Bedbugs in Theatres, Cinemas and Public Seating: Camden

Stories about bedbugs in cinema and train seats turn up in the news every so often, and they leave people nervous of going out. It helps to understand what bedbugs need, because that tells you how much a seat in a theatre or a music venue really matters.

Why a Seat Is Not a Bed

Bedbugs build up where the same person sleeps in the same place night after night. They hide within a short walk of that host, feed while the host is still for hours, and breed there. A seat that different people use for a couple of hours, with the lights up in between, does not suit that way of living.

That does not make it impossible. A bug that came in on someone’s coat or bag can end up in the fold of an upholstered seat, and it can climb onto the next thing that is put down there. What it cannot easily do is set up home in the seat itself.

What Actually Carries Them Home

If a bedbug leaves a venue with you, it is far more likely to be in something you carried than on your clothes. A bag on the floor under the seat, a coat folded on the empty seat next to you and a rucksack pushed against the upholstery all give it somewhere dark to tuck into.

What Is Worth Doing

• Keep your bag on your lap or on a hard floor, rather than pushed into the upholstery.
• Keep your coat on or on your lap, rather than folded on a spare seat.
• If you see a small brown insect or dark spotting on a seat, move and tell the staff.
• On a long trip, such as an overnight coach, treat the seat more like a bed and check your things when you arrive.

What is not worth doing is spraying yourself or your clothes, or giving up on evenings out. The same habits cover a café sofa, a waiting room or the seats on a train.

What to Do When You Get Home

For an ordinary night out, nothing special. Hang the coat up, put the bag on a hook or a hard floor rather than the bed, and carry on. If you saw something at the venue, put the coat through a hot tumble dryer cycle if the fabric allows it, and look over the bag in good light before it goes near a bedroom.

If you then find bites or signs at home, the seat is only one possibility among many. The early signs of bedbugs guide helps you tell, and our note on how bedbugs move explains why a single bug on a coat is not the same thing as an infestation.

For People Who Run Venues

If you manage seating in a venue, office or waiting area and have had a report, the commercial treatment page for the borough covers how we approach it, and an inspection from £120 tells you whether there is anything there before you tell staff or the public.

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