Bedbug Chemical Treatment Croydon

Before the First Visit: Book the Series, Not the Day

When you ring, book the first visit with the second already in mind. It falls roughly ten to fourteen days later, and the whole flat has to be ready again by then. If you know you are away, on nights or moving shifts in a fortnight, say so at the start so the dates fit your life rather than clash with it.

The way the insecticide works and why one visit is not enough is on the London chemical treatment page for the full explanation. What follows is the flat’s side of the schedule.

If you rent, tell the landlord or the agent in writing before the first visit, and keep a copy. Who arranges and pays depends on the tenancy and on how the bedbugs arrived; the Croydon Town Centre page covers dealing with an agent rather than a landlord.

Getting a Small Flat Ready

Preparation in a flat is harder than in a house for one reason: there is nowhere else to put things. The instinct is to pile everything from the bedroom into the living room. Resist it. Whatever leaves the bedroom unbagged takes the problem with it.

• Strip every bed and hot-wash the bedding. Carry it to the machine in a sealed bag.
• Clear the bedroom floor into bags and keep the bags in the bedroom, against a wall we are not treating first, rather than in the hallway.
• Empty the bedside drawers into bags as well. Can bedbugs live in drawers? explains why the runners and joints need to be reachable.
• If a sofa bed in the living room is where someone sleeps, treat it as a bedroom: open it out and clear the floor around it.
• In a studio, the whole flat is the bedroom. Clear what you can from the floor and leave the rest for the technician to work round.

Visit One and the Hours After It

The first visit takes one to two hours. The technician works along the seams, frames, skirtings and the other places bedbugs shelter. You and any pets stay out of the treated rooms until the surfaces are dry; we tell you when that is and you follow the instructions given on the day.

In a one-bedroom flat that can mean an afternoon out. Plan it: a walk, a trip to the shops, a visit to family. Once dry, the rooms are back in use that evening and the bed is slept in as normal.

The Gap: Living in the Flat Between Visits

The first fortnight asks you to leave the treatment alone and keep living where you were.

• Sleep in your own bed. You are what draws the bugs across the treated surfaces. Moving onto the sofa gives them somewhere new.
• Do not wipe or mop the edges. Clean the middle of the floor if you need to, and leave the skirtings as they are.
• Keep up the hot washing. Bedding and nightwear straight from the bed to the machine. The Thornton Heath page covers a household sharing one laundry basket.
• Expect to see an odd bug. Eggs that survived the first visit hatch in this gap. Note where and when and tell the technician next time.
• Keep shop sprays out of it. Foggers and aerosols scatter bugs into the next room or the next flat.

Visit Two, and Sometimes Three

The second visit repeats the first, timed to catch what has hatched since. Prepare the flat in the same way; a bed made up with fresh sheets and a cleared floor is what the technician needs to find. If live activity is still there, a third visit is booked on the same spacing. If not, the course ends and the flat goes back to normal.

Afterwards, keep an eye on the mattress seams for a few weeks and ring if something turns up rather than waiting to be sure.

When a Flat Needs Heat Instead

If the bites are in every room, if someone cannot follow the routine between visits, or if a fortnight-long course does not suit the household, heat treatment is usually one visit and treats the eggs as well. It costs more. We say which we would choose on the phone.

What the Course Costs

Treatments start from £220, and chemical is the lower-cost route. The price is for the course, set by the number of rooms, and it is given on the phone on 0800 955 1018 before anything is booked. For what the household can do to make one course enough, read the Croydon bedbug control page.

← Bedbug Control Croydon · Bedbug Chemical Treatment London, in full