helpful info from About.com Hotels

Would You Recognize a Bed Bug Bite?
Did you get bitten by mosquitoes or sand fleas on your last resort vacation? Develop an itchy rash? Are you sure that's what it was? Cheryl thought so too, until she realized she was a victim of bed bugs biting her in her room at the luxury Caribbean villa she and her family enjoyed for a week. She says, "Our vacation was wonderful, the villa spotlessly clean, the resort employees very friendly and helpful, the food was good overall and truly excellent in the specialty restaurants for dinner...Bed bugs would be my only complaint! Now I know what to look for BEFORE getting into bed...

http://hotels.about.com/od/hotelsecrets/ig/Bedbug-Bites/clc_bed_bug_bites.htm

I watched a show (20/20, Dateline, I forget which) about mattresses, and it was so disturbing.

It was about hotels and dormitories, etc., that buy mattresses in bulk, and the mattresses are "re-conditioned",
meaning USED and not properly cleaned, and they are just full of those pesky critters and their eggs!

I'm so OCD and germophobic that I will thoroughly examine every hotel mattress from now on!

i did not know that. YUCK!! you would think they would at least be bug bombed!! tim

Oh God--I think I may have to sleep standing up on an outdoor patio from now on---Or sleep all day and drink all night since the critters are nocturnal!!although I'm not sure that a moontan is in these days-Sigh---what a dilemma! Might be bringing lots of Saran Wrap next time I stay in a hotel--kind of like a mattress condom!

saran wrap?!?!?!