Bedbugs in Airport Workers' Uniforms and Bags: Hounslow

Nobody catches bedbugs at work the way they catch a cold. The insects stay in sleeping places and move between them inside belongings. For people who work around an airport, the belongings in question are the uniform, the work bag, the wheeled case for a layover and the coat hung on a hook beside everyone else’s.

Who This Is For

Cabin and flight crew who sleep in hotel rooms between trips. Ground staff, security and cleaners who use shared lockers and rest areas. Housekeeping and laundry staff in hotels, who handle bedding from rooms all day. Drivers who move people and luggage between terminals and hotels. The risk is different for each, but the fix at home is much the same.

The Uniform

A uniform is the easy part, because it gets washed anyway. The problem is where it waits before the wash. Draped over a bedroom chair or dropped on the bedroom floor, it puts anything that came home on it within a short walk of the bed.

• Change out of it as soon as you are in, somewhere that is not a bedroom.
• Put it straight into a washable laundry bag or the machine, not a shared basket.
• Wash it on the hottest setting the care label allows, then give it a full hot dry if the fabric can take it.
• Hang clean uniforms away from the work bag and the coat.

Items that cannot go through a hot wash or dryer, such as a jacket or a hat, can go in a sealed bag until they are cleaned. Our guide on whether bedbugs survive a washing machine explains why the dryer matters more than the wash.

Work Bags and Layover Cases

Soft fabric bags with lots of pockets and seams give a bug somewhere to sit. A hard-sided or wipeable bag is easier to check and easier to keep clean. Whatever you use, it lives on a hard floor near the door, not on the bed, the sofa or the carpet beside the bed.

After a night away, treat the case the way you would after a holiday. On arrival at the hotel, keep it on the luggage rack and glance along the mattress seams and the back of the headboard. At home, open it in the hallway or kitchen, take the clothes straight to the wash, run a vacuum nozzle round the lining and zips, and store it away from the bedrooms.

Lockers and Staff Rooms

A locker shared over a shift change, or a rest room with a sofa that people nap on, is a place where belongings meet. You cannot control those rooms, but you can control what you leave in them. Keep a spare washable bag for the locker, avoid leaving coats or bedding-like items there for days, and do not bring the rest-room blanket home.

If you see bugs or spotting at work, tell your manager in writing so the site can be looked at. Workplaces have their own responsibilities, and our London guide to bedbugs in the workplace covers them from the employer’s side. Hotels have a separate process too, covered on the Hounslow hotel treatment page.

A Routine for Coming Home

1. Leave the work bag and case on the hard floor by the front door.
2. Change out of the uniform there or in the bathroom, and bag it for the wash.
3. Empty pockets onto a hard surface and check anything going upstairs.
4. Shower and put on clothes that have not been to work.
5. Once a week, vacuum the bag seams and wipe it down.

None of this takes long once it is a habit, and it matters more in a household where people come and go at all hours.

If Something Has Already Come Home

Signs in a bed are the thing to act on: dark spotting on the seams, pale shed skins, or a live bug. Keep sleeping in your own bed rather than moving to the sofa, and ring us with what you found. Treatments start from £220, and the Hounslow page explains how heat and chemical treatment fit around a household on shifts.

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