Passengers besieged by bedbugs during journey on Starmart Express coach bus

Passenger take to Facebook to complain about bed bug infested coach, leading to passengers being bitten and suffering from itch throughout the whole journey.

Claiming that Starmart Express had deleted her earlier post on their website about her complaint, Hannah Zekie posted on her Facebook account about her unpleasant returning journey from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore on a Starmart Express coach bus on Boxing Day evening (26 December), where she, along with every other passenger in the bus, were being bitten by bed bugs.

She wrote that she alone caught more than 10 bugs during her journey and by end of the bus journey, her whole body felt very itchy and also noted that the passengers on bus AJB15 with her were also suffering from itchiness since 4pm til 1am.

She wrote, “I would like to state my utter disappointment on this unpleasant journey that causes me mentally and physically exhausted after enduring the long hours of buds biting.”

“I am demanding for my TOTAL fare and medical expenses refund,” she ended.

The bus company then later wrote a post regarding this issue on its Facebook page, saying that all the affected passengers of that particular bus may go to their nearest branch.

“We try to help out what we can do, we regret the incident and are sorry for any inconvenience caused,” it wrote.

The post also said that AJB 15 has been grounded and sent for chemical wash until the bedbug problem is resolved.

No denial of the deletion of Ms Hannah’s initial comment was made by the company.

The post by Ms Hannah which went viral, attracted comments from netizens who said that they had the same experience with Ms Hannah.

Jolene Tan wrote, “Not only this bus got bedbugs!!! I got bitten on your other bus too!! Please send all your buses for chemical wash!!”

Some other passengers also complained that their bus was infested by cockroaches and that the driver paid no attention to hygiene.

Michelle Sook Wai wrote, “My bus was infested with cockroaches. How you going to address this?”

Another passenger, Jaden Ng, also wrote, “I think you guys should do a chemical wash on every bus because I’ve encountered the same experience on a different bus. I’ve seen cockroaches crawling around the drive and passenger seat. The drivers do not have basic hygiene because they just leave their food and litter laying around. Please do something about this and pay more attention to the hygiene of your buses”

Zi Hao Sam wrote, ” I always thought that seeing cockroaches (sometimes whole family come out to greet me) in StarMart coach is normal scene (especially back row near emergency door), now they have bedbugs as trip companion~ looking forward to seeing snake on the bus, too bad they are major player in the market, and coach companies usually joint venture.”

While, Joleen Wee, said that she was being bitten by red ants. “Starmart again. My husband & I suffered from red ants bite the whole journey from Melaka to Singapore early this month,” she wrote.