A tennis coach was forced to cut off her waist-length dreadlocks after finding bedbugs in her suburban Chicago hotel room, a lawsuit claims.
Donna Brumfield alleges she had to hack off the cherished mane she’d been growing for 13 years after the creepy critters set up home on her head.
She’s now suing Palatine Holiday Inn Express for negligence – and wants $50,000 in compensation.
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“If you know how long it takes to grow dreadlocks, you understand the trauma of losing my hair,” Brumfield, who’s in her 50s, told the Chicago Sun-Times.
“Harder to explain is the trauma affecting travel for me now. I travel a lot for work, and every time I stay at a hotel I just get filled with anxiety,” added the Homewood-Flossmoor High School coach.
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court.
In it, Brumfield claims that on the second day of her stay at the hotel in Oct. 2012 a manager said an inspection of her room was needed after the bloodsucking Cimex Lectularius insects were found next door.
Exterminators found the creatures in her headboard and she was moved to another room.
But by then the damage had already been done, she claims, saying that the telltale red welts left by the bugs’ feeding had already appeared on her body.
“At the time she went to the urgent care facility, the red bumps extended from her hands and arms to her shoulders and neck,” the suit alleged.
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“The physician was also concerned that the bed bugs might have gotten into Plaintiff’s hair, which she wore in a long, dreadlock style,” it adds.
Seven days later, Brumfield was forced to cut her locks.
The hotel has not commented on the suit, neither has chain owner InterContinental Hotels Group.