Bedbug Heat Treatment Bexley

Why It Is Usually the Upstairs, Not One Bedroom

By the time most families ring, the bites are in more than one bed, or the child who was bitten has been climbing in with a parent. Heating one bedroom and leaving the one next door is a gamble in a house where everybody crosses the same landing every night. Where the signs are spread across the bedrooms, we quote for the floor as a whole.

If only one room is affected and it has been found early, heat may be more than you need. The chemical treatment page for Bexley covers that case, and the Bexleyheath page explains how bedbugs get from the first bedroom to the second.

What the equipment does, and why it kills the eggs, is set out on the London heat treatment page for the full explanation. Here we deal with the household side of it.

Planning the Day Around School and Work

Heat takes most of a day, so the easiest booking for a family is a weekday in term time, when the children would be out anyway. Tell us when you ring if you need the technician to arrive after the school run, and we will tell you honestly whether a slot allows for that.

1. The evening before: finish the removals from each bedroom (the list is below) and put the bags somewhere downstairs, not on the landing.
2. Morning: strip the beds, bag the bedding, and get the children off to school with everything they need for the day, including anything they would normally go home for at lunch.
3. When the technician arrives: walk them round every bedroom and point out where you have seen bites, spotting or live bugs. Then leave them the keys or a phone number.
4. During the day: stay out of the treated rooms. Most families go out altogether; we tell you on the phone which parts of the house need to be empty.
5. Afternoon: we ring when the rooms are cooling. Plan collection from school or a club so nobody comes home to an upstairs that is still hot.

If you work from home, do not plan a day at the kitchen table. You will be in the way of the machines, the cables and the rooms, and it is a long day to sit through.

What Comes Out of Each Bedroom

Heat does not care what a room is used for, but a teenager’s room and a nursery hold very different things. Go room by room, with the list we send you in hand, and look for:

• Aerosols: deodorant, hairspray, dry shampoo, air freshener, the can of spray paint a teenager has hidden under the bed.
• Candles and wax: scented candles, wax melts, crayons in a children’s art box.
• Medication: inhalers, creams and anything kept in a bedside drawer. Check the medicine a child has at school does not come back that day into a room that is still hot.
• Vinyl: records, and vinyl toys or inflatables that could soften or warp.
• Electronics: we tell you which ones, but think tablets, consoles, handheld games and rechargeable batteries in toys.
• Plants, including the one on a child’s windowsill from a school project.

What stays: beds, mattresses, wardrobes, drawers, clothes, soft toys, books and bedding once it is bagged. Leaving those in the room is the point, because that is where the bedbugs are. Do not carry the soft toys downstairs ‘to be safe’; that is how they end up in the lounge.

If you are unsure about one item, photograph it and ask us before the day rather than guessing.

Pets on the Day

Animals are out of the treated rooms for the whole time, and in a house where the whole upstairs is being heated, the practical answer is usually out of the house. A dog can go to a relative or a day kennel; a cat that normally has the run of the stairs needs shutting away elsewhere or taking out. Small animals in cages, fish tanks and birds kept upstairs need a conversation on the phone first, because they cannot simply be moved into the next room.

Tell us about every animal when you book. It changes how we plan the day, not whether we can do it.

Coming Home in the Evening

Once the rooms have cooled, they can be used again that night. Put the removed items back, remake the beds with the washed bedding, and let the children sleep where they normally do. There is no residue in the rooms from the heat itself.

In some houses, where there is a gap into a loft or an attached neighbour, we may put a light residual at the room edges. If we do, we tell you before we leave where it went and when the surfaces can be touched, and you follow that. For rooms added later, such as a loft bedroom, read the Blackfen page.

What It Costs for a House

Treatments start from £220. Heat costs more than chemical because of the equipment and the day on site, and a whole upstairs costs more than one bedroom. Ring 0800 955 1018, tell us how many bedrooms and which ones have signs, and you get the figure on the phone before anything is booked. If you are not certain it is bedbugs, inspections start from £120. The Bexley bedbug control page has the wider picture for a family house.

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