When 63-year-old Alex McKindra and his family checked into a hotel in Rancho Cucamonga, CA, bed bugs were the last thing on their mind.
He and his wife Martha had spent the day delivering a car to their son Alex, who serves in the Air Force. The family then went to the Hilton Garden Inn to spend the night.
The McKindras had only been asleep for a few hours before they woke up with bite marks and inflamed rashes caused by bed bugs. They demanded another room, but with the hotel fully booked, the manager ordered them to find another hotel.
Brian Virag, a local attorney who specializes in bed bug cases, said in the lawsuit that hotel management “failed to disclose, inspect or warn plaintiffs of the presence of these filthy infestations at the premises.”
He also said that hotels are “a revolving door of people in a room,” explaining the alarming number of bed bug infestations in these establishments.
The general manager of the hotel, who chose to remain anonymous, declined to comment on the case–the infestation occurred in 2013, prior to him becoming manager.
The McKindra family has been awarded $546,000 as part of their settlement with the hotel.
The details about this case were reported in the LA Times on October 5th, 2017.
