Florence was wonderful until bedbug attack.

Bedbugs can happen in any hotel category.
You need to take extreme precautions not to cause an infestation back home! Warm dryer for anything that can withstand it, freezer for a week for items like shoes if you have a large enough e.g. chest freezer, and the deepest most thorough clean of the luggage (including disposal of vacuum bags) if you are not ready to throw out the luggage outright.

I'm so sorry this happened to you.

If I were you, I would go to TripAdvisor (and booking.com if you booked through them) and leave an honest review, including that the concierge insisted the bites were from mosquitoes, the reaction at the Milan hotel, and the lack of response from the hotel's corporate office.

Excellent advice. We are busy deep cleaning EVERYTHING except leather.

You need heat. Cleaning isn't necessary and won't work without heat. Best bet is to put what you can in the dryer on high heat while dry so you don't shrink clothes. Then you can wash.

Did the follow up hotel let you stay without precautions when they saw you were coming in with bed bug bites?

Would a clothes steamer work? Hopefully I'll,never need to find out. Good luck!

Pat, everything I’ve read echoes earlier advice to use blasting heat. I’ll do that with everything BUT leather goods, which are in the freezer for a week. And my husband’s silk the from Lyon: dry cleaning for that. We thoroughly vacuumed our bags, wiped them down with alcohol from zipper down. They are now wrapped in multiple layers of plastic, awaiting a week’s visit to my sister’s deep freeze.

Yes, the concierge of the last hotel let us stay. I have no idea why.

I’m sorry you had to deal with bed bugs. Unfortunately, on my recent trip to Italy, I experienced them in Rome. We noticed them the morning of our flight (thankfully only 1 night stay at the hotel). They were in the bed I slept in. I did not have any bites appear until Sunday (we stayed Friday night). More bites kept appearing throughout the week. My husband and son didn’t get bitten, thankfully.

Prior to leaving the hotel, I diligently looked at every piece of clothing & bag in our suitcases. Once home, again, I looked through each piece of clothing inside and out. Then washed everything in warm water.

As soon as we saw the bugs, we contacted the hotel manager who came to our room & started stripping the beds. He refunded our hotel bill, but only if we would not leave a review about the bed bugs. He stated that because we stayed the night, booking would side with him if he declined a refund. Instead of arguing we agreed
Thankfully, my arm is no longer heavily inflamed (after I got 2 steroid injections at work), and we have not seen a single one, which I am still checking often.

Ugh, that is every traveler's nightmare. And it happens every where, including good old Washington State. Fortunately my then high school age daughter travelling with her track team to central Washington checked the beds before unpacking. The hotel moved them to another room. We always check the beds regardless of how posh or pedestrian. We generally will not use the drawers nor use any of the soft furnishings. If we do, we check first. I do like furniture with metal legs.

Amanda, how very awful for you and your family. Thank you for letting me know about your manager’s response.

Trotter, since we learn something from every trip, I’m trying to take it pragmatically. But the coach of your daughter’s sounds great. We’ll be doing the same from here-on.