Bedbug Control Eltham

The Two Timetables

The two treatments ask very different things of your week, so the choice often comes down to diaries as much as anything.

• Chemical is one to two hours on site per visit, usually two visits and sometimes three, about 10–14 days apart. You can be back in the room once the treated surfaces are dry, which is usually a matter of hours.
• Heat is most of a day on site, usually a single visit. Everyone and every pet is out of the treated rooms while they are at temperature, and you have the rooms back once they have cooled.

A family that can give up one full day but not three separate mornings tends to prefer heat. A household where someone is home anyway and cost matters more tends to prefer chemical. The full comparison is on our heat versus chemical guide.

The Evening Before

Much of the work that makes a treatment go well happens the night before, after work and after tea. Eltham is largely interwar houses, and in a house with a few bedrooms it helps to go room by room with a bin bag and a list:

1. Strip every bed in the rooms being treated. Hot-wash and tumble-dry the bedding, then seal it in clean bags until afterwards.
2. Clear the floors. Toys, shoes, piles of clothes and anything stored under the beds come up so we can reach the skirtings and the carpet edges.
3. Leave the furniture where it is. Moving a bed or wardrobe into another room takes the bugs with it.
4. For heat, take out the list. Aerosols, candles, medication, vinyl, plants and some electronics go out of the room; we send the full list when you book.
5. Pack the school bags in the kitchen. Check them, and keep them out of the bedrooms until the job is done.

School Bags, Work Bags and the Morning Rush

Bags and coats that live on bedroom floors are how bedbugs get carried to school and work, and how they come home again. For the treatment period, give the bags a spot away from the bedrooms and check the seams before they go out. Our guide can bedbugs live in books, bags and backpacks goes through what to do with the things that travel every day.

Children do not need to miss school for a treatment. On a heat day they go off as normal and come home once the rooms have cooled. On a chemical day they can go back into their room once it is dry, and we will tell you on the day what to do in the meantime.

Between Chemical Visits

The gap between visits is the part people get wrong. It is tempting to hoover the skirtings, wash everything again and move the children into your room. Do not. The residue is doing its job, the eggs are hatching onto it, and sleeping elsewhere usually spreads them to the second room. Our page on chemical treatment sets out what to leave alone.

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