Here's how you can find out if your building or hotel has bedbugs before you go

Encountering bedbugs is never a pleasant experience, and there are many unexpected places for them to hide. So when you're traveling or looking to rent a new home or office, it's always a great idea to do your research.

Since bedbugs can happen in almost any place at any time and for many of these websites reports are not confirmed or verified, you can't always be certain that reports about bedbugs are accurate. 

That being said, here are some websites that allow you to check for bedbug reports. 

A website called The World BedBug Registry Project was created to let people know where bedbugs have supposedly been sighted at hotels

The World BedBug Registry Project says it allows users to search hotels for any reported bedbug issues, dating back to 2012. The project was launched by bedbugs.net in 2012, and it gathers its information based on user reports of bedbug sightings. 

According to the website, the Worldwide Bedbug Registry aims to  be "the go-to bedbug reporting source for the public."

"Our goal is to provide the public with knowledge to make informed choices on where they should stay," the site creators wrote on the FAQ page.

Once you get on the website, you can search the reports by entering a specific hotel name or address. You can also search by a hotel chain, city, or state. 

On the site, more than 12,000 user-submitted reports have been made about hotels in the US, including about 400 made so far in 2018. But that's just in the US — the database is worldwide. 

You'll want to keep in mind that these reports are submitted by users, so there's no way to confirm their accuracy and while the site says they cannot control what is posted, they do allow hotel management to dispute claims in the comments.

Explore BI Games

Take a smarter break in your day - and see how far you get.

Play now

Want more Business Insider in your news feed?

Add BI in Google so our reporting is easier to find when you’re searching for what matters.

Add to Preferred Sources

"This is a global public bedbug registry," the site states in their FAQ "As such, we can't control exactly what's posted. However, we do provide a medium for hotel management to respond to any claims made against them via the reply comments."

In addition to user reports, the site includes information about the hotel's response rate to the bed bug claims and how many bedbug-related reports have been disputed.

It's also important to keep in mind that once a sighting has been reported, it cannot be taken down— even if the supposed bedbugs have since been exterminated. 

If you're in or visiting New York, you can check the official New York City website to see if a building has bedbug complaints

The official government website for New York City suggests using the NYC Housing Preservation & Development website to search a building's address in order to discover data about that building including a list of complaints about the building (including bed bug-related ones) as well as any recent health and safety violations. 

If you're in or traveling to the US or Canada, BedBug Reports allows you to search for user reports of bed bugs in buildings, rental homes, and hotels

The website BedBug Reports gathers reports of bedbugs from users and categorizes them by state and city. The website gathers user reports that can be anonymous and are not verified, so use your best judgment when reviewing them. That being said, BedBug Reports says they allow hotel and building owners to dispute false reports and have them removed if they can provide "a copy from an extermination report advising that [their] hotel/apartment is clear of bed bugs."

Visit INSIDER's homepage for more.