Report It Straight Away, in Writing
Go to reception or use the hall's maintenance system, and follow up with an email so there is a record. Put in:
- Your room number and the date you first noticed anything
- What you found: bites, spotting on the sheets, a live insect, shed skins
- Photos of the mattress seams or the insect, as clear as you can get them
- Whether you have stayed anywhere else recently, such as a hostel or a friend’s room
If you can catch one, put it on clear tape or in a sealed bag. That is often enough for hall staff to act without waiting for an inspection. Many rooms in Bloomsbury halls share corridors and service runs, so reporting early helps the people next door too.
While You Wait for the Hall to Act
- Keep sleeping in your own room. Moving onto a friend’s floor is the usual way bedbugs get from one room to the next.
- Bag your laundry in your room and keep it tied until it goes into the machine. Run it hot and dry it hot.
- Keep your bag and laptop off the bed and away from the floor by the bed.
- Do not carry the mattress out or swap it with an empty room. Let the hall decide what happens to it.
- Follow the hall’s instructions for getting the room ready, and be there, or leave access, on the day.
If they ask you to move rooms, take only things that have been washed and dried hot or checked, and leave the rest where it is until the treatment is done. Whether bedbugs get into laptops and chargers is answered in can bedbugs live in laptops and electronics.
What Treatment in a Hall Room Usually Looks Like
Halls normally treat your room and check the rooms either side, above and below. With a residual insecticide you will be asked to clear the floor and bag your bedding, and there is normally a follow-up about two weeks later. With heat, you will be asked to remove aerosols, medication and some electronics, and the room is usually done in a day. How halls and university accommodation deal with it across Camden is on our commercial page.
If Nothing Happens
Chase it in writing, and keep copies. If you are still getting bites after a treatment, report that too, with dates. Your student union or accommodation office can often help if a hall is slow to respond. We are pest controllers, not advisers on housing contracts, so we cannot say what a hall is obliged to do.
For the bites themselves, a pharmacist, your GP or the university health service can advise; call 999 for signs of a severe allergic reaction. If you live in a private flat in Bloomsbury rather than halls, you can ring us directly: treatments start from £220, and our Camden inspections start from £120.
Bedbug Control Bloomsbury — Questions
Can I just book my own pest controller for my hall room?
Tell the hall first. They manage the building and neighbouring rooms, and a treatment in one room without checking the others often does not last.
Will I be charged for treatment in halls?
That depends on your accommodation contract and on the cause. Ask the hall in writing; we cannot advise on the contract.
Should I go home until it is sorted?
Taking your belongings home can take bedbugs with you. If you do go, take only items that have been hot-washed and dried or checked.
Is it my fault they are in my Bloomsbury room?
Bedbugs are carried in on belongings and have nothing to do with how clean a room is. Reporting it quickly is what matters.
How do I know it is bedbugs and not something else?
Look for dark spotting on mattress seams, pale shed skins and the insects themselves. Photos and a specimen help the hall decide.
Elsewhere in Camden
The other areas in the borough, each written around a different situation.
Bedbug Advice for Bloomsbury
Picked for this page: the guides that go further on what matters for Bloomsbury.
Student Accommodation and Halls
The academic calendar is a pest calendar. Build the inspection programme around it.
Read more →
Laptops and Electronics
Clock radios, routers, laptops and chargers by the bed, and how each treatment handles them.
Read more →
Theatres, Cinemas and Public Seating
What an upholstered seat can and cannot do, and the small habits with coats and bags that are worth keeping.
Read more →
The Early Signs, and the Timeline
Week one to month six. What is detectable when, and why 'early' is mostly invisible.
Read more →Bedbug Treatments in Camden
Every service has its own page for Camden: heat, chemical, hotels, commercial premises and inspections.
Covering Bloomsbury
Tell Us About the Property
If you rent a private flat rather than living in halls, tell us what you have found and we will explain the options.