For hotels, bedbugs are bad enough; now social media adds to irritation

New York

THE worst hotel experiences can be caused by an insect smaller than a fingernail clipping.

Take the New Jersey physician who was working in a New York hotel room during a business trip in January when he noticed a bug on his arm. An inspection turned up about 30 more in the room, he said. The doctor had discovered the scourge of the hotel: bedbugs.

"It turned me into a complete paranoid hotel dweller," said the physician, who travels nearly weekly for work and did not want to be named because of the stigma attached to the insect. "I wake up in the night thinking every little itch is a bedbug."

The tiny, biting bugs are causing headaches for hotel owners who not only have to figure out how …