Should You Move Furniture Between Rooms in Kingston?

Finding bedbugs makes people want to change the room. The bitten bed goes to the spare room, the spare bed comes in, the sofa is swapped for the armchair, the chest of drawers goes out to the garage. It feels like getting rid of the problem. In practice it is one of the quickest ways to double it.

Why Moving a Bed or Sofa Spreads Them

Bedbugs live in furniture, not just on it. They are tucked into the joints of the frame, the underside of the base, the stapled lining of a divan, the folds of a sofa’s cushions and the back of the headboard. Lifting and tilting a piece shakes some loose onto the floor on the way, and the rest arrive in the new room inside it.

Then there is the room left behind. The bugs in the skirtings and carpet edges stay put, and they are now hungry. So one move can leave two rooms with bedbugs and a trail of stragglers between them.

The Moves People Are Tempted to Make

• Swapping the bitten bed with the one in the spare room.
• Carrying the mattress downstairs and out to the front garden or the tip.
• Taking the sofa bed out of the living room because a guest was bitten on it.
• Moving a student’s bed, desk chair or bedside unit back into the family home at the end of a tenancy.
• Clearing all the furniture out of a room to make it easier to treat.

The last one surprises people. For both heat and chemical, we would rather find the furniture where it was. With chemical treatment, the residual goes into the frames and behind the pieces that stand against the wall. With heat, furniture left in place is brought up to temperature with the room; carried out, it escapes the treatment.

What to Do Instead

1. Pull the bed a hand’s width away from the wall so it touches only the floor.
2. Tuck in or take off any bedding that trails onto the carpet.
3. Clear small items and clutter off the floor round the bed so there are fewer hiding places close to it.
4. Bag and hot-wash bedding before it leaves the room.
5. Keep sleeping where you normally sleep.
6. Ring us and describe the furniture in the room: divans, headboards, sofa beds and anything upholstered.

If you have to move belongings out, for example because they cannot go through a heat treatment, our guide on bagging and storing belongings covers how to do it without carrying bugs with them.

When It Is Fine to Move Furniture

Once a room has been treated and the course is complete, you can move furniture as normal. With heat that is usually after the single visit, once the room has cooled. With chemical treatment, wait until after the final visit; moving pieces between visits disturbs the residue and can shift survivors.

Furniture that has never been near the affected room can be moved as long as it is not going into that room. If you are unsure whether a piece is clear, an inspection can look at it before it goes anywhere.

When Something Has to Go

Sometimes a piece is not worth treating: a damaged divan, a split mattress, a sofa with torn lining. We will tell you if we think so. When something is leaving, wrap it fully in heavy plastic sheeting and tape it before it moves, carry it by the shortest route, and label it so nobody takes it home from the kerb. Do not bring a replacement in until the room has been treated, or it becomes the next hiding place. Treatments start from £220, and the heat treatment page for the borough explains a whole-house day.

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