Bedbug Control Kentish Town

Upstairs, Downstairs and the Stairs Between

In most maisonettes the bedrooms are on one floor and the living room and kitchen on the other. Bedbugs start where people sleep, so the bedroom floor is nearly always the first to have them. The question is whether they have reached the other level yet.

They get there in two ways. Some walk, along skirtings and down the stair carpet. Many more are carried: a duvet taken down to the sofa, a laundry basket filled in the bedroom and emptied by the washing machine, a bag of clothes left at the foot of the stairs. How far and how quickly they move on foot is set out in do bedbugs fly or jump.

Checking Both Levels

Before you ring, spend a few minutes on each floor with a torch:

• Mattress seams, the bed frame joints and the headboard on the sleeping floor
• The edges of the stair carpet and the gap where each tread meets the wall
• The banister base and any skirting running up beside the stairs
• The sofa on the living floor, especially if anyone has napped or slept on it
• The spot where laundry or bags are usually put down

Dark spotting, pale cast skins and live insects are what count. If you find something on one level and nothing on the other, say so when you call. An inspection from £120 can confirm which floors need treating before you pay for both.

How Each Treatment Handles Two Floors

With heat, each level is brought up to a temperature bedbugs cannot survive and held there. Warm air climbs the stairwell, so the upper floor tends to get there first and the lower floor and the bottom steps lag. We place equipment on both levels and use the thermal camera on the stair treads, under the first step and along the lower skirtings until they catch up. It is usually one visit and most of a day, and it costs more than chemical.

With chemical, a residual insecticide goes into the bed frames, mattress seams and skirtings on the affected floor, and along the edges of the stairs. It does not reliably kill eggs, so the course is normally two, sometimes three visits about 10–14 days apart. If the living floor shows no signs, it may only need its edges treated rather than a full clear-out.

Getting the Maisonette Ready

Strip and hot-wash the bedding on the sleeping floor and bag it before it goes down the stairs. Clear the stairs of a Kentish Town maisonette completely: shoes, boxes and anything stored on the treads. For chemical, clear the floors along the walls on the treated level. For heat, we send a list of what must come out first, such as aerosols, candles, medication and some electronics, and pets need to be out for the day.

A lot of maisonettes in Kentish Town sit inside a divided Victorian or Edwardian house, with another flat above or below. If that is yours, a light residual at the shared edges after heat is often worth adding. The Camden page covers treating a flat inside a house other people share.

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