Do Bedbugs Live on People in Harrow?

Feed, Then Leave

A bedbug comes out of hiding, usually at night, climbs onto a sleeping person, feeds for a short while and then goes back to where it came from. It spends most of its life tucked into a seam, a crack or a joint, digesting and breeding, and only comes out again when it is hungry.

Its body is built for that life. It is flat, so it slides into narrow gaps. It has no claws for gripping hair and no way of clinging to skin the way a louse does. Warmth and movement on a body are the opposite of what it is looking for once it has fed.

Not in Your Hair, Not on Your Skin

People often wash their hair repeatedly or scrub themselves after finding bedbugs, and it is an understandable reaction. It does not help. There is nothing living on you to wash off. A bath or shower does not treat bedbugs, and harsh products on the skin only add irritation to bites that already itch.

If you have something that seems to live in the hair or crawl on the body during the day, it is probably a different insect, and worth checking with a pharmacist or GP. The London guide on bedbugs or something else covers the common confusions.

So How Do They Travel?

If they do not live on people, how do they move from house to house? The answer is in things rather than bodies. A bug hides in the seam of a bag left on a bed, the folds of a coat thrown over a chair, a box of belongings, a piece of furniture. Occasionally one is on clothing when someone gets up, but it is a passenger, not a resident, and it will drop off to find a hiding place.

That is why a new household member can bring them in without ever having a bug on their body, and why the Harrow bedbug page asks about furniture and luggage as much as people.

What It Means for Washing

Washing does matter, but it is the fabric around you that needs it, not you. Bedbugs and their eggs sit in bedding, pillowcases and clothes left near the bed.

• Bag bedding in the room before carrying it anywhere, then put it straight into a hot wash and a hot tumble dry.
• Wash or tumble the clothes that have been on the bedroom floor or the chair beside the bed.
• Clothes hanging in a closed wardrobe away from the bed are usually lower priority; ask us when you ring.
• Keep clean laundry out of the affected room until it has been treated.
• Normal washing of yourself is all you need. Change into clean clothes in the morning if it makes you feel better.

Where to Look Instead

Since they live where people sleep and sit, that is where you look: the seams and piping of the mattress, the joints of the bed frame, the headboard, the bedside table, the edge of the carpet near the bed. The London guide on where bedbugs hide that gets missed is thorough on this.

Because they go back to the bed, the bed is also the thing that draws them out. That is part of why moving to another room makes things worse; our guide on how to sleep while waiting for treatment explains what to do in the meantime.

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