A 31-year-old woman woke up in a Travelodge hotel room to find her body covered in more than 100 itchy bed bug bites and her sheets stained with blood—a nightmare she says she never saw coming.
Hannah Stephenson had booked a one-night stay at the Travelodge on Newmarket Road in Cambridge on July 26 after a night out with friends, hoping to save money on a cab ride home. Instead, she woke up to what she described as a “horrible realization.”
“I started to feel itchy and lumps were forming on my arms,” she told the BBC. “When I got up, I saw spots of blood on the pillow and black dots. I looked closer and actually saw a bug on the pillow.
There were more in the bedding.”
As the day went on, the bites multiplied. She counted 37 on her left hand alone, but estimates the total was well over 100. The swelling eventually went down after two weeks, but she said her skin looked like she had chicken pox, leaving her feeling self-conscious.
“People have been horrified,” she added. “They’ve said I look like I have a disease.”
Hannah, who has lived in Asia, Africa, and South America without ever encountering bed bugs, said she never expected to deal with this in Cambridge. She initially felt ignored by Travelodge when she complained, but the company reached out after she posted photos of the bites on TikTok.
Travelodge issued a statement apologizing for the “distressing” experience and said they immediately took affected rooms out of service for inspection and treatment by pest control experts. The company also noted that bed bug activity affects the wider hospitality sector and is unrelated to cleanliness.
Hannah accepted £2,000 in compensation, but she hopes the hotel chain will take stronger precautions moving forward.
What would you do if you woke up to a scene like this in your hotel room?
