Do Bedbugs Live in Carpets in Bexley?

People who find bedbugs often look at the bedroom carpet and imagine it full of them, like fleas. Bedbugs are not built for that. They are flat insects that like tight, dry cracks with something solid either side, and the open pile of a carpet does not give them much.

The Middle of the Floor

A bedbug crossing a carpet is travelling, not living there. It is on its way from a hiding place to the bed or back again. You might see one on the carpet at night, and a heavy problem can spill out onto the floor near the bed, but the middle of the room is rarely where they settle.

So there is no need to rip up a carpet because you found bedbugs. Doing so costs money, disturbs the room and, if the old carpet is dragged through the house, can scatter what was in it.

The Edges and the Gripper Rod

The edge of the room is different. Along each wall, the carpet is stretched over a gripper rod, a strip of wood with pins, nailed down just in from the skirting. The carpet is tucked into the gap between the rod and the wall. That leaves a narrow, dark, undisturbed channel running round the room, which is just the kind of place a bedbug likes.

The stretch nearest the bed matters most, particularly behind the headboard, along the wall the bed is pushed against and under any furniture that stands against the skirting. In older houses with gappy skirting, the space behind the board can join up with the channel. The Belvedere page covers floorboards and skirtings in Victorian construction.

What Vacuuming Does and Does Not Do

Vacuuming is worth doing. A crevice nozzle run hard along the carpet edge, the skirting and the bed frame picks up bugs, shed skins and some eggs. Empty the vacuum straight away, outside, into a sealed bag.

It does not reach everything. Eggs are glued in place and many stay put, and a vacuum cannot get down behind the gripper rod or into the frame joints. Vacuuming reduces the numbers; it does not end the problem. Do not use a carpet shampooer or steam the edges with a domestic steamer thinking it will; it rarely gets hot enough deep enough, and it can push them further in.

What Treatment Does at the Edges

With chemical treatment, the carpet edges and skirtings are one of the places the residual insecticide goes, along with seams, frames and joints. That is why we ask you to clear the floor, especially along the walls, before a visit. Treatment usually takes two visits, sometimes three, because the eggs are not reliably killed. The chemical treatment page covers the visits.

With heat, the whole room is brought up to a temperature bedbugs cannot survive, and a thermal camera is used to find cold spots. Floor edges under heavy furniture and along outside walls are typical cold spots, and they are checked until they come up. In a house joined to a neighbour, a light residual may go along the edges after heat. See the heat treatment page for the day itself.

Preparing a Carpeted Room

• Clear everything off the floor, including the strip along each wall.
• Leave furniture where it stands so we can treat behind and under it.
• Vacuum the edges beforehand and empty the vacuum outside.
• Do not lift the carpet or take up gripper rods yourself.
• If you are having heat, follow the removal list for heat-sensitive items.

If you are not sure whether what you found is a bedbug at all, the inspections page explains how we confirm it.

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