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Good night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite. The warning from a nursery rhyme is becoming all too real again. Bed bugs are back with a vengeance.

“I've only seen them once in my 35 years until the past 2 or 3 years,” said exterminator Charlie Church.  "Now, we get calls every two weeks, multiple calls.”

They hide in the cracks and crevices of mattresses, just waiting to make you their meal. They feed by sucking blood from humans or animals and can be mistaken for ticks or small cockroaches.

Bed bugs have increased by more than 50 percent along the East Coast and 71 percent nationwide. Much of the infestation is blamed on overseas travel to countries where the bug thrives.

Associated Press

Bed bug

"You and I could get on an airplane tomorrow and the bedbugs would be on our chair and we'd take them home with us," Church added.

Wayne Hilton of Va. Beach knows all too well the problems bed bugs create. "Inexplicable itching, scratching and not making a connection right away to what was going on," said Hilton.

He woke up in his hotel room in Philadelphia with red welts and an itchy, sore rash. "We tried to do our homework and check out the hotel, looking online at the rooms and what they look like," he added.

Va. Beach Health Department spokeswoman Valerie Thompson said bed bug reports are on the increase at the Oceanfront.

“We have beautiful hotels. It's a beautiful resort, so increase in travel is occurring and international travel increases are occurring, so people are bringing the bedbugs with them," she noted.

It's such a new problem health officials don't have any guidelines for tracking confirmed cases because bed bugs are not a "reportable issue."

In Virginia Beach, a unique hotel task force is tackling the problem. The team has a representative from fire department, codes and compliance and the health department.

It will begin its yearly inspection of the city's 2124 hotels and motels on January 8, 2007 and will be complete by the beginning of tourist season.

13News rented a number of hotel rooms in the area and had health inspector Courtney Coker check them for bed bugs. Armed with gloves and a flashlight, you could say she was going to the mattresses - literally.

Coker says there are many things you can do to protect yourself while on vacation.

13News

Health inspector Courtney Coker checks a hotel pillow for bed bugs.

First of all, leave your luggage at the door. Don't bring it in and put it on the bed or any furniture until you’ve checked it out.  She says biting bugs will jump on your luggage and you'll unknowingly carry the problem home with you.

To inspect the room, you must strip the bed, check the folds along the mattress edge, look behind the headboard and on the carpet and even on hangers in the closet.

Bed bugs like the dark, so that’s where they hide. "When bedbugs have been feeding and they're done, they can leave blood stains, which you may want to look for,” Coker hoted.

After that, you call housekeeping to remake the bed.

Health officials stress that you need to look for bed bugs even in high-priced, four and five star hotels because those guests usually do a lot of travel overseas.