How do gites deal with the bedbug problems?

[Katia Taam]

Hi everyone

Do I have to leave the backpack outside the room? Do I have to carry a big plastic bag to protect my backpack ?I'm alergic and it was a big problem on my last camiño. I was bitten at Vilafranca and it's not easy...
Katia

 

[Anemone del Camino]

Spray your bag and the outisde of your sleeping bag with permethryne. For extra precaution hand your backpack on the bed, and/or pack it is a large garbage bag, then hang it.

 

[Kitsambler]

Nearly every gite in France required that I leave the coat, pack, boots, and poles in the front hallway. So the pack goes nowhere near your bed. This is something of a problem if it comes as a surprise, and you have simply thrown everything into the pack. Modular packing is best on the Le Puy for this reason - get everything into several stuff sacks.

 

[NavyBlue]

For extra precaution hand your backpack on the bed

Unless I don't catch your point, Anemone : such a practice is forbidden in all gites, as it would deliver the bugs directly into the beds, from gite to gite !

 

[Katia Taam]

Nearly every gite in France required that I leave the coat, pack, boots, and poles in the front hallway. So the pack goes nowhere near your bed. This is something of a problem if it comes as a surprise, and you have simply thrown everything into the pack. Modular packing is best on the Le Puy for this reason - get everything into several stuff sacks.

Thanks Kitsabler, I´ll have to learn how to pack in a diferent way
Katia

 

[Kanga]

The gites in France seem more careful about bedbugs. They almost all require you to leave your pack outside, and only take in the clothes you immediately need. Many sell Clako which is a pyrethrum based (not permethrin) product. One gite owner told me he gets the dormitories professionally fumigated every fortnight, as a routine precautionary measure, and he no longer sends his sheets to a commercial laundry but washes them in super hot water and a hot dryer himself. Reason? The van from the laundry would pick up dirty laundry at the same time it was delivering clean laundry and there was the danger of bedbug contamination.

 

[Katia Taam]

Kanga

I feel more safe knowing this... I use permethrin to "wash" my backpack and my sleeping bag but if they are on the room it is impossible to escape.
Katia

 

[Deleted member 3000]

Do I have to leave the backpack outside the room? Do I have to carry a big plastic bag to protect my backpack ?

A noticeable number of the gites do not allow backpacks past the entry point. The contents of your pack can be carried to your bunk. One place did not even allow sleeping bags into the rooms. It supplied a clean cotton sleep sack! Still, a majority of the places are just like Spain, so take normal precautions. There is a lot of literature scattered around gites that deals with bed bugs, almost always in French. The French are sufficiently concerned about them that every tourist office sells spray bottles of insecticide. Since only a small fraction of the visitors to the offices are trekkers, I presume that the problem is not limited to gites. Hotels and chambres d'hotes probably share the problem!

 

[Kanga]

I have no worries about bedbugs in French gites or in chambre d'hotes (bed and breakfast) - they seem to be very aware. But unfortunately a few hotels aren't nearly as careful - the two times I came across bedbugs in France were both in cheap hotels.

 

[beck_clause]

Reading this thread and preparing for our upcoming adventure on the Camino (we begin the 14th of March-2016), I am wondering what you do with your pack when you are sleeping. We plan on spraying our packs, sleeping bags, and liners to prevent bed bugs. Also we will spray the bed to see if there are any bugs. For further protection against these pests, I want to know what you do with your pack. (Hang it up, put it in a garbage bag, etc.) I feel a little anxious about keeping it outside of where we will be sleeping, but of course if that is what is mandated by the establishment we will follow these guidelines. Any and all advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

 

[Kitsambler]

I am wondering what you do with your pack when you are sleeping.

You leave your pack in the front hall (vestibule, out of the weather) along with your boots, poles, coat and hat. You take with you all the stuff sacks you need (sleep sack, valuables, electronics/charger, toiletries, clothing) for the night. Leave behind the sacks you do not need for the night (rain gear, first aid kit, repair kit, spare food). There are fewer lodgers at French gites, perhaps 12-15, and no more than 6-8 in the dorm rooms (fewer in the doubles or singles, obviously). So there is less risk of loss - but one still keeps one's valuables on one's person at all times.

 

[TerryB]

Reading this thread and preparing for our upcoming adventure on the Camino . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Also we will spray the bed to see if there are any bugs.

With what may I ask?

Tio Tel

 

[Katia Taam]

You leave your pack in the front hall (vestibule, out of the weather) along with your boots, poles, coat and hat. You take with you all the stuff sacks you need (sleep sack, valuables, electronics/charger, toiletries, clothing) for the night. Leave behind the sacks you do not need for the night (rain gear, first aid kit, repair kit, spare food). There are fewer lodgers at French gites, perhaps 12-15, and no more than 6-8 in the dorm rooms (fewer in the doubles or singles, obviously). So there is less risk of loss - but one still keeps one's valuables on one's person at all times.

Kitsambler
I imagine you can go to this vestibule any time to pack your used/washed cloths and also it must be some gathering in the morning to re-pack your stuff..??Also, when you have a room you have to leave your pack out of it?

Katia
I know... I´ll see how it works very soon I´m just too anxious with the new experience...

 

[Kitsambler]

I imagine you can go to this vestibule any time to pack your used/washed cloths and also it must be some gathering in the morning to re-pack your stuff..??

Yes, you have free access to your pack at any time. And yes, one must repack in the morning.

Also, when you have a room you have to leave your pack out of it?

Yes, in the gites when you have a dorm room that sleeps 6 or more. Often in the smaller rooms (4 or fewer) you can take the pack into the room - but you still leave it just inside that room's door, not on your bed.

 

[beck_clause]

With what may I ask?

Tio Tel

We plan on using the method mentioned by Kanga.

 

[beck_clause]

Do you leave your pack outside of the dormitory in the Spanish hostels as well?

 

[Deleted member 3000]

Do you leave your pack outside of the dormitory in the Spanish hostels as well?

Nowhere that I have been! One albergue in Rabe de las Calzadas did, but it has disappeared from most lists of albergues (the hospitalera had a way of antagonizing pilgrims, and was regularly criticized here and on the internet).

 

[beck_clause]

Nowhere that I have been! One albergue in Rabe de las Calzadas did, but it has disappeared from most lists of albergues (the hospitalera had a way of antagonizing pilgrims, and was regularly criticized here and on the internet).

Where did you put your pack to avoid/prevent bed bugs? Did you hang it up, put it in a garbage bag, left it in the floor?

 

[Deleted member 3000]

Where did you put your pack to avoid/prevent bed bugs? Did you hang it up, put it in a garbage bag, left it in the floor?

I have a rope loop on the pack lift loop that is big enough for all bunk posts. I treat the pack inside and out with permethrin. Where there are no bunks, the floor has to serve (use a chair at the peril of incurring hostility from fellow pilgrims who think the chair is for sitting.)

 

[beck_clause]

Okay thank you. This greatly helped.

 

[BrienC]

Here is an option to permethrin from my Camino preparation handbook (see my blog):

A homemade Bedbug Spray Recipe using Essential Oils

Ingredients:
· Choose from Citronella, Clove, Lemongrass, Rosemary, Tea Tree, Cajeput, Eucalyptus, Cinnamon, Cedar, Catnip, Lavender and Mint
· Natural Witch Hazel
· Distilled or boiled Water

Instructions:
· Fill an 8 ounce spray bottle half full with distilled or boiled water
· Add witch hazel to fill almost to the top
· Add 30-50 drops of essential oils to desired scent. The more oils you use, the stronger the spray will be.

A common mix is: Rosemary, Clove, Cajeput, Lavender, Cinnamon and Eucalyptus. Play around with the oils to find a scent you like. Then treat your sleeping bag and backpack with the spray.

Buen (bug free) Camino

 

[Sue M]

In four sessions of walking on the Camino I got bitten by bedbugs only once and that wasn't in an albergue, it was in a nice hotel.

 

[JAL]

Hi everyone

Do I have to leave the backpack outside the room? Do I have to carry a big plastic bag to protect my backpack ?I'm alergic and it was a big problem on my last camiño. I was bitten at Vilafranca and it's not easy...
Katia

I found the bedbugs to be nearly as bad on the Le Puy route as on the Frances. I got bitten several times and saw bedbugs in my bed and caught one on my face in the middle of the night. So they are out there. I found (perhaps coincidentally) that I stopped having problems with them once I began hanging my pack up; on a shelf, a chair, a window, anywhere but on the floor. I do not use any sprays for health reasons (I have a neurological condition that makes that inadvisable) and that may be why I seem to report them more than most folks. Bedbugs notwithstanding, the LePuy route is fantastic and I enjoyed every kilometer of it. I did both trips late September to late October.

 

[Kanga]

@BrienC it also helps to chant a magic spell...

 

[Kitsambler]

...it also helps to chant a magic spell...

Well now, there's an idea. Here in the States, we eradicate garden slugs by enticing them with a dish of beer. Perhaps a similar strategy would work with bedbugs? Just offer them a dish of vin rouge, which they will mistake for blood ...

 

[Kanga]

@Kitsambler good idea, it would be at least as effective as essential oils.

 

[Deleted member 3000]

Tea tree oil has been recommended, however:
http://pestkilled.com/is-tea-tree-oil-an-effective-treatment-for-bed-bugs/

 

[Kanga]

No, it is not recommended. Because, as the site says, it has to be sued in 100 % concentration, sprayed directly on the bedbug in sufficient quantity as to cover it completely! As it is extremely expensive, even here in Australia where it is made, I think it is about as useful as the spell I am recommending. And toxic at that concentration.

I rely on the Sydney University Department of Entomology. To kill bedbugs, heat is the best treatment. Cold also works. To prevent bedbugs physical barriers work. Permethrin has some effect but only kills bedbugs with continuous exposure and some are resistant. Pyrethrum is better as a repellant but has only a short term residual effect and is destroyed in sunlight. Newer pesticides are being developed and may be effective.

Essential oil, snake oil.