Why It Is a Course and Not an Appointment
This is the single thing most people are not told before they pay, so it goes near the top of this page rather than buried in the small print: one chemical treatment does not finish a bedbug problem, and it is not supposed to.
The products kill bedbugs that touch them. They do not reliably kill eggs, which sit glued into cracks behind a protective coating. So on the first visit we deal with everything alive, and the eggs already laid carry on quietly. Ten days to a fortnight later they hatch, the young bedbugs go looking for a meal, they cross the residue we left, and that is what the second visit is there to confirm.
If somebody quotes you a single chemical visit and tells you that is the end of it, the second visit has not been removed from the job. It has been removed from the quote.
Where It Actually Goes
Bedbugs do not live in the open. A treatment that coats the visible surfaces of a room and stops there has missed almost all of them. The places that get treated, in roughly the order we work:
- Mattress seams, piping and the label pocket
- The divan base, including the underside and the corner vents
- Every joint in the bed frame, and the screw holes in it
- Behind and inside the headboard, particularly a buttoned one
- Bedside furniture, drawer runners and the backs of drawers
- Skirting boards and the carpet edge where it tucks under them
- Behind loose wallpaper, light switches and socket faceplates
- Any upholstered chair in the room, and curtain hems
What You Do Between the Visits
The gap between visits is where chemical treatments are usually lost, and almost always for the same three reasons.
Keep sleeping in the bed
This sounds wrong and it is the most important thing on the page. Bedbugs go where the sleeper is. Move to the sofa and you take the problem into the living room, where there is no residue waiting. The treated bed is now the safest place in the property, not the most dangerous one.
Do not use shop-bought sprays
Consumer aerosols are repellents as much as insecticides. Spraying them over a professional residue pushes bedbugs out of the harbourages we treated and into the wall voids, where nothing we have left can reach them.
Do not deep-clean the treated surfaces
Washing skirtings and shampooing carpets removes the residue that is doing the work. Hoovering the floor is fine and helpful. Scrubbing the places we treated undoes the visit you paid for.
When We Would Tell You to Use Heat Instead
If it has already reached a second room, if the property is an HMO or a flat where people and furniture move about, if there have been two chemical attempts that did not hold, or if you simply cannot give the process three weeks — heat is the honest answer, and we will say so even though this page is the cheaper service.
Bedbug Chemical Treatment London — Questions
How many visits will it take?
Two in most properties, occasionally three where it has been going on a long time or the room is heavily furnished. They sit about ten days to a fortnight apart, which is the hatching window we are working to.
Can I sleep in the room the same night?
Yes, once the treated surfaces are dry — usually a few hours. You should sleep in the bed rather than avoid it.
Is it safe around children and pets?
The products are applied by trained technicians to harbourages rather than sprayed around a room, and everyone stays out until surfaces are dry. Tell us before the visit if anyone in the property is pregnant, has a respiratory condition, or if there is a fish tank or a caged bird, and we will work round it.
Do I have to empty the room?
No. Strip and hot-wash the bedding, bag it, and clear clutter off the floor. Leave the furniture where it is — we need to get behind it, and moving it across the property is how bedbugs reach the next room.
Why did I still see one after the first visit?
Because that is what is meant to happen. Seeing the occasional bedbug in the first fortnight is the treatment working through the population, not a sign it has failed. Seeing them in numbers after the second visit is a different matter, and you should ring us.
Chemical Treatment — Questions Answered in Full
Written up in full — how each one works, what it costs you and how it goes wrong.
How Professional Chemical Treatment Works
What is actually in a professional treatment, and why it is not the tin from the hardware shop.
Read more →
How Many Treatments Does It Take?
The bedbug life cycle sets the number, not the pest controller. Here is the timetable.
Read more →
What Happens After the Treatment
Day one to week six, what you will actually see, and when to stop worrying.
Read more →
Why Bedbugs Reappear After Treatment
Hatching, survival or re-introduction. Three different problems that look identical.
Read more →
Where Pest Controllers Actually Treat
Why bedbugs choose the places they do, and the places we deliberately leave alone.
Read more →Bedbug Control Across London
Every service runs on the same two treatment routes and covers all 33 boroughs. Start at the bedbug control London page if you are not sure which one you need.
Tell Us About the Property
Tell us how many rooms are affected and how long it has been going on, and we will price the course rather than the visit.