As a visitor to any location, you should be given the highest level of care and accommodation in your place of stay, whether it’s a hotel, motel, bed and breakfast, or other establishment. You should not be exposed to such dangers as vermin, mold, and bed bugs. Bed bugs can be extremely frustrating and cause widespread damage if they infest multiple areas. You may be bitten and have your home compromised if the bugs latch on to you. In the event of an incident with bed bugs, you should pursue legal action against the party responsible for allowing you to stay in an infested area. Our team of qualified lawyers at the Bed Bug Legal Group can help you if you were affected by bed bugs while in Nevada, such as in Reno, Las Vegas, or Laughlin.
What You Need to Know about Bed Bugs
Bed bugs are very small creatures, able to fit on the head of a dime, and are not always easy to spot if you don’t know what you’re looking for. They are reddish-brown in color, flat-bodied, and round. Some people confuse them with fleas, but the key difference is in their movement. Bed bugs are limited to crawling from their nests to their victims, while fleas can jump long distances. If you see a jumping bug, it is not a bed bug.
The creatures tend to come out at night while their victims are asleep. They then crawl to the exposed portions of skin and bite down, which the victims don’t feel due to the anticoagulant in the venom; they can then suck blood for up to ten minutes at a time, as the clotting is temporarily halted due to a substance in the saliva. They bite in a noticeable zigzag pattern and will retreat to their nests once they have become engorged and full.
The creatures can rest dormant for many weeks without feeding; they are hardy and difficult to kill. If you do not locate bed bugs at a hotel or other place, you may need to look closer and deeper – they could easily be lurking out of sight.
In fact, you may not know that there are bed bugs until after you’ve been bitten. The bites show up as raised red marks on the skin; they are not overly itchy, but they can be irritating. In some cases, they can fester and turn into sores, especially if you are relentlessly scratching them. This opens up the potential for infections and other damages. Fortunately, bed bugs are not known to carry diseases, so you don’t have a high risk of catching a severe illness.
Where They’re Found
In a state as large as Nevada, bed bugs can be found anywhere. In Reno and Laughlin, they can be in various motels and overnight establishments, but in a tourist hotspot like Las Vegas, they may be anywhere. Casinos, motels, hotels, rental cars, furniture stores, and more can all be snug homes for bed bugs. Hundreds of thousands of people travel to Las Vegas each day and there is no telling how many of them bring bed bugs with them or lengthen the issue by their actions.
Bed bugs can be found in damp, dark places that are conveniently close to where victims sleep. It is rare for the bugs to make their nests directly in the open. If you want to search for bed bugs while staying at a hotel or somewhere else, you should check the following places:
- Underneath the mattress and inside its folds
- Beneath the bed
- Behind the headboard and baseboard
- Behind molding, electrical outlets, and picture frames
- Inside couch cushions and pillows
- Underneath couches, chairs, and other upholstery
- On the bottom of drawers and nightstands
- Underneath carpets and carpeting
You can never be too meticulous when searching for bed bugs. It is always recommended to search for the creatures before you go to sleep somewhere so that you can still change rooms if necessary and you will avoid getting bitten.
After You Were Bitten
If you wake up with bed bug bites, you should immediately take action to preserve evidence of the infestation. Firstly, photographs are important, so you should take pictures of the bites. You need to search all of the aforementioned areas for bed bugs and take pictures of any that you see. Indicators of bed bugs include small white eggs, exoskeletons that have been shed by juvenile bed bugs, bloodstains on the sheets, dark brown mounds of feces, and more.
Once you have gathered your evidence, you should check to make sure that the bugs did not infest your luggage or other clothing. You could mistakenly carry them home with you and cause another infestation at your house.
Once you are sure that you have everything together, you can contact the hotel manager or property owner. You should ask to file an incident report and alert them to the presence of the bed bugs. It is important that you wait until after you’ve gathered your evidence to do this, as many managers will simply usher you out of the room so they can clean it, and will not allow you back in to gather evidence. They can then deny that there was any presence of bed bugs in the first place.
Next, you should hold on to the receipt showing that you were present at the hotel. It will help prove that you were not lying about the encounter.
Lastly, contact a skilled bed bug attorney who can handle your case for you. It requires a lot of experience to successfully navigate a bed bug lawsuit against a hotel or motel, and you may not have the legal chops to pull it off. We have years of experience under our belts and we know the best tactics and most trustworthy strategies you win you a settlement.
Suing for Negligence
Property owners are required to provide you with a safe and healthy living quarters while you stay in their establishments. If they do not do so, they are breaching their duty of care to you and can be targeted in a personal injury lawsuit if you suffered injuries because of an incident. For premises liability cases, you must be able to show that the property owner either caused the problem, was aware it existed and did nothing about it, or should have been reasonably aware of as any other owner would have. Further, the four points of negligence that you must show to be true are:
- You were owed a duty of care as a customer
- There was a breach of that duty by allowing a bed bug infestation to carry on
- The breach resulted in an accident or incident, such as bites
- The incident caused real physical harm
As a regular individual, you may find it difficult to prove these four points. Thus, it is crucial that you hire a talented lawyer. You will likely be focusing on healing and dealing with the aftermath of an infestation, and we can handle all the legwork for you. You won’t have to go through additional stress because of the lawsuit.
Time Limit on a Bed Bug Lawsuit
You only have 2 years from the date of the incident to file a premises liability/personal injury claim against the responsible hotel owner or property manager. If you do not take action in this time, you will not be able to receive any compensation from a future lawsuit. You should act quickly to have the best chance of success.
There are exceptions to this limit, though; if you were underage at the time of the incident or if the responsible individual left the state, the statute would be temporarily suspended until you turned legal age or until the defendant returned. Your lawyer can help you determine what you are eligible for.
The Best Firm in Town
Our qualified lawyers at the Bed Bug Legal Group have won hundreds of thousands of dollars for our clients. We have made sure to win medical expenses, property damage, pain and suffering damages, lost wages, an more for victims of bed bug bites in Nevada. Our lawyers are aggressive and do not stop pursuing your rightful compensation until we are satisfied with the settlement offer the insurance agency gives us. If we feel the insurance company is being too resistant or is not cooperative, we will take your case to court. Our firm dedicates ourselves to you and your case, and you will not have to worry about not knowing how to best proceed.
Call us today to set up a free legal consultation with an experienced lawyer about your bed bug lawsuit. We are available around the clock and will always answer your questions about your case. If you wish to hire us for our legal services, you’ll also receive our zero fee guarantee, which promises that you won’t touch any personal savings for our help. Your finances will stay where they are, and we will cover all the legal costs. If we win, we’ll be paid by taking a portion of the settlement from the insurance company. If we lose, you won’t pay us a single dime.
For more help filing a bed bug lawsuit in Nevada, contact the Bed Bug Legal Group.
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