Regent Palace Hotel London / human fleas

HUMAN FLEAS AT REGENT PALACE HOTEL!

We stayed in July 16-20.7.2006 in Regent Palace Hotel. In our last day we realized that we have bite marks in many places in our bodies, mostly in our feet, hands and back. Few hours later, while waiting for our plain back to Finland we realized that the bite marks had to came from fleas, since more and more bites kept appearing.

At home in Finland we did everything. We spent hours in sauna, washed our clothes and bedding all over again and again. We used pesticides strait to our bodies. (Human flea has been extinct in Finland for decades, so there is no medication, and nobody knows how to get rid of the fleas, not even doctors.) After a week, we believed that problem was solved and it seemed that the fleas had died. We thought that they probably where rat fleas or some other species not really capable feeding on human blood.

After a month problem came back. Larva had developed into mature fleas. We throw away our bed. We did everything possible and more. In spite all that my eight year old daughter got them too. She wasn’t in London, so she did not have them before. My daughter is really ill; she has hundreds of bite marks in her body and she may have to be taken in to hospital tomorrow. I’m really worried about her.

Our stay in Regent Palace Hotel became really expensive considering all the cost with new furniture, medication, pesticides, doctor expenses, and so on. These days fighting with this problem have been terrible. There is no end at sight; we still don’t know how to get rid of them for good. I have e-mailed to hotel about the fleas but they didn’t bother to answer.

Best regards

Hanna Ojala & Petri Forss