Bedbug Heat Treatment Camden

Your Flat Is Part of a Building That Was One House

When a house is split into flats, the walls between them are often the original internal walls, and the floors are the original joists with boards on top. Pipes, cables and old chimney breasts still run from the ground floor to the top. None of that is a fault. It simply means that the boundary of your flat is not sealed the way a purpose-built block might be.

Heat deals very well with what is inside your rooms: the bed, the frame, the sofa, the wardrobe and the clothes in it, eggs included. The explanation of how the equipment works, and what has to come out of each room first, is on the London heat treatment page for the full explanation. Here we cover what is different when the flat is one slice of an old house.

Getting the Kit Up the Stairs

The machines, fans and cables have to come in through the shared front door and up the communal stairs. In a narrow period hallway that takes a few trips, and for a while the stairs are partly in use by us. It helps a great deal if you:

• tell us which floor you are on and whether the stairs turn or narrow near the top;
• let the other flats know the day before that equipment will be carried through the hall that morning;
• clear bikes, buggies and post off the stairs and landing if they belong to you, and ask others to do the same for an hour or so;
• tell us where your fuse board is, and whether it sits inside your flat or in a shared cupboard.

Nothing is heated in the common parts. The shared hall and stairs are not part of your flat, and we do not treat them unless the person responsible for the building has asked us to.

The Flats Above, Below and Beside You

Bedbugs do not fly or jump, but they walk well, and in an old house they can move along pipe runs, under skirtings and through gaps around floorboards. If you want to understand how far they travel, Do bedbugs fly or jump? covers it. The practical question on a heat day is who else needs to know.

You do not have to tell the neighbours anything you are not comfortable with. It is still worth a short note to the flats nearest your bedroom saying you are having bedbug treatment and suggesting they look at their own mattress seams and bed frames. People who know to look catch it early.

If you rent, report the problem to your landlord or managing agent in writing. Who arranges and pays for treatment depends on your tenancy and on how the bedbugs arrived, and we are pest controllers, not legal advisers. Where another flat will not take part, the King’s Cross page deals with that situation.

The Edges: Where Heat Stops and Residual Starts

Heat treats what is in the room and leaves nothing behind once the room cools. In a detached house that is usually the end of it. In a divided house, the edges of your flat are shared, so we look at them separately: skirtings on party walls, gaps where pipes pass through the floor, the hearth of a blocked-up fireplace, and the threshold of your front door.

Where there is a way through to another flat, a light residual insecticide may be put along those edges after the heat. It is there for any bug that walks in later from next door. The technician tells you where it has gone and when those surfaces can be touched, and you follow the instructions given on the day.

Your Rooms on the Day

A flat in a converted house is often one bedroom, a living room and a kitchen, sometimes with a bed in the living room too. We normally heat every room where anyone sleeps or sits for long, rather than picking one, because in a small flat the distances are short. The kitchen and bathroom are discussed on the phone.

You and any pets are out for most of the day. Once the rooms have cooled, you can go back in and sleep there that night. If you share the flat, everyone’s room is part of the booking; the chemical treatment page for Camden covers flatmates on a course of visits, if heat is not the route you choose. Split-level flats have their own page: Kentish Town. Lower-ground flats are covered on the Hampstead page.

What It Costs

Treatments start from £220. Heat costs more than chemical, and the figure depends on how many rooms are treated. Ring 0800 955 1018 with your floor, your room count and anything awkward about the stairs, and we give you the price on the phone before anything is booked. The Camden bedbug control page has the wider picture.

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