BOZEMAN – A family traveling the country for the summer reported their son was bitten repeatedly by bed bugs during a stay at the Quality Inn and Suites in Bozeman.
The family said they stayed at the hotel on the night of June 25, then left the next day.
The manager of the Quality Inn and Suites initially told MTN News they had no comment about the claims after we reached out to the company, including their corporate office, Choice Hotels.
MTN left a message, but did not receive a return call.
A few days later we received a document from the local owner of Quality Inn, a receipt of service from a company called EcoLab, which specializes in water, hygiene, and energy technologies, including bed bug removal.
On the document, according to EcoLab, it reads “no bed bug activity noted during inspection — all clear — nothing.”
But the time and date of service: 12:37 p.m. on July 3, about a week after the family’s stay.
“It’s something that we definitely have had calls on in the past,” said Lori Christenson, environmental health director at the Gallatin City-County Health Department.
The health agency said bed bugs are a common issue, especially this time of year.
“There’s a lot of additional travel,” Christenson said. “There’s more travel that’s available to a variety of individuals, so there’s more people traveling and bed bugs are really hard to treat with just common pesticides.”
And they are not a new issue.
“Bed bugs have been around for centuries,” Christenson said. “They are in every state of the U.S. They are in multiple countries around the world. It’s not just hotels. It can be anywhere. It could be a cinema. It could be anywhere where there’s people who frequently travel.”
The question becomes, did the family traveling from Florida bring the bed bugs with them, unknowingly, or did their son get bitten at the Quality Inn?
One final note: neither the hotel manager, the local owner and their local attorney would comment on camera for this story.
-Reported by Cody Boyer/MTN News
