Why You NEED To Prevent Damage From Bed bugs At A Hotel

Hotels are one of the most common places where bed bugs will be found. Bed bugs can cause serious damage and contamination, and they're notoriously difficult to get rid of. Watch this video to learn how you can protect yourself from bed bug infestations while staying safe in hotels.

Pests can cause several problems in the workplace, from distracting employees to contaminating food products with bacteria. Learn more about how pest control protects your business and what you should be looking for when selecting an exterminator.

Valpas has created what appears to be the world's first connected bed bug prevention system that both improves the bottom line and the guest experience. And while technology is at the core of the product, the startup matches biological science with the IoT to build an affordable and reliable system to eliminate an expensive and stressful headache for hoteliers: bed bug infestations.

Valpas also has an interesting origin story. It developed as an off-shoot of an existing bed bug eradication service. The founders found the need for a hotel-specific system that not only eliminates the ghastly cost of eliminating bed bugs but also guarantees guests a bed-bug-free stay.

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Why You NEED To Prevent Damage From Bed Bugs At A Hotel

Another analogy is in the water detection industry. Leaks are very invasive. They can cause a lot of damage. Having sensors that detect a leak ahead of time can save a lot of cost and damage from happening in the first place. In PropTech, a lot of things are about increasing revenues and buying things efficiently, and this falls under operating them. It's something people easily forget. Many people don't even know that solutions exist.

In fact, at Blue Field Capital, where I'm a General Partner, we buy real estate throughout the US. We have contracts with vendors who come and routinely do checks. That itself is a recurring revenue stream if you're a pest control service company. You've got a contract with Marriott or Hilton. We have a lot of Marriotts and Hiltons, that's why I use that analogy. Vendors will come and they'll do a regular check.

Within the industry, there are other treatments too before we dive into exactly how the Valpas treatment works. There are even dogs that can sense bedbugs and steam treatments. There's also what you would think would be a sustainable solution. Have some protection on your mattress like liners. What are your thoughts on all the different options out there? When you talk through that, contrast to us what a PropTech solution like Valpas offers versus some of the other solutions that exist in the industry.

90% of the traditional industries' revenues come from reactive treatments. It's reacting after the problem, loss, or negative experience has already occurred. Maybe 10% of the industries' revenues focus on some detection means. There are two of them. The traditional one is human or canine detection. It's having a pest control professional, with or without a dog, visiting every quarter and going through all the rooms. If there would be any bedbugs during that specific day of the visit, they might or might not detect them, and then after that order the treatments. That is the first one in detective means.

The second one is these startups and other more technology-driven companies that have developed detectors that you can put in a room to test if the room has bedbugs somewhere around there. By the way, the reason why this is also hard is that once bedbugs get into a room, they quickly attack guests, suck their blood, nest in the bed or in the vicinity of the bed, and then quickly reproduce and spread. They only come out during the nighttime normally because that's when their blood meal is at its easiest. At sleep, they stay put in the same place so it's easy access for them. That's why during the daytime, you can't see them. They're hiding. That's why it's so hard to detect them.

There are these first detector devices that you can put in the room and simulate the CO2 that comes from the sleeping guests’ exhale. If there are any bugs in the room, they sense the CO2, go to the device, and then the device can detect if there are bed bugs in the room. After that, you need to also call a treatment. You can have these detection devices in each room because they're normally pretty obtrusive. There's nothing out there that would keep rooms and guests protected around the clock. There is no safety out there. This is the vacuum that Valpas is introducing, a bedbug safety standard for the hospitality industry.

Once bed bugs get into a room, they quickly attack guests, suck their blood, nest in the bed or in the vicinity of the bed, and then quickly reproduce and spread.

If you look at PropTech and solutions in PropTech, one way to figure out opportunities is to look through the operating statements and costs. It's so easy to glance over a cost for pest control and think that, "There's a process for that and it works." To unleash innovation and realize gains in your portfolio, you've got to look at every line including something like pest control, and realize, "Is there a solution we can bring in here to decrease our cost and also improve the quality of what we're offering?" especially if you're in multifamily rentals or you're in the hospitality sector.

The audit problem is also another problem that you outlined. The problem with an audit is it's a manual process. It only happens once every now and then. It's looking at the balance sheet of a company at one spot in time. Many financial companies can play games with their balance sheet. They may pay down or take out debt, or whatever to make things look good.

For people trying to lose weight or gain muscle, looking at your own weight at one point in time doesn't give you a full picture. A lot can happen before and after as well. One thing I'm sure people are wondering about is the pandemic that has hit the hospitality industry. By the way, this is not true. The hospitality industry is thriving in many places.

Many people wanted to get out of their homes and into hotels and Airbnbs. The perception is while these bedbugs haven't had a chance to feast, they're going to die. Surely, that's the perception. People will think less than in reality. “This problem is solved. If there are guests in the hotel, then the bed bugs are dead.” Tell us what the reality is.

Unfortunately, the reality is that bedbugs can cope without a fresh blood meal even for 1.5 years, 2 years, or further. They're super resilient and hibernating inside the real estate. Once people start occupying hotels without adequate standards, they will experience quite ferocious service failures. They can go on for years without food.

Are bedbugs like mosquitoes where they'll bite you enough until they're full and then they'll leave or they will keep biting your body and multiply? Do they multiply when there's no food around? Do they only multiply after they have been satiated?

The reality is that bed bugs can cope without a fresh blood meal, even one and a half years, two years, or further. They're super resilient and just hibernating inside the real estate.

It's impossible to avoid getting them from your travel. You can pick them up from your airplane, taxi, public transport, or whatever. There are only a few in the beginning. This is something that many people don't understand. When you speak about bedbugs to people, what they see is that an infestation already developed a problem in a room. That is completely normal because that's when you recognize them.

However, they start harmless because only a few bedbugs tag along your belongings and then hitchhike into a hotel room or your apartment. Bedbugs do have one weakness. Their weaknesses are that once they are in a bedroom, they have this urge to attack sleeping guests because they are lazy creatures, and looking for that blood meal.

Once they sense that CO2 is coming from a stable source, once we go to bed, stay put, and start exhaling, that's a social cue for them that, "There's blood available. Let's get out." This weakness that bed bugs have is that they have to attack guests and collect that blood during the first night already. We then capitalize it by collecting and eliminating them before they are able to collect that blood.

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About Zain Jaffer

Zain Jaffer is an accomplished executive, investor, and entrepreneur. He started his first company at the age of 14 and later moved to the US as an immigrant to found Vungle, after securing $25M from tech giants including Google & AOL in 2011. Vungle recently sold for $780m.

His achievements have garnered international recognition and acclaim; he is the recipient of prestigious awards such as “Forbes 30 Under 30”, “Inc. Magazine’s 35 Under 35” and the “SF Business Times Tech & Innovation Award”. He is regularly featured in major business & tech publications such as The Wall Street Journal, VentureBeat, and TechCrunch.