Bedbug Heat Treatment Merton

Which Rooms Go Into the Day

The first thing we settle on the phone is the list of rooms. In a semi or a terrace that normally means every bedroom where somebody sleeps and has been bitten, plus any room where a bitten person has slept since: the spare room a teenager moved into, the living room sofa bed, the box room where a toddler naps. Leaving one of those out is the usual reason a problem comes back.

A room nobody has used in months, with no signs in it, may not need heating at all. If you are unsure where the bugs have reached, a look round first is sensible; inspections in Merton start from £120. For how the machines, sensors and thermal camera work, see the London heat treatment page for the full explanation.

How the House Itself Shapes the Day

Suburban houses in Wimbledon and Raynes Park vary more than people expect, and a few features change how we plan.

• Loft bedrooms. A converted loft is treated as a bedroom like any other. An unconverted loft above the treated rooms is a different matter, and can bedbugs live in the loft? explains when it needs checking.
• Party walls. In a terrace or semi, the bedroom may share a wall with next door. Heat leaves nothing behind, so on that wall we may add a light residual along the edges and tell you where.
• Radiators and pipework. Gaps where pipes run through floors and walls are worth sealing or treating, and bedbugs behind radiators and pipes covers why.
• Rooms full of soft furnishings. A bedroom layered with cushions, throws and rugs is well suited to heat, and the Wimbledon page deals with getting that kind of room ready.
• Power. The equipment needs sockets on suitable circuits. We ask about your fuse board when you book, so an older house does not surprise anyone on the morning.

The Week Before: Sorting the Heat-Sensitive Things

Heat treats the room with its contents, so most things stay put. A short list of items has to come out first, and in a busy house it is easier to do this over several evenings than all at once.

1. Walk each room on the list with a box and collect aerosols, candles, medication and plants.
2. Add anything vinyl, and the electronics we name for your house when we confirm the booking.
3. Label the box with the room it came from, so it goes back to the same place.
4. Keep the boxes downstairs, away from the treated rooms and away from the beds in untreated ones.
5. Leave clothes, toys, books and furniture where they are; they are the reason the room is being heated.

Do not bin a mattress, a cot or a child’s bed before the day unless we have advised it. Carrying it through the house and out to the kerb is a reliable way to drop bugs on the stairs.

On the Day Itself

The technician arrives in the morning, goes round each room with you and asks where you have seen bites, spotting or live insects. Beds are pulled a little from the walls and drawers left slightly open. After that the household leaves, and animals go with you or to someone who can mind them.

The rooms are brought up to a temperature bedbugs cannot survive and held there while the technician works through them with a thermal camera, looking for any pocket that is slow to warm: under a divan base, inside a toy chest, behind a heavy wardrobe. Several rooms can be heated in turn or together, depending on the equipment and the layout, so it is most of a day either way.

The Evening After

You can go back into the rooms once they have cooled, which we tell you before we leave. Put the boxes back where they came from, make up the beds with bedding that has been hot-washed and kept bagged, and sleep in your own beds that night.

Because heat kills the eggs as well as the adults, one visit is usually enough. If you see a live bug in the weeks that follow, ring us rather than buying a spray; a single sighting after treatment needs looking at, not panicking over. For the stages from the first bite to being clear, read our bedbug timeline.

Heat or Chemical for Your House

Heat costs more than chemical, and for one bedroom caught early the lower-cost route may be all you need. The chemical treatment page for Merton sets out that option. Where several rooms are involved, or the household cannot manage two or three visits with the preparation each one needs, heat is usually the better fit.

Treatments start from £220. The figure for heat depends on how many rooms go into the day, and we give it on the phone on 0800 955 1018 before anything is booked. The Merton bedbug control page covers the first week, before you decide on anything.

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