British holidaymaker forced to flee hotel room after finding bed bugs crawling out of her pillow

A British tourist has been forced to flee from her hotel room after finding bed bugs crawling out of her pillow.

Ellie Davina, 22, from Bradford had booked a single night at the Premier Inn on Runger Lane North near Manchester Airport on Wednesday 17 June ahead of catching a flight to Tenerife the following morning.

The discovery prompted the hotel chain to lock down part of the premises while the affected room and surrounding areas were inspected and treated.

Ms Davina, a self-employed jeweller, has since lodged a formal complaint with Premier Inn and says she will never stay with the chain again following the ordeal, which she described as "absolutely disgusting" and "vile".

The incident unfolded when the 22-year-old got up to use the bathroom and used her mobile phone's torch to navigate back to her bed, where she had been resting for a couple of hours while her friend slept in the single bed.

Upon returning, she spotted insects crawling across her pillow and quickly realised the scale of the infestation.

She said: "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."

Ms Davina described finding at least 10 of the creatures, with approximately eight being particularly large specimens she compared to the size of her fingernail, while the remainder appeared to be juveniles.

Appalled by what she had found, Ms Davina rushed downstairs to the reception desk to report the problem.

She claims the staff member on duty responded inappropriately to her complaint.

"We went downstairs and I asked the reception for a full refund and he just started giggling," she said.

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"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."

Reception staff offered her complimentary breakfast and a full refund of £77, though Ms Davina noted she had already paid for breakfast separately.

After waiting in the lobby for around half an hour, with the time approaching 2.30am, she was eventually relocated to a different room on a lower floor with fresh bedding.

Ms Davina said she was unable to sleep in the replacement room, instead sitting on the edge of the bed until check-out time.

She suspects a lump she noticed on her leg earlier that evening may have been caused by a bed bug bite, having initially dismissed it as a heat-related mark.

"I felt disgusting - absolutely disgusting, vile. I was actually in shock," she said.

The experience has left her deeply unsettled about staying in budget accommodation.

"Premier Inn used to be the go-to, cheap hotel to use but now I will never go back," she said.

Ms Davina said she has become so paranoid that she thoroughly inspected her hotel in Tenerife upon arrival and even checked her own bed at home after returning from holiday.

Premier Inn issued an apology for what it described as an "extremely rare" incident and said its teams were in direct contact with Ms Davina regarding her stay.

A spokesman for the hotel chain 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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