Bedbug Control Orpington

Why the Room Count Matters Most

The price of a treatment follows the number of rooms, and so does the chance of it working. Treat too few and they carry on in the room that was missed. Treat every room in a five-bedroom house when only one bed is affected and you have spent money on rooms that never had a problem.

So the useful thing is to find out where they actually are before anyone decides.

How They Spread Through a Family House

In a house with children the usual route is people, not walls. A child who wakes up and climbs into a parent's bed, a teenager who sleeps on the sofa after a film, a sleepover, a shared bag of washing carried from room to room. Each of those can move a few bugs into a new bed.

That is why the sofa in the lounge is often on the list, and the spare room often is not. The rooms people sleep or nap in are the ones to check, along with anywhere a second-hand bed or sofa arrived recently. The guide to second-hand furniture covers what to look at.

Working Out Which Rooms to Treat

1. Inspection. We go through every bedroom and anywhere people sleep, looking at seams, frame joints, headboards and skirtings, and note which rooms show activity.
2. A room list. Rooms with signs are treated. Rooms next to them, or used by the same people, are discussed with you rather than added automatically.
3. A price. Based on that list, for heat or chemical, given before anything is booked.

Inspections start from £120. On a job like this they pay for themselves by keeping the room count honest. What happens during an inspection explains the visit.

Whole House Versus Room by Room

Room by room suits a problem that is still contained: one or two beds, clear rooms either side. Chemical is often the right tool there, with the follow-up visits about 10–14 days apart and bedding hot-washed in every treated room.

Treating the whole house makes sense when the inspection finds them in several rooms, or when people in the house move between beds so much that a clean room will not stay clean. Heat does this in fewer visits and kills the eggs, but the house needs clearing of heat-sensitive items and everyone, pets included, is out for the day. It costs more than chemical. The wider question for larger homes is on the Bromley borough page.

Whichever you choose, do not start moving beds between rooms to get ahead of it. Leave the furniture where it is, keep everyone sleeping where they normally sleep, and let the treatment come to them. A mattress should stay in the house unless we say otherwise, because carrying it down a staircase and out through the hall is a good way to drop bugs in every room it passes.

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