Bedbug Control Canning Town

Keep It Out of the Lift and the Chute

The first instinct on finding bedbugs is to get rid of things, and in a tower that means the refuse chute or a trip down in the lift with a mattress. Both are ways of spreading them.

• The chute: loose bedding or clothes pushed into a chute can shed bedbugs in the hopper and the bin room. Nothing from an affected room should go down it.
• The lift: a mattress or sofa pressed against the walls of a lift car leaves bugs in a space every resident uses. Leave large items where they are until we have seen them.
• The corridor: bags waiting by the front door for collection sit next to your neighbours' doors.

If something genuinely has to go, it should be treated or sealed first and the removal arranged with the housing provider or building management. Our guide on keeping a mattress after bedbugs covers when it can stay.

The Flats Around Yours

In a tower, flats stack directly on top of each other, so the bathrooms, kitchens and service risers line up floor after floor. Pipes and cables pass through those risers, and the gaps round them are routes between homes. The same goes for the gaps around front door frames on a shared corridor, which our guide on door frames and architraves looks at.

Report it to your landlord or housing provider in writing, with the date and the rooms affected, and mention the flat numbers directly above, below and beside yours. They can arrange checks on those flats; you do not need to knock on doors. Who arranges and pays for your own treatment depends on your tenancy or lease and on the cause, and we cannot give legal advice on that.

Planning the Treatment Up There

Height brings a few practical questions. Heat equipment has to come up in the lift, so we ask about lift access and any booking the building needs. Tower blocks usually have detectors in each flat linked to a fire system, and those have to be dealt with before a heat treatment. Heat leaves no residue, so in a block we normally add a light residual along the edges and around pipe entries afterwards.

Chemical treatment avoids the equipment and the alarms and suits the shared routes well, but needs access for two or three visits. Treatments are from £220, depending on the rooms and the method, and we give you the figure on the phone.

After the Last Visit

In a Canning Town tower, the thing to watch afterwards is fresh signs along the walls you share with other flats, especially the bathroom and the wall by the front door. New activity there weeks later can mean arrivals from next door rather than survivors in yours. Tell the housing provider again in writing and ring us. The Newham page has more on buildings with a lot of comings and goings.

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