The Tribune

By SANCHESKA DORSETT

Tribune Staff Reporter

sdorsett@tribunemedia.net

AN AMERICAN woman is suing the Atlantis Paradise Island Resort after she was allegedly bitten by a “colony of bed bugs” living in the mattress of a hotel bed.

According to a report broadcast by CBS Miami yesterday, Cindi Avila and her husband, Mike, came to the Bahamas last year “looking for a weekend in paradise at the Atlantis Paradise Island Resort,” but when they woke the following morning Mrs Avila was allegedly covered with bedbug bites.

“I really have never been in such pain in my life. I mean, these things are just swelling up all over my body,” Mrs Avila said in a video said to have been shot several days after she returned from The Bahamas. In the video, taken with the couple’s iPhone, Mrs Avila can be seen with at least a dozen red bug bites on her arms and neck.

In the video, dozens of little black bugs are also seen inside a mattress cover allegedly taken off the hotel bed. The couple said they stayed in the Royal Towers.

Mrs Avila was moved out of the room and the hotel provided compensation for the stay; however the couple told CBS Miami “hotel management seemed unconcerned at the time”.

In a statement, Atlantis said the resort offered to pay for Mrs Avila’s medical bills but the hotel claims the couple turned down the offer and instead attempted on three occasions to “extract a large financial settlement” from the property.

“Atlantis, Paradise Island has the utmost concern and respect for every guest experience. Included in our protocol are very strict standards of hotel hygiene and cleanliness. In the unusual event we are made aware of a concern, we respond immediately to the situation and take the appropriate steps to remediate the problem as we did with Ms Avila,” the statement said.

“When Ms Avila reported a concern about bedbugs in her room, the resort immediately took the room out of service, brought in the property’s professional pest company to eradicate the problem and provided compensation for her stay. The property had no prior complaints regarding Ms Avila’s room and has had no reports of bedbugs in the room in the more than one year since her stay.

“The resort offered to reimburse Ms Avila for any medical bills resulting from her experience, which she declined. Since that time, Ms Avila has repeatedly, and through three different attorneys, attempted to extract a large financial settlement from the resort and threatened intimidation in the media if her financial demands were not met.”

The statement continued: “Atlantis is dedicated to treating all guests fairly and handling claims professionally. We have engaged with Ms Avila directly and then her multiple prior attorneys continually over the year since this incident took place in an effort to resolve this matter. We regret that she has decided to take this course of action in a further effort to extract a large financial reward.”

Mrs Avila’s attorney, Michael Winkleman, told CBS Miami that he has handled a dozen hotel bedbug cases, but nothing as bad as Mrs Avila’s.

“When you check into a hotel, the Atlantis hotel that is really a five-star hotel, that comes with expectations, one of which is the sheets are going to be clean and you’re not going to be eaten alive by bedbugs,” Mr Winkleman said.

Mrs Avila said that, through her lawsuit, “she just wants the hotel to feel her pain, and to protect others.”

The couple also claimed they had to “burn all the clothing and the suitcases” they carried on the trip out of fear that the bed bugs - which are known to travel - may have returned with them.