Can Bedbugs Bite Through Clothes and Pyjamas in Haringey?

Once the bites start, many people reach for long sleeves, socks and tucked-in trousers. It is an understandable response to waking up itching. It is worth knowing what it can and cannot do before relying on it.

Where Bedbugs Usually Bite

Bedbugs have a thin mouthpart built for piercing skin, not for pushing through cloth. They feed where they can reach bare skin easily, which is why bites so often show up on the arms, shoulders, neck, face, hands and ankles, the parts that stick out from under the covers.

They do not usually bite through fabric, especially thicker or closely woven fabric. But they are small and flat and good at crawling, so they can get under a loose cuff, a gaping collar or a waistband and bite the skin underneath.

Why Pyjamas Do Not Solve It

• The bugs still feed, just on whatever skin is left uncovered, often the face and hands.
• They keep breeding in the mattress and frame, so the numbers go up regardless.
• Clothes worn in an affected bed can carry bugs into other rooms and out of the house.
• Some people do not react to bites at all, so fewer visible bites can hide a growing problem.

What Does Cut the Bites

The things that actually help are the same ones that keep the problem contained until treatment.

1. Strip and hot-wash the bedding, and put pyjamas through a hot wash or the dryer each morning.
2. Pull the bed a little way from the wall so it touches only the floor.
3. Keep sheets and duvets from trailing on the floor.
4. Clear clutter from around and under the bed.
5. Keep sleeping in your own bed rather than moving rooms.
6. Book treatment, because only that deals with the bugs themselves.

Wearing pyjamas is fine; it is going to bed in the clothes you wore all day, or leaving the night's clothes on the bedroom floor, that helps them travel. Keep worn clothes off the floor and wash them hot.

Bites, Itching and When to Get Help

Reactions vary a great deal. Some people come up in raised, itchy marks, some barely notice, and a reaction can take a while to appear. Try not to scratch. For itching or a skin reaction, a pharmacist or GP can advise. If anyone has signs of a severe allergic reaction, call 999.

Bites on their own do not prove bedbugs; other insects and skin conditions cause similar marks. Look for the bugs themselves using the early signs of bedbugs, and write down where and when the bites appear, as the Haringey page suggests.

Clothes Leaving the House

The bigger risk with clothing is not bites but travel. A jumper left on the end of an affected bed can go to work, to school or to a friend’s sofa. Until treatment is done, keep tomorrow’s clothes in a sealed bag or a clean drawer away from the bed, dress in a different room if you can, and give coats and bags a quick look before they go out of the door. Children’s school uniforms deserve the same care, since they go straight into a room full of other people’s coats.

Dealing With the Cause

Chemical treatment puts a residual into the seams, frames and skirtings over two, sometimes three, visits; see chemical treatment in Haringey. Heat treats the whole room in one visit and kills the eggs as well. Both start from £220. If someone in the house sleeps in a chair rather than a bed, the Hornsey page covers what changes.

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