- When They Climb
- Cornices, Coving and Ceiling Roses
- Light Fittings and Smoke Alarms
- What It Says About the Problem
- Treating a Room Where They Have Climbed
A bedbug spends almost all its time within a short distance of where someone sleeps: in the mattress seams, the joints of the bed frame, the headboard and the furniture beside it. It has no reason to go further unless those places are full, disturbed or unavailable. So a bedbug high on a wall is usually a bedbug that has been pushed there.
When They Climb
They climb well on most surfaces, especially rough paint, wallpaper and timber, though they struggle on smooth glass and polished metal. The usual reasons to go up are:
- The problem has grown, and the best hiding places near the bed are crowded.
- Someone has sprayed a shop product, which drives bedbugs away from the treated area.
- Furniture has been moved or taken out, leaving them to look for new cover.
- The bed sits against a wall with a picture rail, shelves or fitted furniture running upward.
- A loft bed, raised sleeping platform or high bunk puts the sleeper near the ceiling.
The last one is the exception that is not a warning sign: if someone sleeps close to the ceiling, bedbugs will live close to the ceiling.
Cornices, Coving and Ceiling Roses
Period rooms, with deep cornices and plaster ceiling roses, have plenty of fine cracks where the plaster meets the wall or has pulled slightly away. Picture rails, dado rails and the gap behind a wall-mounted headboard offer the same. Bedbugs can shelter in these, and the joint along a cornice is one of the places we look in a room where the problem is established.
In mansion blocks and converted houses, the ceiling can also be a route. Gaps around a ceiling rose, a light fitting or a pipe can connect with the void below the floor of the flat above. That does not mean bedbugs travel through ceilings often, but where two flats are affected, it is one of the ways they get from one to the other.
Light Fittings and Smoke Alarms
Ceiling pendants, recessed downlights and smoke alarms are occasionally used as cover, mostly where they are close to the bed or the problem is large. Do not take fittings apart yourself to look: that is a job for an electrician, and it disturbs whatever is there. Note which fitting you saw the bug near and tell us when you ring.
What It Says About the Problem
One bug on a ceiling is not a reason to panic, but it is a reason to act. In most homes it points to one of three things: numbers that have built up over months, a problem that has been sprayed and scattered, or bedbugs coming from another flat. Each of those changes the treatment, so say which applies when you ring.
Our London guide to where bedbugs hide that gets missed covers the high places alongside the low ones. If a problem you thought was treated is back and you are now seeing them higher up, why bedbugs reappear after treatment is also worth reading.
Treating a Room Where They Have Climbed
Heat treatment suits this well, because it raises the whole room, ceiling included, to a temperature bedbugs cannot survive and a thermal camera shows where it has not reached. Chemical treatment can reach cornice joints, picture rails and the edges of the ceiling, but it has to be applied to each place, so a room with a lot of high cracks takes longer. Where flats share a ceiling and floor, the neighbouring flat may need looking at too; telling neighbours in your building covers how to raise it.
Treatments start from £220, with the price set by the rooms and the method, and inspections from £120. The Kensington and Chelsea bedbug page explains what stays in the room and what comes out.
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Related Questions
Can bedbugs drop from the ceiling onto the bed?
It can happen when they are up high, but it is not how they normally reach a sleeper. Most walk to the bed from hiding places nearby.
I only saw one on the ceiling. Do I need treatment?
Check the bed and nearby furniture first. If you find other signs, yes; if you find nothing, an inspection will tell you what is going on.
Can they come through the ceiling from the flat above?
They can use gaps around fittings and pipes between flats. If you suspect that, it is worth speaking to the neighbour and the managing agent.
Should I remove the light fitting to check?
No. Leave electrical fittings to an electrician, and tell us which one you saw it near so it can be checked on the day.
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 a Second Home
An empty flat between visits, what survives the wait, and not carrying them from one home to the other.
Read more →
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 →
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.