Wondering just how a hotel room or a home ends up with a bed-bug infestation? It comes down to simple hitchhiking.

Bed bugs can't fly, so they travel by catching a ride on unsuspecting people or on furniture or other items.

Rob Williams, owner of All Seasons Pest Control, said he is very careful to check his body after treating a bed-bug infestation because the little critters are sneaky. "I check my boot laces before I go home because I've found them in boot laces before," he said.

The University of Nebraska in Lincoln said the most common ways infestations get started are:

• Travelers bring bed bugs home from infested hotels or motels in their luggage.
• Infested furniture brought into a home will cause an outbreak.
• Bed bugs hitch a ride by hanging on clothing.
• Family members living away from home (for example, at college) may bring them home on holidays.
• If a person moves into an infested home or apartment, they will have an instant infestation.

  The UN Lincoln reports that studies show between 85 percent and 90 percent of bed bugs will be found in the mattress and foundation/box springs or within 15 feet of the bed. If people have been sleeping on sofas, these can be infested, as well.

To help prevent bringing home unwelcome bed bug guests from hotels, the university recommends inspecting hotel rooms for bed bugs before bringing luggage into the room. Bed bugs like to live in groups in cracks and other dark, tight places. These "hot spots" can often be identified because bed bugs leave small brown/black spots and smears (liquid feces) in these hiding places. Fecal spots may also be found on bed linens, pillows and mattresses. Bed bugs live in cracks as small as the width of a credit card.

Hotel and motel bed headboards are often fastened to the wall. People may need to lift the headboard off its hanger to inspect behind it, the university advises. Even if no bed bugs are found, the university recommends not placing luggage on the floor near the head of the bed.

People can remove all of the bedding and examine it for fecal smears and bugs. Carefully examine the mattress and foundation. One common hiding place is in the wood framing of the foundation.

Near the bed, look behind picture frames, within books, in telephones or radios, bedside furniture; also look along the edge of carpet, next to the wall and even in electrical receptacles.

"You need to check your luggage, especially if you're traveling in an airport or outside South Dakota," said Mike Catangui, Extension entomologist for South Dakota.

People who suspect they have visited an infested home should be careful they have not brought a bed bug with them on their clothing or luggage.

To find out more about preventing bed bug infestations, go to the university's Web site at lancaster.unl.edu/pest/Resources/BedBug263.shtml

Contact Lynn Taylor Rick at lynn.taylorrick@rapidcityjournal.com or 394-8414.