Bedbug Control Becontree

Can Bedbugs Get Through a Party Wall?

A solid brick party wall is not something a bedbug walks through. What it can use are the gaps around it: the space where floor joists sit in the wall, the voids behind skirting boards, loose plaster around a pipe, a shared loft that runs along the terrace. Houses that have been rewired or had heating put in over the decades often have more of those gaps than they started with.

Movement is slow and usually happens when numbers are high or when a household has been using sprays that drive bugs away from the bed. A light problem in one bedroom rarely reaches next door.

Signs the Neighbours May Have It Too

You cannot see into next door, but the pattern in your own house gives clues.

• The heaviest signs are on the party-wall side of the room, along the skirting or around a socket, rather than in the bed.
• You treated, or had it treated, and it came back from the wall side after a quiet spell.
• Nobody in your house has travelled, had guests or brought in second-hand furniture.
• Your neighbour has mentioned bites, or has had a mattress out on the pavement.
• The bedroom backs on to the neighbour’s bedroom through the same wall.

None of these proves anything on its own. Together they are worth taking seriously, because treating your house alone while the house next door carries on will not hold.

How to Raise It With Next Door

This is the awkward part, and it is best done early and plainly. Nobody likes being told they might have bedbugs, so keep it about the building rather than about them: you have found them, you are getting it treated, and you wanted them to know in case they notice anything, because the houses share a wall.

If either house is rented from the council or a housing association, report it in writing to the landlord and say that the neighbouring property may be involved. The landlord may arrange for both to be looked at. Our guide to reporting bedbugs to a council or housing association sets out what to put in writing. Who arranges and pays depends on the tenancy and the cause, and we are not legal advisers.

Treating a Terrace When Next Door Is Unknown

If your neighbours are not treated, or you do not know, we plan for it. With chemical treatment we pay close attention to the party-wall skirting, joist ends and pipe entries, because the residue there keeps working after we leave. That is part of why chemical, at one to two hours a visit and two or three visits, can suit a terrace.

With heat, the room is raised to a temperature bedbugs cannot survive and checked with a thermal camera; it kills eggs and usually needs one visit. Because it leaves nothing behind, in a terrace where next door is unknown we may put a light residual along the shared wall as well. Treatments start at £220, and the where we treat guide shows the edges that matter.

If it is both houses, treating them in the same week is far better than a month apart.

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