Unwanted guests: Days Inn near the airport dealing with bed bugs



OAK CREEK (WITI) -- You could call it a "hitchhiker problem" of sorts. The hitchhikers are bed bugs, and they've been discovered in a popular hotel near Milwaukee's airport!

With all of the people who pass through Milwaukee's General Mitchell International Airport on a daily basis -- officials say they aren't surprised bed bugs may have checked into a hotel near the airport -- even though they are not welcome.

"I first noticed I started getting bites the first week that I got here," Dennis Hargrove said.

Hargrove has been living in the Days Inn near 13th and College since February.

He says he kept reporting the bed bugs to hotel management -- and he has since put his belongings into plastic bags.

The Oak Creek Health Department says officials got a complaint on April 30th.

The Health Department has inspected the hotel, and Health Department and hotel officials have determined that 16 rooms are infested.

21 rooms in all were treated by a professional exterminator.

"In five days they've moved me three times. Each room I've moved into had bed bugs," Hargrove said.

Hargrove isn't taking vacation photos at the hotel -- but rather, documenting the unwanted guests.

"It's getting out of control. Out of hand," Jason Haberman, a maintenance worker at the Days Inn told FOX6 News.

Haberman says hotel workers have brought the bed bugs into their own homes, and then have the expense of fumigating their homes.

"We never got professionally trained in bed bugs. I didn't know what bedbugs were until I came here really. This is all new to me really. It's scary. It's scary for people who come here on vacation and go back home and bring them back home with them. It's a mess," Haberman said.

The Oak Creek Health Department says the Days Inn is cooperating -- saying "Days Inn management has voluntarily contracted with a professional pest control service to address the complaints."

In the meantime, hotel workers and guests just hope the problem doesn't spread any more than it already has.