In a personal note, I found out that the Sage Hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico had bed bugs when I stayed there in late 2023. The photos below show the bed bugs that I discovered on the bed at 1:15 a.m. one morning, along with the resulting invoice/receipt from the Sage Hotel (formerly named Sage Inn Hotel).
2024 Update #1: I wrote the Sage Hotel in 2024 about my experience, and how disappointed I was — both with the hotel having bed bugs and with their service — and never received any sort of reply.
2024 Update #2: Also, I talked to a person who checked me into another hotel, and they said (a) they’ve never had bed bugs, and (b) if they ever did, they would give customers a full refund. (The Sage Hotel would not give me a full refund.)
Sage Hotel bed bug images
This first photo is from the bed bug I killed. I woke up, saw something moving in the bed, pressed it with my finger, it popped, and left this blood stain:
The bed bug itself was still there, I just didn’t see it right away because I was mostly still asleep:
Here’s a larger image of the bed bug:
After I realized what was going on, I jumped out of bed, began looking around, and found more bed bugs. Here’s another one that I picked up with some tweezers, placed in a bag, and gave to the person at the checkout desk:
As you might imagine, I was awake the rest of the morning.
With my lack of sleep, I decided to walk over to the Whole Foods at 7 a.m., and bought some garbage bags for my things. Then I thought, “What the hell am I doing?”, and I left all my clothes, suitcases, jackets, and other belongings in the hotel room at the Sage Hotel. I knew that was going to cost me $500 to $1,000 or more, but I thought that would be better than taking the chance of bringing any bed bugs home with me.
I could write a heck of a lot more about this, but one summary is that if you think the Sage Hotel in Santa Fe is inexpensive, just imagine leaving all of your favorite clothes in the hotel when you find that it has bed bugs. Or worse than that, imagine not knowing that the hotel has bed bugs, and then you bring them home with you and they infect your home.
As a final note, here’s the invoice/receipt from the The Sage Hotel where they acknowledge that I left because I found these bed bugs in their hotel:
I’ve stayed in hotels for almost two years of my life, and I’ve never run into bed bugs before, so as you can imagine, I won’t ever stay at the Sage Hotel again, and I certainly can’t recommend it to anyone else.
Bed bug PTSD
On a personal note, once you’ve stayed in a hotel that has bed bugs, you’ll never feel safe traveling again. I had to stay in a different hotel recently while traveling, and after inspecting the bed and pillows thoroughly, I slept with all the covers off the bed, the heat on very high, and the lights on. I obviously don’t want to compare this to the PTSD that other people have to go through, but it is like a form of post-traumatic stress in that you’ll never feel safe again.
Much better hotels in Santa Fe
Since I’ll never stay at the Sage Hotel again, here are places where you can find recommendations for the best hotels in Santa Fe, New Mexico:
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