Bedbug Control Addiscombe

Bites at the Desk

Bedbugs mostly feed at night, but they will come out in the day if someone is sitting still nearby for hours. A lodger who works at a desk beside the bed can find bites on the ankles, the backs of the legs or the forearms, and assume it must be something in the chair.

Sometimes it is. A fabric office chair has seams, a gap under the seat and a hollow base, and it sits a few feet from the bed all day. Check its underside and seams as carefully as the mattress, along with any cushion, footrest or rug under the desk.

Do Not Move the Office Round the House

The natural reaction is to take the laptop down to the kitchen table or the landlord's living room. That spreads the problem to the one shared space in the house. A laptop bag, a jumper hung on the chair back and a cushion carried downstairs can all take bedbugs with them.

If working elsewhere in the house cannot be avoided, take only what is needed, check the bag's seams first, and bring nothing soft from the room.

Who Sorts It Out

A lodger lives in the landlord's own home, which is a different arrangement from a tenancy. Who arranges and pays for treatment depends on the agreement and on how the bedbugs arrived, and we are pest controllers, not legal advisers. What helps is the lodger telling the landlord in writing as soon as they see signs, and the landlord checking their own bedroom and any shared sofa rather than assuming it is confined to one room.

Preparing a Room Full of Equipment

Which treatment is used shapes the preparation more than anything else:

• Heat treatment takes most of a day. Heat-sensitive items come out first, including some electronics, so ask when you ring what to do with monitors, chargers and printers. The lodger will need to work somewhere else that day.
• Chemical treatment takes one to two hours a visit, usually two or three visits about 10–14 days apart. The room can be used again once the surfaces are dry, which can mean losing a morning rather than a day.
• Either way, clear the floor under the desk, bag cables and paperwork off the floor, and strip and hot-wash the bedding.

Storage beds are common in a room that has to hold a desk as well. If the bed has a lift-up base, see bedbugs in ottoman and storage beds before emptying it.

Getting It Booked

When you ring about a house in Addiscombe, tell us whether the lodger's room is the only one with signs, what equipment is in it, and which days they can work away from it. Treatments start from £220 and the figure depends on the rooms and the method. The Croydon borough page sets out what each side needs to do so a second course is not needed.

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