Bedbug Inspections Merton

Why a Move Is a Good Moment to Check

A house is never easier to inspect than when it is empty. Beds, skirtings, floorboards and the joints of built-in furniture are all in plain view, and nothing has been unpacked into the rooms yet. Once the family is in, with beds made and wardrobes full, the same check takes longer and any treatment involves more preparation.

What a visual inspection involves, and what the technician looks for, is on the London bedbug inspections page for the full explanation. Here we deal with timing it around a move.

Before You Buy

A house you are buying still belongs to the seller, so any inspection needs their agreement and access arranged through the agent. Some buyers ask for one when something at a viewing worried them: dark spotting on a mattress, a bed frame left in a room, or bites mentioned in passing.

• At a viewing, you can look at mattress seams and bed frames if the seller is happy for you to.
• Furniture being left behind by the seller is worth a closer look before you agree to keep it.
• If you want a proper inspection, ask the agent to arrange access with the seller.
• What you do with the result is between you, the seller and your solicitor; we report what we find.

After Completion, Before Unpacking

For most families the practical moment is the gap between getting the keys and the furniture arriving. Book the inspection for that window and we can look over the empty rooms, including fitted wardrobes, bed recesses and anything the previous owners left.

1. Book as soon as you have a completion date, and tell us how many bedrooms the house has.
2. Arrange to be at the house, or leave keys, for the visit.
3. Hold back the removal van from the bedrooms until you have the result, if the dates allow.
4. If anything is found, we give you a price for treatment on the rooms involved before booking.
5. If nothing is found, move your furniture in as planned.

If the previous owners have left bags or boxes in the loft, can bedbugs live in the loft? explains what is worth checking up there.

Your Own Furniture Coming With You

The other risk runs the other way. If you have had bites in your current home, or furniture has been in storage, the move itself can carry bedbugs into the new house. It is far easier to deal with a problem in your current home before the move than after it, and an inspection there first tells you whether that is needed.

If a lodger or housemate is leaving at the same time, the Merton Park page covers making sure their things leave clean. If a household is splitting up and dividing its furniture, the Raynes Park page deals with that.

Torches, Dogs and a Trained Eye

People sometimes ask whether a gadget would do instead. A UV torch shows less than most expect, as do UV torches show bedbugs? explains, and do bedbug sniffer dogs work? looks at where detection dogs fit. For a family house, a careful visual inspection of the places bedbugs hide is the usual answer.

What You Get From the Visit

At the end of the inspection the technician tells you what was found and where, room by room. If there are signs, you hear which rooms are involved and whether heat or chemical treatment would suit the house, so you can plan the move around it. If there are none, you can unpack knowing the bedrooms have been looked at properly, which is worth a good deal in the first weeks in a new home.

What It Costs

Inspections start from £120, depending on the size of the house. If treatment is needed, treatments start from £220, and we give the figure on the phone on 0800 955 1018 before anything is booked. The heat treatment page for Merton explains the one-day option for a family house, and the Merton bedbug control page covers the first week if bedbugs are found.

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