Bedbug Inspections Hammersmith and Fulham

When to Book It

For a buyer, the natural point is after the offer is accepted and before exchange, alongside the survey. For a tenant, it is after you have been offered the flat and before you sign or pay anything that is hard to get back. Leave it any later and the inspection tells you what you are stuck with, rather than helping you decide.

What a full inspection involves, room by room, is set out on the London inspections page for the full explanation. Here we cover how it fits a purchase or a let.

What You Can Spot at a Viewing

A viewing is not an inspection, but it is not wasted either. You can look without touching anything that is not yours to move:

• Small dark spots on a mattress edge or along the seam of a sofa, if the flat is furnished.
• The same spotting on skirting boards and the corners of a bed frame.
• Signs of a recent treatment: bagged belongings, beds pulled away from the walls, a flat that is oddly bare for one that is still lived in.
• A strong, sweet, musty smell in a bedroom, which is only a hint and never proof.

If you see something, take a photograph. The guide to photographing a bedbug shows how to get a picture we can actually read.

Getting Permission to Inspect

You cannot book an inspection of a flat you do not yet own or rent without the agreement of the person who does. Ask the estate agent or letting agent in writing, and say why. Most sellers and landlords agree; a flat that is clear has nothing to lose from it. If the answer is a flat refusal, that is information too.

Agree a time when the current occupant is not preparing to move out. A flat already half in boxes, with the beds stripped, shows far less than one being lived in normally.

Occupied or Empty: What Changes

An occupied flat is the easier one to read, because bedbugs that are feeding leave spotting, shed skins and eggs where people sleep. We work outward from each bed in the way described on the London page.

An empty flat is harder. With nobody sleeping there, bedbugs stay hidden in frames, skirting and floor gaps and leave little fresh evidence. We look harder at those edges, and at any furniture being left behind, but a clear result in an empty flat is a statement about what we found on the day, and your report will say so plainly. If you later find something after moving in, having that report dated before you arrived helps settle when it began.

A furnished let is worth particular care. Sofas, bed frames and headboards left for the next tenant can hold bedbugs from the last one, so ask for every item of furniture that stays to be left in place and uncovered on the day.

If We Do Find Something

You get the findings on the day and in writing: which rooms, what was found and how far it seems to have gone. What you do with that is your decision. Some buyers ask for treatment to be done and checked before completion; some tenants ask for it before the move-in date; some walk away. Who arranges and pays depends on the contract and the circumstances, and we are pest controllers rather than legal advisers, so put any request to the other side in writing.

If treatment follows, the heat and chemical pages for the borough explain what each would mean for that flat.

What It Costs

Inspections start from £120, and a larger property is quoted on the number of rooms. Treatments, if needed, start from £220. Ring 0800 955 1018 with the address type, the number of bedrooms and whether it is furnished, and you will have the figure before anything is booked. If you are a leaseholder with a separate question about the building’s shared areas, the West Kensington page deals with that, and the borough page has the wider picture.

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