Prevent Bed Bugs from Calling Your Airbnb Home

Whether you are an established landlord or just thinking about renting out your property on Airbnb, you must consider how to protect your property. You not only want to keep it safe, clean, and well-appointed for your guests, but also make sure that you are doing things to keep your property values high once you decide to stop renting.

It is also important to realise that if you get bed bugs from an Airbnb guest, you may not have any recourse against the guest or Airbnb. However, suppose a guest reports your rental as having bed bugs. In that case, Airbnb will stop future rentals, refund existing customers, and require proof of a professional exterminator before letting you rent out your property again.

This may not seem fair, but it is difficult to prove where bed bugs originated, and people can pick up bed bugs as they travel. Bed bugs hitchhike onto guests and can travel in clothing, shoes, suitcases, and more, meaning that if your guests are exposed to bed bugs, there is a good chance they will bring them to your place. Therefore, you need to prevent bed bugs as a regular part of renting out your Airbnb.

Bed bugs are fantastic hiders and can stay hidden, even skipping feeding, for months. This means that merely visually inspecting for bed bugs after guests leave will not be enough. Instead, you need a comprehensive bed bug prevention strategy.

Check your interior for cracks. Bed bugs hide in hidden spaces, so you want to use expanding foam sealants to cover any gaps in your walls (and even your bed frames) to take away their hiding spots. Buy a mattress encasement cover; these plastic covers can keep bed bugs from infesting mattresses, so that if a guest does bring bed bugs, you may be able to eliminate the problem with hot water washing and drying all bedding. Use luggage racks for the room, which puts distance between bed bugs and soft surfaces in the room.

Use Flick Pest Control to provide regular pest inspections and control services to your Airbnb property. Our pest control specialists know the signs of bed bugs and may spot an infestation long before you notice it. Preventative pesticides can be effective in the early stages of bed bugs, while they are much less effective if bed bugs reach the infestation stage. If you prevent bed bugs, this may help you avoid the professional heat treatments and similar interventions that could take your AirBnB off the rental market.