(electronic newspaper): Norwegians have truly regained their travel spark after the Corona pandemic. Although many have now found themselves having to reconsider their plans, thanks to high interest rates and a weak krone, there are also many who are not letting it get in the way of their holiday plans.
A recent survey conducted by Kantar Media for travel agency TUI showed that 53% of Norwegians have plans to take a trip abroad in the next 12 months, and most of them will go on a trip this summer.
Our desire to travel is therefore also much higher than in our neighboring countries, according to TUI.
On the other hand, “the neighbors beat us up” when it comes to a little creep no Would like to visit.
Bedbugs can come home with you from anywhere, not just tired hotels in London and New York.
– It’s completely random, but the pattern in infestation culture is that in places where there are a lot of people in and out in a short time, bed bugs are left behind, and there are more bed bugs to take home, says researcher Anders Aak. In the Department of Pest Control at the Institute of Public Health.
– This practically means that in all major cities, such as New York, Paris, etc., there are more bed bugs. In all places where many people travel in and out, there is a greater risk of bedbug infestation.
High risk of infection in the neighboring country
Two of Norwegians’ favorite travel destinations are among the places you should pay more attention to, warns Norsk Hosop Forsekring.
Because what we may forget is that even with our closest neighbour, and the country we visit most often, the possibility is much greater than it is here at home.
– Maybe not many people think about the possibility of bringing bed bugs home from Sweden?
– No, but you can do it to the highest degree. They have about ten times as many bedbugs per head in Sweden as they do in Norway. There is a fairly big difference between Norway and Sweden, says Ake.
-You should think about that anyway. Not only do bed bugs seem to be found in cheap hotels, there can be bed bugs anyway and you should be aware of that.
There is no definitive census of bed bugs in Sweden, but Aak’s estimates agree well with the order list of Anticimex, the largest pest control company on the Swedish market. They alone were responsible for nearly 18,000 bed bug extermination operations in 2019, before Corona, and 10,500 extermination operations in 2022.
From itchy bumps to fluid-filled blisters
Bedbug visits are no fun, neither for your wallet nor for you.
The reptile is often discovered when you wake up in the morning with bites that often become red and swollen. Pest Controller Glenn Hovdahl at Skadedyrkontroll1 told Nettavisen. You may be able to see a dark spot in the middle, where the animal has bitten.
It’s not always easy to figure out the source of a summer rash, but bedbug bites also have some fairly obvious characteristics:
Animals looking for food. So, they climb into your bed to find you, but they prefer to be on top than under the covers. Therefore, bites often appear one after another, slightly in succession, as the animals can sit in a row on top of your duvet and bite into your skin. You can also get bedbug bites in clusters.
When you get bitten, you don’t feel anything, but you often do afterwards. The bites can be itchy and sometimes develop into fluid-filled blisters. If you scratch the bites, they may also start to bleed.
An expensive end to the holiday
Further down the issue, Hovdahl and Aak explain what to do if the damage is already done and bed bugs come home with you. But there are good chances of avoiding the whole problem with some precautions that Aak highly recommends taking. It is believed that many people are not fully aware of the risk of infection in neighboring countries, in luxury hotels, and even in Norway’s capital or other large cities.
– No, but you have to follow up. When you have a night off, you need to be absolutely sure you’re not bringing bedbugs home with you, he says.
You can do this by checking the beds at the accommodation.
-It takes five minutes. Using the flashlight on your mobile phone, check the nooks and crannies around the mattress and make sure there are no bedbug droppings, eggs or live animals.
If you do this, you will be able to be absolutely sure that you will avoid unpleasant stings and avoid a huge bill when you get home.
-If you can’t find anything after that, and there’s still something that contradicts the assumption, the chances of bringing it home with you are low. If there are many people there, she will see it, and then she will ask for another room.
– Then you can save several thousand kroner quickly, because fighting can be expensive if there are too many of them.
At the same time, you can reduce the risks if you store your clothes in the bag and keep them at a distance from the bed.
It’s important to be early
Even if damage occurs, you have to be quick on your feet. If you know or suspect you have brought bed bugs into the home, the bag should be frozen immediately. You can do this if you have a large enough deep freezer at home, but otherwise you can contact a pest control company and freeze with them.
“If you check the bed before you move in, you won’t feel it, but if you forget to check the bed and then see bedbugs on vacation, I would take precautions and freeze the luggage,” says Ack.
Washing all clothing at 60 degrees will also kill bed bugs. However, it’s easy to overlook eggs, animals in your purse, toiletry bag, or other items that you can’t put in the washing machine – in other words, it often won’t last.
As a general rule, you also don’t want to have that suspicion when you get home, and therefore don’t become aware of the infestation until you wake up with a bedbug bite or see a crawler in your bedroom.
Then the professionals must be in the field.
What determines some of the cost is how early it is detected at home. “It takes a long time before you discover them, and soon there are more of them, and then the battle becomes more extensive and costly,” Ack says.
-If you discover this right away, freezing or steaming the bed may suffice. If it spreads throughout the entire room, perhaps from the bedroom to the living room, the cost will be very high.
In most cases, you end up somewhere in the middle between these two scenarios, however with an average of just over NOK 20,000, according to Aak.
no Get out of bed bugs
While you wait for help, there are also some things that are very important to be aware of.
– Hovdahl pointed out that it is easier to say what not to do than to say what to do.
– You must no Lie on the couch in the living room and you won’t have to flee to another bedroom to get away from bedbugs. You can’t do that, the only thing that is achieved then is diffusion.
Bedbugs go to eat, then you lie on the couch in the living room, then they come to the couch in the living room.
Pest expert Glenn Hovdahl
You should also not leave the house. If you move in with mom and dad or a friend in the meantime, you risk bringing bed bugs with you.
-Once you start deviating from the usual pattern of behavior, you risk spreading. You just have to carry on as usual.
If you catch the problem early enough, you can also theoretically get rid of bed bugs yourself, but that’s not something Aak recommends.
-It’s very demanding and you have to know what you’re doing. Our advice is to simply leave it to the pest control industry. Ake says the industry in Norway is highly efficient and good at dealing with bedbugs.
Clear connection with travel
After several years of apparent increase, in recent years Norway has seen very variable rates of bed bugs, which shows the role that travel activities and holiday habits when on a trip play in possible prevention.
In 2019, the year before the coronavirus arrived in Norway, we conducted about 3,000 bedbug exterminations – the highest number measured by FHI statistics. The following year, statistics showed that only 2,000 bed bugs were exterminated, and in 2021 the number decreased to about 1,700.
Then we started traveling again and in 2022 the graph was on the way up and stabilized at approximately 2500 fights. Pest companies see the most cases in August and throughout the fall.
“Interestingly, when we stopped traveling, the problem decreased by half,” says Ake.
Strong increase in mole cancer. Uwe Andre received a shocking letter when he was forty-seven years old
It can reduce infection
Thanks to the good pest industry, it is believed that the pest epidemic in Norway will stabilize here.
– Gothenburg and Stockholm have a high population density and great activity. Then there is the high spread. Oslo is also one of the places that sees many bedbug cases annually, because so many people live in Oslo, Ake points out.
As for Denmark, which is also a favorite destination for us Norwegians, there are no reliable figures, but there is no good reason to believe that the infection rate is particularly low there compared to both Sweden and the rest of Europe, Ake believes, although perhaps to some extent. . minimum.
Moreover, Sweden is the country we Norwegians visit more than ever, according to a travel survey conducted by Statistics Norway. At least 1,527,000 cross-border trips were made in the east last year. On the other hand, London and New York are favorite major cities during holidays, according to Investigations Produced by Kantar for the travel agency Ticket, Norsk Hussopp Forsikring performances in press release Netavisen is also due to the fact that London was the favorite at Pentecost this year.
– Many people associate bedbugs with hostels and cheap hotels, but they also occur in 5-star hotels, says biologist and subject specialist Jørgen Skerud Danielsen from Norsk Hosop Forseekering in the above-mentioned press release.
– The cost of bedbug control is on average NOK 20,000. If we all take precautions when traveling, society can save a lot if we can reduce the number of bed bugs. Reducing 1,000 fights could save society around NOK 20 million.
“Explorer. Unapologetic entrepreneur. Alcohol fanatic. Certified writer. Wannabe tv evangelist. Twitter fanatic. Student. Web scholar. Travel buff.”
