Why Moving Downstairs Backfires
Bedbugs follow the person, not the bed. They find you by the carbon dioxide you breathe out and the warmth you give off, and some will be in your pyjamas, your pillow or the blanket you carry down. Within a few nights the sofa has its own small population, tucked into the seams under the cushions.
Meanwhile the bedroom has not gone quiet. The ones left behind wait, and they can wait a long time. So now there are two rooms, and the new one is harder to treat than a bed.
Our advice is to keep sleeping in your own bed until it is treated. It is unpleasant, but it keeps the problem where it started.
Treating a Knocked-Through Room
A through-lounge is one long room with two windows, often a chimney breast on each side and a sofa somewhere in the middle. For treatment purposes it is one space, not two halves.
- With heat, the whole length is brought up together. Fans move the air from the front bay to the back window so neither end lags, and the thermal camera is used to find cold spots behind the sofa and along the far skirting.
- With chemical, the work goes into the sofa seams, the frame underneath, the skirtings and the edges of the carpet. The cushion covers come off and, where they can, go in a hot wash.
Sofa beds need the mechanism opened out. The folding frame has more joints and hollow sections than most beds, and it is where they gather if someone has been sleeping on it.
The Stairs and the Hall
Every trip up and down with a duvet is a chance to drop a few. We look at the stair carpet edges and the hallway skirting on the way through, particularly at the foot of the stairs and outside the bedroom door. Usually there is nothing there, but it is the route they would take.
If you have already moved the bed or the mattress downstairs, leave it where it is now and tell us. Carrying it back up before treatment spreads them a third time. Our guide on metal, wooden and divan bed frames covers what to do with the frame itself.
Choosing Between Them
If only the bedroom is affected and nobody has moved, chemical treatment of that one room is often enough. Once the lounge is involved as well, heat starts to make more sense: it deals with both rooms and the eggs in one visit, which saves you living with two treated rooms for a month. The trade-off is cost, since heat costs more. Our comparison of the two sets it out, and an inspection will tell you how far they have got before you choose.
Bedbug Control Charlton — Questions
Should I get rid of the sofa?
Not before we have looked at it. Most sofas can be treated, and dragging one out through the hall and the front door spreads bedbugs on the way.
Can I sleep on an air bed in another room instead?
It usually spreads them the same way the sofa does. Staying in your own bed until the treatment keeps them in one place.
Does the whole through-lounge need treating if only the sofa has them?
Usually the whole room, because they move out from the sofa to the skirtings and carpet edges nearby. We will show you what we find.
Is a through-lounge more expensive to heat?
It is a bigger room, so it takes longer and costs more than a small bedroom. You get the figure on the phone before anything is booked.
Do you cover Charlton and the rest of the borough?
Yes. The Greenwich borough page has the other areas.
Elsewhere in Greenwich
The other areas in the borough, each written around a different situation.
Bedbug Advice for Charlton
Picked for this page: the guides that go further on what matters for Charlton.
Where Pest Controllers Actually Treat
Why bedbugs choose the places they do, and the places we deliberately leave alone.
Read more →
The Places That Get Missed
Beyond the bed and the two-metre radius: the harbourages that survive a mediocre inspection.
Read more →
Pillows, Duvets and Mattress Toppers
What can be washed, what can be dried, and what needs treating or replacing.
Read more →
Heat or Chemical: How to Choose
Five questions to ask yourself. Answer them honestly and the right treatment picks itself.
Read more →Bedbug Treatments in Greenwich
Every service has its own page for Greenwich: heat, chemical, hotels, commercial premises and inspections.
Covering Charlton
Tell Us About the Property
Tell us which rooms are affected and where people have been sleeping, and we will tell you what the job looks like.