James and Natasha Hinchley were woken by the beasties sucking their blood.

Mr Hinchley said: "It was like something out of a horror movie."

The couple, who live in Glencoe, had come to the Highland capital for a romantic night away.

But the creepy-crawlies put paid to their peaceful night's sleep at Ardgowan guest house in Fairfield Road.

Mr Hinchley said: "We had just been asleep for about an hour when my wife woke me up to say she felt something crawling all over her.

"I thought she must be dreaming at first but when we pulled the sheets back there were little black creatures all over the bed."

He added: "My wife fetched some toilet paper and tried to get one but she squeezed too hard and it was full of blood, probably our blood that it had been feeding on.

"We couldn't go back to sleep so we went on a hunt and found that the padded headboard was full of them. We knew they'd been there for a long time as the wood had lots of their droppings on it."

After putting their clothes in the shower to avoid being infested with the bugs, the couple spent a sleepless night sitting up in chairs.

Mr Hinchley said: "We would have left immediately but I'd had a few drinks on our night out so I couldn't drive."

Natasha and Jim - disgusted by the bugs in their bed at Ardgowan guest house in Fairfield Road (right).

And in the morning they left without breakfast, with a £20 refund from the £56 they had paid up-front the previous day.

They have since made a complaint to environmental health officers and sent off a bottle containing a few of the bugs they caught for analysis.

Ardgowan proprietor Margaret Shields said she was shocked by the appearance of the beasties and had called in pest control immediately.

She said: "I didn't see the bugs myself but the pest control man said they might only come out at night. And they might be like midges and only bite certain people."

Mrs Shields added: "I don't know where they came from but they could have arrived in with other guests' luggage."

According to Inverness pest control expert Keith Potts, bed bugs are a common problem in hotels and B&Bs.

He said: "This is a huge problem, big scale, and it has been for the past 10-12 years. People don't talk about it, that's why you don't hear much about them. They're very difficult to get rid of unless you have the proper chemicals.

"They can shut themselves down and they can lie dormant for up to one year. If a hotel shuts down for the winter they can live their quite happily and then become active once a warm body gets into the bed."

Mr Potts said there was a general belief that the bed bug problem was being exacerbated because so many people were travelling nowadays and bringing bugs from country to country.

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