Without naming the actual hotel involved, CNN opens this article on urban pests with an anecdote about the creator of a website called BedbugRegistry.com getting bitten in San Francisco.
We’re aware of at least one egregious bedbug mating/feeding zone here in the city, but is it fair to highlight SF in the lede that way? Maybe.
There are 497 San Francisco hotels listed on Yahoo Travel, and 64 in The Bedbug Registry‘s database. There are 85 New York hotels found in the registry, but that’s out of 794 total on Yahoo Travel. That gives NYC an infestation rate of 10.7% and SF a rate of nearly 13%.
Now, I realize my method is less than totally scientific. There may be any number of reasons that cause more bug reports in one city than another, and it’s impossible to know the accuracy rate of the reports that are made. For instance, here’s an entry for the Hotel Verona in SF:
Friend seems to have a number of bedbug bites. Other hotel residents had reported them.
Such diagnoses are not exactly confidence-inspiring. Other considerations: There may be hotels in either city not listed on Yahoo Travel, though that effect probably cancels itself out. And, the math is cumulative, so it doesn’t necessarily represent conditions at any given time.
In any case, WTF? The fact that approximately 13% of SF hotels have had bedbug reports is not good. And NYC shouldn’t be bragging about their rate either.
Go ahead and rip apart my math/logic in the comments.