of silk next year and permethrin treating it. I was worried about the liner twisting or rumpling in a pile so a fitted sheet is the solution.

[tmpcoleman]

I also soaked my silk liner with Permethrin, but was devoured by bedbugs in Sept. this year at Albergue de Ribadiso. The solution I used was only 0.5% strong and I have read about a 5% solution being available? Does anybody know about this, and, if so, can you provide the brand name?
I have noticed a fitted, anti-bedbug sheet for sale in the outdoor shops, and I will definitely use this next year on the Via de la Plata, in addition to soaking the silk liner, inside and out, with the strongest Permethrin solution available!

[Covey]

The Permethrin recommendation is to use a 5% solution and you can buy it in Blacks camping stores in the UK and N Ireland.

0.5% would probably just have given the little buggers a headache!! I normally take a sleeping bag liner, but next year will try a treated single fitted sheet if I can find a suitable one. The problem with the liners is that you need to keep your arms inside the bag otherwise you will get bitten.

[tmpcoleman]

The Permethrin recommendation is to use a 5% solution and you can buy it in Blacks camping stores in the UK and N Ireland.

0.5% would probably just have given the little buggers a headache!! I normally take a sleeping bag liner, but next year will try a treated single fitted sheet if I can find a suitable one. The problem with the liners is that you need to keep your arms inside the bag otherwise you will get bitten.

Thanks Covey.