Bedbug Control Lee

How Bedbugs Get Home From a Trip

A bedbug in a hotel room hides close to the bed: the headboard, the mattress piping, the bedside table. A suitcase left open on the bed or the luggage rack beside it is well within reach. They climb into seams, pockets and folded clothes, and travel home without anyone noticing.

At home, the suitcase usually goes straight to the bedroom and gets unpacked onto the bed. That puts anything it carried exactly where it wants to be.

A Routine for Coming Home

1. Unpack away from the bedroom, ideally on a hard floor in a hallway or kitchen, not on the bed or a sofa.
2. Put clothes straight into the machine, worn or not, and dry them on a hot setting.
3. Check the suitcase seams, zips, wheels housing and inside pockets with a torch before it is put away.
4. Store luggage away from beds, in a cupboard or under the stairs rather than under the bed or on top of the wardrobe.
5. Wash the bag itself, or tumble dry soft luggage and laptop bags, if the stay gave you any reason for doubt.

None of it takes long, and for a regular traveller it quickly becomes habit.

If You Think Something Came Back With You

The first signs at home usually show a few weeks after the trip, not the next morning. Bites, small dark spots on the mattress seam, or a live bug on the sheets are the things to look for. Our guide to early signs shows what each looks like.

If you find something, keep it in a sealed bag or on clear tape and ring us. An inspection is from £120 and tells you whether there is anything to treat. Caught early, a single bedroom is a small job, and treatments start at from £220. Heat usually finishes it in one visit; chemical is two, sometimes three, visits. Please do not start moving between rooms or sleeping on the sofa; that is how one room becomes two.

When You Travel Often

Frequent trips mean repeated chances for bedbugs to come home, so it is worth checking the bed every few weeks as part of changing the sheets. Look at the mattress piping and the corners of the frame nearest the headboard. That catches a new arrival while it is still small.

If bedbugs came from a hotel you stayed in, tell the hotel in writing. Hotels themselves are covered by our hotel treatment service. For homes elsewhere in the borough, see the Lewisham page; for a Lee home, ring us on 0800 955 1018.

← Bedbug Control Lewisham · Bedbug Control London