Premier Inn ‘seals off room’ after visitor makes discovery at Manchester Airport lodge

Ellie Davina, 22, discovered bedbugs crawling out of her pillowcase at the Premier Inn Manchester Airport hotel, prompting the chain to close the affected rooms

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Premier Inn was forced to ‘seal off’ part of a hotel after a guest bolted when she spotted bedbugs emerging from her pillowcase.

Ellie Davina had booked into the Premier Inn Manchester Airport hotel on Runger Lane North for a single night on Wednesday, June 17, ahead of her flight to Tenerife the next morning.

The 22-year-old claims she rested on the double bed in the room ‘for a couple of hours’, while her mate dozed in the single bed. After rising to visit the loo and using her mobile’s torch to navigate back to bed, Ellie says she was ‘revolted’ to discover bed bugs emerging from the pillowcase.

The self-employed jeweller alleges there were ‘at least 10 bed bugs’ hiding in the bedding and some were so massive they measured ‘the size of her fingernail’, reports MEN.

Horrified by what she’d found, Ellie marched down to reception where she was offered a free breakfast and a £77 refund. Following more than an hour spent waiting in reception, Ellie was relocated to a different room – but maintains she perched on the bed’s edge unable to get any shut-eye, until checkout time arrived.

Ellie has since lodged a formal complaint with Premier Inn but alleges she’s still waiting for her refund and pledges never to book with the hotel chain again. The hotel chain stated that housekeeping staff are trained to spot bedbugs and when an incident is reported the room is ‘immediately locked down’ along with adjacent rooms.

Premier Inn has apologised for the ‘extremely rare’ incident and expressed their hope to welcome Ellie back in the future. The hotel chain also confirmed that a refund had been issued.

Ellie, hailing from Bradford, West Yorkshire, recounted: “When I was coming back from the toilet, I noticed a bed bug crawling across my pillow. I looked further and the more I looked, the more I found. As soon as I’d seen one, there was another and another and another. I pulled the duvet back and they were absolutely everywhere – they were crawling out of the pillow cases.

“There were about four in the seam of this pillow case, I’d had my head laid there. These bed bugs were absolutely huge, one of them was the same size as my fingernail. There were a good 10 and they were all massive, there were about eight big ones and the rest were like little babies.”

Ellie says she was left feeling ‘disgusted’ by the discovery – and suspects a lump she found on her lower body earlier in the evening may have been a bed bug bite. Ellie said: “I felt disgusting – [it was] absolutely disgusting, vile. I was actually in shock.

“I said to my friend before we went to sleep, ‘I’ve got a little lump on my leg ‘and she said ‘maybe it’s just a heat lump’, but I think it was a bed bug bite.”

Following the ‘disgusting’ find, Ellie marched down to reception where she claims she was offered a complimentary breakfast, complete refund, and was ultimately relocated to another room. Ellie said: “We went downstairs and I asked the reception for a full refund and he just started giggling. He was saying they couldn’t issue a refund and it would have to be in the morning.

“They were giggling at me and were just not really bothered that I could have been eaten alive in my bed, I was so annoyed. They said we could have free breakfast and a full refund but I’d already paid for my breakfast. We sat in reception for about half an hour, by this point it was about 2.30am and we just couldn’t sit there any longer.

“I said ‘I want a different room on a lower floor and all new sheets so I can change the bed sheets myself’. I didn’t go to sleep. I went in there and sat on the edge of the bed until it was time for me to leave. They said they’d issued a refund and it should be with me within three to five days but we still haven’t received it.”

Despite forking out £77 for the one-night stay, Ellie says the room fell well short of the standard of cleanliness she would anticipate. Ellie said: “You expect the room to be clean, it’s never justifiable.

“Premier Inn used to be the go-to, cheap hotel to use but now I will never go back. The bedding definitely hadn’t been changed because of the way those bed bugs were crawling out of those pillow cases. If those pillow cases would have come off and gone back on then they wouldn’t have been there. It’s put me off staying at any Premier Inn, I don’t think I’d even stay at a cheap hotel in general.”

Ellie reveals the nightmare has left her feeling so ‘paranoid’ about bed bugs that she inspected the entire hotel upon arriving in Tenerife – and even examined her own bed after returning home.

Ellie said: “As soon as we got to Tenerife, we checked the whole hotel for bed bugs. Even when I got home [from holiday] I was checking my own bed [for bed bugs]. I know for a fact I don’t have any bed bugs in my own bed but I was even checking there. I’ve never experienced something like that in my life. Now I know they’re real, I will check everywhere that I go. You don’t ever expect it to happen to yourself. It’s lucky that I didn’t open my suitcase in there or else we could have been taking the bed bugs with us [to Tenerife].”

A Premier Inn spokesperson said: “Bed bugs are incredibly rare in our hotels, and we have rigorous processes in place as part of our daily housekeeping processes to both react to and prevent issues on the rare occasion they do arise. This includes taking complaints of this nature very seriously and our teams are corresponding directly with Ms Davina on the circumstances of her stay.

“In this instance our expert supplier has visited the hotel in line with our extremely comprehensive protocols to treat the room and in line with these protocols as an additional level of precaution we have also checked other nearby rooms in the hotel using the same comprehensive processes.

“Following this visit our expert supplier has confirmed that the impacted room has now been successfully treated and is now clear and have advised it was an isolated case with other rooms having no signs or evidence of bed bugs.

“Our team are always on hand 24/7 to help our guests, whatever the issue, and we were glad that our team acted quickly once notified of the situation and were able to offer an alternative room as well as a full refund for Ms Davina at the time of her stay. However, we would like to apologise to Ms Davina for this extremely rare incident, and we hope to welcome her again in the future.”

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