Bad night at the hotel? At least you didn’t wake up covered in bed bugs

A woman woke while spending the night at a London Travelodge hotel to find herself covered in bed bugs.

Debra Bratt said she became aware of insects crawling over the beds of her room at the London Central Kings Cross Royal Scott Hotel during the early hours of the morning.

“It was an absolute nightmare,” she told the Hartlepool Mail . “To think that they had been crawling around us while we were asleep is absolutely awful and now I’m covered in these bites.”

“We had been watching ‘I’m A Celebrity’ earlier in the night and when I woke up I felt like I was in a Bushtucker Trial.”

Mrs Bratt, a mother of two from Hartlepool, had been visiting a sister in London with two other sisters. When they encountered problems on their return home and her sister complained of feeling ill, they took a last-minute decision to stay the night at the Travelodge in central London.

After going straight to bed, Mrs Bratt woke up a few hours later to find the insects, and then collected some in a tissue, which she took down to reception in the morning.

“I didn’t want to cause a scene but I explained the situation to them,” she said. “The woman on reception asked me why I didn’t come and tell them straight away but I explained that my sister had been really ill and I didn’t want to disturb her, and I had some of the bugs in the tissue to show them.”

She also said she had to take a course of antibiotics after the bites she received became infected.

Travelodge has agreed to refund the sisters. In its official response, the company said it was “very sorry to hear of Mrs Bratt’s recent experience”, and that the room was treated by pest control immediately.

Bedbug infestations were not foreseeable, the hotel chain argued, saying the insects could come from many different sources, including tube seats and theatres.

It added: “Since this isolated incident on November 11, we have been in regular contact with Mrs Bratt and we are doing everything we can to help her.”