- What Happens to Bedbugs While the Flat Is Empty
- Carrying Them Between Two Homes
- Checking on Arrival
- Treating a Flat You Are Rarely In
- If Both Homes Are Affected
Two situations bring people to this question. One is arriving at the second home after a few weeks away and waking up with bites on the first morning. The other is finding bedbugs at the main home and wondering whether the place you visit occasionally is affected too. Both come down to the same thing: bedbugs live where people sleep, and you sleep in two places.
What Happens to Bedbugs While the Flat Is Empty
An empty flat does not starve them out in any useful time. Adult bedbugs can go a long while between meals, and in a cooler, unheated flat they slow down and wait rather than die. Eggs that were laid before you left will hatch, and the young will hide in the same seams and joints as the adults.
The result is a problem that looks quiet and then is not. After a gap, the first night back can bring more bites than usual, because the bugs that waited are all hungry at once. That does not mean the problem has grown while you were away. It means the problem was there and nobody was in the bed to notice it.
Carrying Them Between Two Homes
The route between homes is a bag. A suitcase that sits on the bed while you pack, a holdall kept in the bedroom at one end and unpacked on the bed at the other, or a coat hung on a bedroom chair are all ways for a few bugs to make the trip. The same goes for bedding or a favourite pillow that travels with you.
- Pack and unpack on a hard floor or a table, not on the bed.
- Keep a travel bag that is hard-sided or easy to wipe and vacuum.
- Leave bedding and pillows at each home rather than carrying them.
- Wash and tumble dry travel clothes when you arrive, not at the end of the stay.
- Store the empty case outside the bedroom at both ends.
If bedbugs are confirmed at one home, treat the bags as part of that home until it is dealt with. Our London guide on stopping bedbugs spreading between rooms is written for hotels, but the thinking about luggage and linen applies just as well to two flats.
Checking on Arrival
A short check when you walk in tells you more than a week of wondering. Leave your bag by the door, turn on the main light, and pull back the bedding. Look along the piping and seams of the mattress, especially at the head end, then at the corners of the base and the joints of the headboard. Dark spotting like pen dots, pale shed skins or a live insect are the signs.
Do the same in a bed at the main home if you have been bitten at the other. Our London guide to the early signs of bedbugs shows what each sign looks like. If you find nothing but still have bites, remember that other insects bite too and some people react to very little.
Treating a Flat You Are Rarely In
An occasional home is in some ways easier to treat. There is no household to move around, and heat treatment, which kills eggs and is usually a single visit, fits a flat you can leave for the day. It does need someone to let us in and to take out the heat-sensitive items first, which can be arranged with a porter, a neighbour or a managing agent if you are away.
Chemical treatment usually needs two or three visits about 10 to 14 days apart, and it works best when someone sleeps in the bed between visits, drawing bugs across the treated surfaces. In a flat that stays empty for weeks that is harder to arrange, so talk it through with us. The Kensington and Chelsea bedbug page explains what can stay in the room and what has to come out.
If Both Homes Are Affected
Treat both, close together. Dealing with one and then visiting the other before it is done can bring them straight back. Treatments start from £220 per job and the price for each home depends on its rooms and the method. If you are not sure the second home is involved at all, an inspection from £120 answers that; see the inspections page.
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Related Questions
If I leave the flat empty for a few months, will the bedbugs die?
Not reliably. They can go a long time without feeding, especially somewhere cool, and eggs will still hatch. The flat needs treating.
Can I bring them from my main home to the second one?
Yes, in luggage, coats or bedding that has been in an affected bedroom. Pack on a hard floor and keep bags off the bed at both ends.
Can you treat the flat while I am abroad?
Often, if someone can let us in and remove the heat-sensitive items first. Tell us who will have the keys when you ring.
Should I turn the heating up before I leave to kill them?
No. Ordinary heating does not reach a temperature bedbugs cannot survive across a room, and a warm empty flat only keeps them active.
More Bedbug Advice for Kensington and Chelsea
Written up in full for people in the borough, and worth reading before the treatment day.
Bedbugs in the Kitchen or Bathroom?
Why they are seldom found by the sink or the bath, when they are, and what that sighting tells you.
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 →
Bedbugs in Ceilings and Light Fittings?
When they climb, where they hide up high, and what a sighting on the ceiling says about the problem.
Read more →
Telling Your Neighbours
Why it helps, who to tell first, what to say, and bringing in the managing agent or landlord.
Read more →Bedbug Control Across Kensington and Chelsea
Each area page is written around one situation we deal with.
Bedbug Treatments in Kensington and Chelsea
Every service has its own page for Kensington and Chelsea: heat, chemical, hotels, commercial premises and inspections.
Tell Us About the Property
Tell us what you have seen and where, and we will tell you what it needs.