Bedbug Control Canonbury

How Worried to Be About the Clothes

Bedbugs prefer to be near a sleeping person. A room used only to store clothes is usually a secondary spot: they arrive in something carried from the bedroom, or walk in along the skirting from next door. Clothes hanging still for months are less of a hiding place than the room's edges, the rail fixings and the bottom of the wardrobe.

Before deciding anything, look. A torch along the skirting, the corners of drawers, the base of shoe racks and the seams of garment bags will tell you more than worrying about every item. An inspection from £120 answers whether the room is affected at all.

Options for Things You Cannot Wash

• A hot tumble dryer on its own. Many items that cannot be washed will take a full cycle in a hot dryer. Check the care label first, and do not risk anything precious.
• Dry cleaning. Bag items tightly before they leave the house and tell the cleaner why, so the bag is not opened on their counter.
• Sealed bags. Items you are not using can be bagged and kept sealed until the treatment is finished and we have told you they can be opened.
• Leave them in the room for heat. With heat treatment, clothing in the treated room is treated with the room.

Shoes and boots stored in the same room raise their own questions; can bedbugs live in shoes covers them. Leather jackets and bags follow the same logic as the leather furniture guide: smooth surfaces are poor hiding places, seams and linings are better ones.

How Heat Handles a Full Room

Heat is often the simpler route for a dressing room, because it treats what is in the room without anything being washed. Clothes need space so air can move between them: thin out tightly packed rails and open drawers, and we use fans and the thermal camera to find the cold pockets in the middle of the rail. Leather, some synthetics, sequins and anything with glue in it should be discussed first, and may need to come out.

How Chemical Handles It

Chemical treatment goes on the room, not the clothes. The residual is applied to skirtings, rail fixings, wardrobe joints and frames, never sprayed on garments. That means the clothes still need one of the options above, and the room needs clearing enough for us to reach its edges. It is usually two or three visits about two weeks apart and costs less than heat. Treatments start from £220; the figure is given on the phone once we know the rooms. For a Canonbury flat where the bedroom is affected too, the Islington page helps with where to put everything while you prepare.

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