Seriously? Can this Really be bee?

Found this in our mailbox late last night.... At least 100 guests have stayed in this room since 4.5 months ago. Including folks for an entire week. Not to mention at least 500 other guests in the inn. How the heck do we respond? Is it even feasible?
My husband and I stayed at your inn on April 26, 2014. While we were there I noticed a few b*gs in the *Room 6* bathroom, but unfortunately I did not think much about it at that time. With us, we brought a lap top which we watched a couple of shows on the bed that night. Well now 4 1/2 months later I discovered that there was a b*g nest in my husband's lap top bag (which he does not normally use). It turns out that we ended up getting *BeeBees* in our bedroom. I am letting you know so that you can please inspect and have the room treated, as I am pretty sure that you have a * * inf**tation.
I am very sorry to have to inform you of this, but more importantly I am very upset with the major inconvenience this has created in our lives. I am not writing to you to place blame, but merely to protect your future guests from the aggravation associated with them.

No need to respond. It is entirely likely that they carried them before they visited you or picked them up somewhere else.

Don't even reply.....unless you REALLY know who they are.

EmptyNest said:

Don't even reply.....unless you REALLY know who they are..

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I know exactly WHO they are. They were very happy when they stayed here.

No, don't think we can't Not respond... or just ignore them. Don't want them to take this any further or to another forum.

Momma Smurf said:

EmptyNest said:

Don't even reply.....unless you REALLY know who they are..

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I know exactly WHO they are. They were very happy when they stayed here.
.

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They may have been happy but were they really??? I would have your place inspected but not reply to them until you know for sure! They could have picked them up anywhere!

Simple question. Have you checked the room regularly to ensure that the room is BB free? If you know, if you have protected yourself, enclosures, visual verification, etc. You can safely say that you have checked, that as always the room was is verified regularly and that you have not had and unfortunately they must have picked them up elsewhere.

I had a situation where Canadians with horses who had been here several times e-mailed about a month after the left suggesting they had acquired bites from uninvited guests either at my place or the next stop down. It was a "friendly" suggestion that I check for them. I immediately went up to check and since I have a white mattress and white mattress pad it should have been fairly easy to see traces if some sort. Nothing.
Quite frankly I was extremely ticked. Come to find out that being from Canada and now having their own winter property in Florida they have now discovered the joys of chiggers. They have never been back either. I wonder if they ever went back to the other stable either.
Question - IF there is a "nest" of them in his laptop bag, wouldn't they have discovered the "guests" before 4.5 months had passed? Doesn't it take a while for a BIG nest to develop?
I would definitely respond - you cannot NOT respond to this. I would tell them you inspected and found nothing. You are sorry they have this problem, but it did NOT come from your facility.

Jon Sable said:

Simple question. Have you checked the room regularly to ensure that the room is BB free? If you know, if you have protected yourself, enclosures, visual verification, etc. You can safely say that you have checked, that as always the room was is verified regularly and that you have not had and unfortunately they must have picked them up elsewhere..

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Of course we check... isn't the point that after at least 100 other folks staying there, up to 7 days, after 4.5 months wouldn't we have heard from some else? We don't have barriers, but we do have 2 pristine white mattress covers on the bed. If upon opening a laptop 4.5 months later, and they are suddenly infested, certainly every room here (and all 500 other guests) would have them since our laundry is all co-mingled?

gillumhouse said:

I had a situation where Canadians with horses who had been here several times e-mailed about a month after the left suggesting they had acquired bites from uninvited guests either at my place or the next stop down. It was a "friendly" suggestion that I check for them. I immediately went up to check and since I have a white mattress and white mattress pad it should have been fairly easy to see traces if some sort. Nothing.
Quite frankly I was extremely ticked. Come to find out that being from Canada and now having their own winter property in Florida they have now discovered the joys of chiggers. They have never been back either. I wonder if they ever went back to the other stable either.
Question - IF there is a "nest" of them in his laptop bag, wouldn't they have discovered the "guests" before 4.5 months had passed? Doesn't it take a while for a BIG nest to develop?
I would definitely respond - you cannot NOT respond to this. I would tell them you inspected and found nothing. You are sorry they have this problem, but it did NOT come from your facility..

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Yikes! Was so freaked out, I didn't even read this correctly. I thought the nest was locked up in his laptop! Haha. But it was the bag.... that means nothing. Yes, after 4.5 months they would have been creating havoc way before now. Very likely they crawled into something somewhere else, got back to their house and decided they liked the dark cozy laptop bag best to nest. The problem here is that folks think, are told, that the only place you can get them is in a hotel. What about office buildings, any public transfer place? We do have other b8ugs here year round, no way of escaping them in this 19th century house, will cop to that.

Momma Smurf said:

Jon Sable said:

Simple question. Have you checked the room regularly to ensure that the room is BB free? If you know, if you have protected yourself, enclosures, visual verification, etc. You can safely say that you have checked, that as always the room was is verified regularly and that you have not had and unfortunately they must have picked them up elsewhere..

Click to expand...

Of course we check... isn't the point that after at least 100 other folks staying there, up to 7 days, after 4.5 months wouldn't we have heard from some else? We don't have barriers, but we do have 2 pristine white mattress covers on the bed. If upon opening a laptop 4.5 months later, and they are suddenly infested, certainly every room here (and all 500 other guests) would have them since our laundry is all co-mingled?
.

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Two things... get the BB mattress protector. It's cheap, it's effective. You still put the other cover back.
So, the answer is... "We appreciate the warning but we check before/after each guest and have the room regularly inspected. I am sorry that this happened to you, but you must have contacted this elsewhere. etc etc etc."

I agree that you have to respond. Perhaps you could provide a link to a FAQ website that would enlighten this person a bit. While what they are claiming is not entirely impossible (it can take up to 120 days for eggs to hatch), we all know it is highly unlikely. Be straightforward and non emotional when you respond (even though it's pretty offensive to blame you), and simply state your procedures for closely monitoring this problem that affects any public gathering area (I would be sure to include that bb are found EVERYWHERE - not just lodging accommodations).

As a side note, I just found these and am going to order some. There has been way too much talk of this lately and I think we all need to take heed and do even more than we may be doing.

Sorry this happened Momma. You would know if you DID have "that" for certain.

We discussed this today to decide how we would handle it. Dh said he would email the guest and thank them for the info and say we would provide them with a report from the pest company. And a bill for their services if nothing was found and their complaint resulted in our having to spend hundreds of dollars for nothing.
After months you definitely would have seen some evidence. There is almost no way they would have seen a 'nest' in the bathroom. Or even a few bugs. Yeesh. It's not like they're really easy to see unless you know what to look for.
If they did have them when they arrived be glad they didn't leave them behind!
I might be tempted to call and ask if they also contacted the airline and car rental to warn them.
I'm guessing they called a pest company who told them what kind of bugs they were.
Keep in mind this may be a fishing expedition on their part.

Madeleine said:

We discussed this today to decide how we would handle it. Dh said he would email the guest and thank them for the info and say we would provide them with a report from the pest company. And a bill for their services if nothing was found and their complaint resulted in our having to spend hundreds of dollars for nothing.
After months you definitely would have seen some evidence. There is almost no way they would have seen a 'nest' in the bathroom. Or even a few bugs. Yeesh. It's not like they're really easy to see unless you know what to look for.
If they did have them when they arrived be glad they didn't leave them behind!
I might be tempted to call and ask if they also contacted the airline and car rental to warn them.
I'm guessing they called a pest company who told them what kind of bugs they were.
Keep in mind this may be a fishing expedition on their part..

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Madeleine said:

I'm guessing they called a pest company who told them what kind of bugs they were.

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My guess was the opposite, that they haven't called anybody, have guessed at what the insects are, and have no idea what a BB really looks like.
Never heard of nests of them, or bags full of them. What would they live on? They have to get blood somewhere, just like a tick.
I'm very skeptical, and agree that one person saying all this, and nobody else saying a word, and no other evidence, makes the whole thing very doubtful.

Madeleine said:

We discussed this today to decide how we would handle it. Dh said he would email the guest and thank them for the info and say we would provide them with a report from the pest company. And a bill for their services if nothing was found and their complaint resulted in our having to spend hundreds of dollars for nothing.
After months you definitely would have seen some evidence. There is almost no way they would have seen a 'nest' in the bathroom. Or even a few bugs. Yeesh. It's not like they're really easy to see unless you know what to look for.
If they did have them when they arrived be glad they didn't leave them behind!
I might be tempted to call and ask if they also contacted the airline and car rental to warn them.
I'm guessing they called a pest company who told them what kind of bugs they were.
Keep in mind this may be a fishing expedition on their part..

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4.5 months after staying here they found a nest in the laptop Bag. Now they are suddenly infested. Because it had to have happened at a hotel she has decided that since they watched a movie on the laptop here and saw a couple of random bugs in the bathroom...this room has it's own screen porch door nearby...yup she got them here. Nonsense.

BananaE29 said:

I agree that you have to respond. Perhaps you could provide a link to a FAQ website that would enlighten this person a bit. While what they are claiming is not entirely impossible (it can take up to 120 days for eggs to hatch), we all know it is highly unlikely. Be straightforward and non emotional when you respond (even though it's pretty offensive to blame you), and simply state your procedures for closely monitoring this problem that affects any public gathering area (I would be sure to include that bb are found EVERYWHERE - not just lodging accommodations).

As a side note, I just found these and am going to order some. There has been way too much talk of this lately and I think we all need to take heed and do even more than we may be doing..

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looks like a good discrete way of both detecting and covering yourself ie we have detection equipment which hasn't found anything.

Madeleine said:

We discussed this today to decide how we would handle it. Dh said he would email the guest and thank them for the info and say we would provide them with a report from the pest company. And a bill for their services if nothing was found and their complaint resulted in our having to spend hundreds of dollars for nothing.
After months you definitely would have seen some evidence. There is almost no way they would have seen a 'nest' in the bathroom. Or even a few bugs. Yeesh. It's not like they're really easy to see unless you know what to look for.
If they did have them when they arrived be glad they didn't leave them behind!
I might be tempted to call and ask if they also contacted the airline and car rental to warn them.
I'm guessing they called a pest company who told them what kind of bugs they were.
Keep in mind this may be a fishing expedition on their part..

Click to expand...

Actually, they just drove up for the night from south of here. Am working on a simple response, but if push comes to shove, your idea re their paying the bill for negative findings is a good one. They really were happy here, left a nice note. Methinks she is just jumping to conclusions based upon urban lore.

Momma Smurf said:

Madeleine said:

We discussed this today to decide how we would handle it. Dh said he would email the guest and thank them for the info and say we would provide them with a report from the pest company. And a bill for their services if nothing was found and their complaint resulted in our having to spend hundreds of dollars for nothing.
After months you definitely would have seen some evidence. There is almost no way they would have seen a 'nest' in the bathroom. Or even a few bugs. Yeesh. It's not like they're really easy to see unless you know what to look for.
If they did have them when they arrived be glad they didn't leave them behind!
I might be tempted to call and ask if they also contacted the airline and car rental to warn them.
I'm guessing they called a pest company who told them what kind of bugs they were.
Keep in mind this may be a fishing expedition on their part..

Click to expand...

Actually, they just drove up for the night from south of here. Am working on a simple response, but if push comes to shove, your idea re their paying the bill for negative findings is a good one. They really were happy here, left a nice note. Methinks she is just jumping to conclusions based upon urban lore.
.

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Paying their bill ? For what? They have no proof it was your place and after all these months, why? thank them for their note, tell them all inspections here are negative. Bye!

EmptyNest said:

Momma Smurf said:

Madeleine said:

We discussed this today to decide how we would handle it. Dh said he would email the guest and thank them for the info and say we would provide them with a report from the pest company. And a bill for their services if nothing was found and their complaint resulted in our having to spend hundreds of dollars for nothing.
After months you definitely would have seen some evidence. There is almost no way they would have seen a 'nest' in the bathroom. Or even a few bugs. Yeesh. It's not like they're really easy to see unless you know what to look for.
If they did have them when they arrived be glad they didn't leave them behind!
I might be tempted to call and ask if they also contacted the airline and car rental to warn them.
I'm guessing they called a pest company who told them what kind of bugs they were.
Keep in mind this may be a fishing expedition on their part..

Click to expand...

Actually, they just drove up for the night from south of here. Am working on a simple response, but if push comes to shove, your idea re their paying the bill for negative findings is a good one. They really were happy here, left a nice note. Methinks she is just jumping to conclusions based upon urban lore.
.

Click to expand...

Paying their bill ? For what? They have no proof it was your place and after all these months, why? thank them for their note, tell them all inspections here are negative. Bye!
.

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Madeleine said:

:

We discussed this today to decide how we would handle it. Dh said he would email the guest and thank them for the info and say we would provide them with a report from the pest company. And a bill for their services if nothing was found and their complaint resulted in our having to spend hundreds of dollars for nothing.

Click to expand...