Can You Bring Bedbugs Home From the Office in City of London?

How Likely It Really Is

Bedbugs do not jump or fly, and they do not stay on skin. To reach your home one has to crawl into something you carry, such as a bag left on a fabric chair or a coat hung against others, and then crawl out again somewhere it can hide near a bed. That can happen, but it is a chain of chances rather than a certainty.

Offices are poor places for bedbugs to breed, because nobody lies still at a desk for hours. When one is found at work, it was usually carried in from someone's home. Our London guide on whether bedbugs spread through offices explains why, from the building's point of view.

Your Coat and Bag Tonight

1. Before you go in, put your work bag on a hard floor in the hall or kitchen, not on the bed or sofa.
2. Empty it there and look along the seams, the base and any inside pockets with a torch.
3. Put the coat, and anything fabric from the bag, through a hot tumble dryer cycle if the labels allow it.
4. Wipe or vacuum a leather or hard bag along its seams, then empty the vacuum outside.
5. Keep the bag off soft furniture at home for the next few weeks.

The dryer does more than the washing machine for this, because it is the heat that matters. A coat that cannot go in the dryer can be checked by hand along the collar, cuffs and lining seams and then hung apart from the others.

Habits at Work Until It Is Sorted

The building will be dealing with its side. Your part is small and it is mostly about where things are put down.

• Keep your bag on the hard floor or on a hook, not on a fabric chair or a sofa in a break-out area.
• Use a locker if there is one, or keep your coat on the back of your own chair rather than on a crowded rail.
• If you spot an insect, catch it in a jar or on tape and hand it to facilities rather than squashing it.
• Carry gym kit in a sealed bag and wash it hot when you get home.

Coats on shared rails have their own guide: can bedbugs live in coats and cloakrooms.

When to Start Worrying

Worry when you find evidence at home, not before. That means a live insect, dark spotting along the mattress seam or the bed frame, or pale shed skins. Bites alone are a poor guide, because some people never react and plenty of other things cause itchy marks.

If a few weeks pass and you have found nothing, the odds are strongly that nothing came home. If you do find something, keep sleeping in your own bed, do not buy a shop spray, and ring 0800 955 1018. An inspection from £120 tells you whether treatment is needed at all, and the City of London page sets out the options if it is.

If the Problem Might Be Yours

Sometimes the person reading the office email has been getting bites for a while. That is nobody's fault; bedbugs travel with luggage and furniture and have nothing to do with how clean a home is. Getting your home treated is the thing that actually ends the problem at work too. Many employers would rather know and help than have it keep coming back, and our London guide on bedbugs in the workplace describes how that tends to go.

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