by Adam Williams

awilliams@thekmgroup.co.uk

Two sisters bitten by bedbugs 130 times at a London hotel have been awarded damages in an out-of-court settlement.

Melanie Carmen, from Seasalter, near Whitstable and her younger sister Joy McDonagh, from Sidcup, received £1,600 each to cover medical costs and lost earnings after learning their room was known to have an infestation.

Since the pair’s stay at the Airways Hotel in Victoria last February, travel website TripAdvisor has been flooded with 'poor’ or 'terrible’ reviews from fellow guests.

Melanie, 59, from Allan Road, and Joy, 51, took the trip to celebrate Joy’s 50th birthday. Four months later, both were still recovering from three extremely uncomfortable nights sleep.

Melanie’s husband Leslie had booked the room at the two-star hotel after finding a good deal on the internet. But when the sisters arrived, little did they know about the discomfort and irritation to come.

Both were left covered in head to toe in bedbug bites, Melanie was bitten 86 times, Joy 52 times.

Melanie said: “We hesitated at first to stay there, but although the curtains were a bit grubby, the linen in the room looked clean.

“It wasn’t until the following morning I woke up and thought I’d picked up a rash from something. After going to the cinema the next night, the irritation increased and started spreading to my arms.

“Joy had the same thing and that’s when we asked to move rooms. I showed the reception staff the state of my neck and arms and they told me we should’ve have spoken up after our first night there.

“We ended up with a room on a higher floor. There were newspapers under the beds that were three weeks old, so it was clear to see nobody had swept there and then Joy actually found a bedbug on the pillow.”

Travel law specialists Irwin Mitchell represented the sisters after Joy realised she could claim for personal injury on her home insurance.

A spokesman for the hotel’s management said: “It’s very unfortunate what happened to these two ladies, but we have no way of being able to trace exactly where these infestations came from. This incident happened 18 months ago and very often we have a fully booked hotel.

“Experts say there are 20,000 cases of bedbugs in hotels across the UK every year, that’s five-star hotels included, so we’re not immune to the problem.

“We have a full-time contract with a pest control company and when problems are reported they come in immediately to deal with any issues.”

See more pictures and reaction in this week's Whitstable Gazette.