Bedbug Control South Kensington

Moving Out: Deal With It Before the Packers Arrive

If you have seen signs, treat before anything is packed. Once a bed, a sofa and a wardrobe of clothes are wrapped and loaded, there is no sensible way to treat them until they are unpacked, possibly in another country.

Timing is the hard part. Chemical treatment usually needs two or three visits about ten to fourteen days apart, so it needs a month or so of runway before the removal date. Heat treatment is usually one visit and deals with eggs as well, which makes it the more practical route when the packing date is close. Heat costs more than chemical.

What to Pack Last, and What to Check First

1. Pack the bedroom last. Rooms without signs can be packed first; the affected room waits until it has been treated.
2. Wash and dry textiles on hot before they go into boxes. Clothes, curtains, cushion covers and bedding.
3. Look at upholstered furniture. Seams, buttons and the underside of sofas and chairs, before they are wrapped.
4. Do not ship a mattress that has them. Ask us first; it may be treatable, or it may be better left, and we will tell you which.

Moving In: Unpacking a Shipment

When a container or crate arrives, unpack it in a room that is not a bedroom if you can, and look at each piece of furniture as it comes out. Pay most attention to beds, bed frames, headboards and anything upholstered. Pale shed skins and dark spotting in the joints are what you are looking for.

Boxes of clothes and linen are simplest to deal with: open them straight into a hot wash. Hard items such as crockery or books are unlikely to be involved. If you want certainty before the furniture goes upstairs, an inspection from £120 checks the pieces that matter.

Do not leave the empty packing materials lying in the bedroom afterwards. Flatten the cardboard and take it out of the flat the same week, because corrugated edges give bedbugs a hiding place that is easy to overlook.

Storage Between Homes

Some moves involve weeks or months in storage. Bedbugs can go a long time without feeding, so time in a store does not clean anything. Treat it as if it has come straight from the old home. The same idea applies to a flat left empty between visits; our guide on bedbugs in a second home explains what survives.

If you are leaving or arriving in South Kensington and the dates are fixed, ring with the removal date and the number of rooms. We can tell you which treatment fits the calendar.

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