Why a House Is Different From a Flat
In a flat, everything sits on one floor and the question is usually what is coming through the walls from next door. In a house the question turns inward. You have a landing, a staircase, several bedrooms and a family moving between them all day, and every one of those movements is a chance for a bug to ride along.
Much of the borough is semi-detached and 1930s housing, with two or three bedrooms opening off a small landing. That layout is exactly what makes early action worth it. A problem caught in one bedroom is a one-room treatment. The same problem left for a couple of months can mean treating the whole upstairs.
Children who climb into a parent’s bed, a cot moved between rooms, a laundry basket carried from bedroom to bedroom, a spare duvet that does the rounds: none of these is careless, and all of them move bedbugs. Our guide on how fast bedbugs spread through a house explains the pattern in more detail.
Keeping It to One Bedroom
You cannot stop every bug moving on your own, but you can stop helping them. Until the room has been treated, the aim is to change as little as possible about where people sleep and how things move around the house.
- Keep sleeping in the affected bed. Bedbugs follow the person, and moving to another room usually takes them with you.
- Bag bedding from the affected room before you carry it downstairs, and put it straight into a hot wash.
- Do not move furniture out of the room, and do not drag the mattress along the landing to the tip.
- Stop swapping soft toys, blankets and pillows between the children’s rooms for now.
- Look at the beds in the other bedrooms: seams, the corners of the frame, the back of the headboard. Finding nothing is useful information too.
If the bedroom next door already shows signs, say so when you call, because it changes the treatment. The Bexleyheath page goes through the second and third bedroom question in full.
What Heat Treatment Asks of a Household
Heat takes one room, or several, up to a temperature bedbugs cannot survive and holds it there while a thermal camera checks for cold spots. It kills the eggs as well, so it is usually a single visit. For a family, the cost of heat is mostly one day of disruption.
- Everyone, pets included, is out of the rooms being treated for most of a day.
- Aerosols, candles, medication, vinyl, plants and some electronics come out of the room first; we send you the full list.
- Nothing is left behind once it cools, so bedtime that night is normal.
- It costs more than chemical, because of the equipment and the time on site.
Heat suits a house where more than one bedroom is involved, or where the family would rather have it done in one go than arrange a second visit. The heat treatment page describes the day hour by hour.
What Chemical Treatment Asks of a Household
Chemical treatment puts a residual insecticide into the seams, frames, skirtings and joints where bedbugs hide. It does not reliably kill eggs, so it is usually two visits, sometimes three, about 10 to 14 days apart. Each visit takes one to two hours, and you can use the room again once the surfaces are dry.
The work for the household is before each visit: strip the bed and hot-wash everything, clear the floor, and leave the furniture in place so it can be treated behind. With young children, that means planning where toys and clothes go for a few hours, twice. We tell you on the day what to do and when the room can be used; follow that.
It costs less, and for one contained bedroom it does the job well. The chemical treatment page covers the visits in detail.
The First Week, Day by Day
- Day one: catch a bug if you can, in a jar or on sticky tape, and photograph any spotting on the mattress seams.
- Ring 0800 955 1018. Tell us how many bedrooms, which ones show signs, and who sleeps where.
- If you are not sure it is bedbugs at all, book an inspection before paying for treatment.
- Keep everyone in their usual beds, and hot-wash bedding from the affected room.
- Once the date is set, prepare for the route you chose: the removal list for heat, stripping and clearing for chemical.
- After treatment, keep the bed where it is and report anything you see rather than reaching for a shop spray.
Two questions come up a lot at this stage. Whether to go and stay with family while it is sorted is answered in should you sleep somewhere else during treatment. If the bugs arrived with a guest, read when a visitor brings bedbugs into your home.
Where They Tend to Come From
In a house, bedbugs almost always arrive in something. Suitcases after a trip are the usual route, which is why unpacking after a holiday has its own guide. Second-hand furniture, a relative’s overnight bag and a teenager coming back from a stay somewhere are the others.
Carpet worries people too. The middle of a carpet is rarely the problem; the edges and the gripper rod along the skirting can be. See do bedbugs live in carpets before you start pulling anything up.
Areas We Cover in Bexley
The borough pages each take one kind of home or one situation. Sidcup covers the spare room nobody sleeps in, Welling the living room and sofa beds, Crayford moving house, Belvedere older Victorian construction, and Blackfen loft conversions and extensions. For flats, see Erith and Thamesmead.
Bedbug Control Across Bexley
Each area page takes one kind of home or one problem, so pick the one closest to yours.
Bedbug Advice for Bexley
Written up in full for people in the borough, and worth reading before the treatment day.
Unpacking After a Holiday
Where the suitcase goes, what gets washed first, and what to check before anything reaches a bedroom.
Read more →
Should You Sleep Somewhere Else?
Why leaving the bed usually spreads them, the few times it makes sense, and what to pack.
Read more →
When a Visitor Brings Bedbugs
A relative's stay, a guest's bag: how to raise it without a row, and how to treat the guest room.
Read more →
Do Bedbugs Live in Carpets?
Why the edge of the carpet matters and the middle mostly does not, and whether to pull it up.
Read more →
How Fast Do Bedbugs Spread?
How it grows in one room, how it reaches the next, and the everyday habits that speed it up.
Read more →Bedbug Control Bexley — Questions
How much does bedbug treatment cost?
Treatments start at £220 and inspections start at £120. The final figure depends on how many rooms are treated and whether it is heat or chemical, and we give it to you on the phone before anything is booked.
Only one bedroom has bites. Do you have to treat the whole house?
Not automatically. If the other bedrooms are clear, treating the one room is the normal job. We ask about the other beds when you call, and an inspection settles it if nobody is sure.
Can the children sleep in our bed until it is sorted?
It is better not to. Moving a child into another bed usually moves the bedbugs with them, and then two rooms need treating instead of one.
Should we throw the affected mattress away?
Not unless we advise it. Carrying it down the stairs and out through the house spreads them, and a new mattress in an untreated frame picks them straight back up.
Which treatment is better for a family with a toddler?
Neither is better in general. Heat means one day out of the house and no residue afterwards; chemical means shorter visits and the room back once dry. Tell us about the household and we will say which one fits, then follow the instructions given on the day.
Do bedbug bites need a doctor?
Bites vary, and some people do not react at all. For itching or a skin reaction, a pharmacist or GP can help. Call 999 if anyone shows signs of a severe allergic reaction.
We rent the house. Who pays?
That depends on the tenancy and on how the bedbugs arrived. Tell the landlord or agent in writing as soon as you find them. We are pest controllers, not legal advisers, but we can talk to whoever is arranging the work.
Bedbug Treatments in Bexley
Every service has its own page for Bexley: heat, chemical, hotels, commercial premises and inspections.
Covering Bexley
Tell Us About the Property
Tell us how many bedrooms you have and which ones show signs, and we will ring back with a price.