What Carries Them and What Does Not
Not all stock is equal. Upholstered chairs, bed frames, headboards, mattresses and anything with deep seams or joints are the pieces bedbugs travel in. Clothes and soft furnishings can carry them too, especially if they came from a bedroom. Glass, china, metalware and most hard ornaments are far less of a worry.
Sort new stock with that in mind. The pieces most likely to carry something should be looked over before they come indoors, not after they have spent a week beside the bed.
A Routine for Stock Coming In
- Check it at the door. Look along seams, under buttons, inside drawers and in the joints of frames. A torch helps.
- Wash textiles first. Clothes, curtains and linen go straight into a hot wash and a hot dryer where the fabric allows.
- Bag what you cannot wash. Seal it in clear bags so you can see inside, and keep the bags off the floor of any bedroom.
- Keep a stock room. One room, or one corner, that nobody sleeps in and where stock stays until it goes back out.
If You Find Them in the Flat
Stop moving stock in and out of the affected room straight away, and do not take anything from that room to the stall until it has been treated. Selling on an item with bedbugs in it passes the problem to someone else's home.
Stock that is not heat-sensitive can sometimes stay in a room during heat treatment, as long as it is spread out rather than packed tight, so warm air reaches it. That is often the practical route when there is a lot of it. Chemical treatment is applied around beds, frames and skirtings, not over goods for sale, so a stockroom full of boxes would need clearing first. Heat costs more than chemical.
Keeping Your Home and Your Trade Separate
The most useful change is physical distance. Stock kept in a hallway cupboard, a shed or a storage unit is less likely to reach the bed than stock piled in the bedroom. If space in a Notting Hill flat makes that hard, at least keep the bedroom clear of it.
Look at your own coat, bags and the crates you carry to the stall as well. Anything that goes back and forth between a market and home every week is worth a glance along the seams now and then.
Ring us with an idea of what the stock is and where it is kept. If you want to be sure something you bought is clean, an inspection starts from £120. The Kensington and Chelsea page has more on deciding what can stay in a room and what must come out.
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Bedbug Control Notting Hill — Questions
Can I keep trading while the flat is treated?
Yes, as long as nothing leaves the affected rooms until the treatment is finished. Stock from clean rooms is less of a concern.
Can you treat a van-load of furniture?
Tell us what it is when you ring. Furniture brought into a room being heat treated can sometimes be included; we will say whether it suits your stock.
Can I sell clothes once they have been washed?
A hot wash and hot dry deals with bedbugs in fabric that can take it. Check the care label, and keep washed items sealed until they are sold.
Where do bedbugs hide in old furniture?
In joints, screw holes, drawer runners, under fabric tacked to frames and along upholstery seams. Those are the places to check first.
How much does treatment cost in Notting Hill?
Treatments start from £220, depending on rooms and method. You get the figure on the phone before anything is arranged.
Elsewhere in Kensington and Chelsea
The other areas in the borough, each written around a different situation.
Bedbug Advice for Notting Hill
Picked for this page: the guides that go further on what matters for Notting Hill.
The Places That Get Missed
Beyond the bed and the two-metre radius: the harbourages that survive a mediocre inspection.
Read more →
Can Bedbugs Survive a Heat Treatment?
Sometimes, yes. Here are the five ways it happens, and how each one is avoided.
Read more →
Bedbugs, or Something Else?
A walkthrough you can do tonight with a torch, and what to do with what you find.
Read more →Are Bedbugs Worse in Summer?
Warmth, holiday luggage and visitors, why winter does not fix it, and when people tend to notice.
Read more →Bedbug Treatments in Kensington and Chelsea
Every service has its own page for Kensington and Chelsea: heat, chemical, hotels, commercial premises and inspections.
Covering Notting Hill
Tell Us About the Property
Tell us what kind of stock you keep and which rooms show signs, and we will explain what the job involves.