Doctor Warns Why You Should Never Unpack Your Suitcase Right After A Trip

There seem to be two types of people out there, the ones who unpack their suitcases immediately upon returning home from a trip, and the ones who forget about the suitcase and everything inside of it for weeks until finally emptying it, sometimes only so they can use it for another trip. Well a doctor is saying there is actually a right way to do it and surprisingly, it involves keeping the suitcase closed for many days after returning home.

Dr. Jason Singh posted a TikTok video warning that immediately unpacking can actually be harmful to your health. He explained that if you are coming back from a trip, especially one where you stayed in a hotel, you may have picked up bed bugs. Those gross creatures can lay eggs in your clothes or on your belongings that will hatch and invade your house if they get into it. However, if you keep your suitcase closed for a couple of weeks, they will wind up dying before you unpack since, according to the doctor, they "require a blood meal after hatching in order to continue their development." He ended the video stating, "So now you have a reason to be lazy, just like me, and just let your suitcase hang there in the side."

Commenters were pretty pleased with the post, writing things like, "So me procrastinating is doctor-approved. Perfect!" and, "Thank God. It takes me ages to muster up the energy to unpack." Others disagreed with the method, with one asking, "Who has two extra weeks of clothes that they don't need when they get back from holiday? Or am I just a peasant and only have a week or two of clothes in total?"

If you do unpack immediately, an entomologist suggested to Travel and Leisure that you throw the clothes immediately into the dryer, noting, "You wash them after you dry them, but the high heat will kill the life stages. The water isn't hot enough to kill them, so they could survive a washing."

In fact, that's not all he said, he continuted, "You're going to remove all the clothing from the suitcase [and] all the clothing that you're currently wearing, and you're going to place that in the dryer on high for about 30 minutes. If you have some items that can't go in a dryer that need to be dry cleaned, you would bag them up and take them to the dry cleaner. You're going to then look at your luggage [and] inspect your luggage. If you suspect that there's bed bugs in the luggage, you're going to have that professionally treated."