Dear mary

Q. I was staying recently with a very old girlfriend and her mother at her mother’s house in the country in England and was given my old girlfriend’s bedroom for the weekend on the upper attic floor. I suspect that the room had not been used for a long time. The house is not centrally heated and is rather musty. I came away from a wonderful weekend very badly bitten by bedbugs and the bites are still causing me discomfort three weeks later. What should I do? Should I tell her so she can throw away the old mattress and fumigate the room and prevent any other guests from suffering similarly? Will she take offence?

— A.L., Chile

A Since bedbugs can hide in luggage and aeroplane seats, their renaissance is linked to international travel, expensive hotels and glamour rather than Dickensian squalor, so no victim of infestation need feel shame.