“Caesars Palace has bed bugs. My friend and I checked into Caesars Palace June 4, 2012, and were assigned a room in Augustus Tower. I woke up at 3:30 – 3:45am, very itchy and tried to see what was itching my arm. I had two big round and swollen welts on my arm. I took an antihistamine for the itch, and it’s very swollen. I suspected Bed Bugs, so checked the bed and sure enough there is a big bug, still alive, with a big fat heavy back side. I guess it is engorged with my blood. I put it in a glass, covered it, and called the front desk. “What would you like me to do?”, the front desk asks. I advise I don’t know, what is the procedure? “Do you want me to put you through to housekeeping?”, he asks? “I guess so”, I answer. I wait. I take photos of my bed bug bites, I film the live bug in the glass. I wake up my friend and we stare at the bug in the glass, creeped out.

Housekeeping manager arrives. She is very friendly and kind. She says, “I understand you might have been bit by something?” I give her the glass with the live bug. She confirmed it was a bed bug. ‘We'll have to move you right away”, she said. “What will you do next,” we ask? "We will fumigate the room. It has to be closed for three days." she confirms.

“What about our stuff? Will our clothes and luggage be washed/checked, fumigated? Do you have a heating or freezing process to kill off any bugs that may have got into our clothes or our luggage?’ “We don't have washing/heating/freezing facilities”, housekeeping says, “ but if you put your stuff in bags we can send it out to laundry”. We bag our bed clothes separately and pack up. We are advised security will come to take a report, and then risk management will talk with us and help us address our possible infestation issue. The bellman arrived to help us move.

My friend and I were then moved to another room in Augustus tower, but it had only one bed. Now it's 5:00 am, and bellman calls the front desk while we wait in this second room, possibly infesting it. They offer us a roll away cot! I said, no, we each want a proper bed. The bellman asks me to speak with the front desk, and so I do, and am on hold for 10 minutes. Finally, bellman suggests we just go downstairs. I go downstairs with him to get a room with two beds. At the front desk I have to explain my story and provide ID and I finally get a new room with two beds, and am advised security and risk management will contact me right away. We are placed in Palace tower.
It is 5:30 am, we are in our new room in Palace Tower, and I am freaked out completely. I can't go back to bed, won't even sit on my bed, and am worried about a possible bed bug infestation in my luggage.

We wait for security. We order a room service breakfast while we wait. At about 10 am, five hours later, my friend gets tired of waiting and goes out to visit friends. While I wait for security, I take all my clothes out of my luggage, shake them above the tub which I’ve put hot water into, iron the clothes, (heat kills bed bugs) and then I take a hot blow dryer to my luggage to try to kill off what might have crawled in there.

I finally call the front desk at 12:30 pm and ask when security is coming. It is 7 hours later now and still no security, no phone call, no follow up whatsoever. Our bed clothes are still sitting in their bags waiting to be washed. I’m getting tired of waiting, and I’m trying to get this all over and done so I can actually have a vacation day in Las Vegas. The front desk offers a food/beverage credit for our wait, and advises security is on their way. “When?” “Now.” Okay, I continue to wait. At 3 pm, no security has come. I go out, and leave a note on my door for security. All I can think about is bed bugs. There was only one luggage rack in the hotel room, so there is a possibility that there are now bedbugs in one of our 4 suitcases. I'm worried about bringing bugs home and I’ve heard that you have to throw out all your furniture if it gets bad. I’m completely freaked out about having a couple of big round swollen welts on my arm, and wonder if people are seeing them and staying away from me. I take more antihistamine.

I cancel my evening plans because I’m still waiting for security. I have a salad, bruschetta and some wine from the food fair downstairs. At 9:30 pm my friend comes back and is appalled that I have still not been contacted by security. I agree it’s absolutely crazy. I had finally fallen asleep around 7 pm, since I had been up since 3:30. I am furious. I have done little else but wait for security and take my own measures to address a possible bed bug infestation in my luggage. Some vacation! I have wasted an entire day waiting in good faith for Caesars Palace to appropriately address this issue. I go downstairs and ask to speak to a manager. It is almost 18 hours since I have been bitten, and Caesars Palace management is seemingly avoiding me. Finally a manager comes out, and she is defensive; she didn’t know, it’s not her fault this has happened, she has only just come on her shift, no one told her, and she is offering me a partial compensation of my food and beverage bill. I am angry at this unbelievably poor service and her paltry offer. Clearly she can’t see that we have already been provided with a food and beverage credit. She then spies this and comments rather triumphantly that I have already been offered a $200 food and beverage credit. “Yes”, I confirm, “ a far more generous offer has already been made, but thanks so much for your partial food and beverage compensation offer on the $100 dollars on my room account”.

I ask her again when security is coming, as I’ve been standing a good fifteen minutes waiting at the desk. She dismissively assures me security is on his way.

I go to the people waiting in line in registration and tell them, I got bit by bedbugs in Augustus tower. Don't stay in Augustus Tower. I tell this to everyone in line and show them my bite welts. I look back at the Manager. Now I have her attention. She advises me she is going to have to ask me to leave if I continue to talk to the guests. I ask when security is coming and she picks up the phone and talks to them once again and advises me security is coming right away.

The security guard finally comes over. He is kind and compassionate and says it’s unbelievable that you have experienced a public health violation and on top of it, this very poor service. He apologizes, and confirms they had a request at 5:30 in the morning that got missed. I put my story into a one page form. What next, I ask. We are done, he says. That’s it. A report. I waited a whole day to make a 6 sentence report? Nothing more will be done?

I ask him to get me the operations manager. He does this. I advise operations manager we were going to stay at another hotel for our last night, we have friends working there who have ‘comped’ us a room, but we have advised them we had a bed bug issue and now they don’t want us to come. Understandably, we certainly don’t want to spread this infestation around either.
We think we should stay here at Caesars in the same room, and I don’t think I should have to pay for the third and last night. (Let me be clear that I am not asking for a refund for my first and second night, I think this request is more than fair.)

Operations Manager says, I can’t do that, I can only offer you a discount for tomorrow night! A discount! I have lost a day of my vacation and waiting to deal with this issue, I have a possible bed bug infestation which I may be taking home with me, which no one has offered to help me address, and the operations manager says, “no sorry, only a discount, or he offers very generously, I can extend your check out time tomorrow.” Fine, I say, I will go to the media. I walk away. Fine he says, unconcerned. He doesn't care.

So Caesars Palace has bed bugs, and they care very little about the impact on their guests. At best, they might offer a food and beverage credit to appease, but they take no action to address the public health issue. They have not offered to help us address the possible infestation we may have, and they don’t care that we might spread the infestation around. They are not concerned about the social humiliation, distress and stress this is causing. At this point, I have not been contacted by risk management, 22 hours after I was bit by bed bugs at Caesars Palace. I can only conclude that Caesars Palace just doesn’t care about this issue. I feel like collateral damage
Caesars Palace has:
1. No bed bug procedure and policy for front desk staff. They didn’t know what to do.
2. No procedure for ensuring guests luggage and clothes are decontaminated.
3. No procedure in place for addressing a possible transfer of infestation from one room to another
4. Poor follow up with guests who encounter bed bugs in their room
5. No procedure advising when and how security and then risk management will follow up with guest
6. Poor service response for guests who experience bed bugs in their rooms.
7. The bags of our bed clothes were never picked up for washing.

Leslie - sleepless in Caesars Palace, June 5, 2012.
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