Bedbugs and Other Pests at the Same Time: Newham

Different pests live in different places, feed on different things and respond to different treatments. A bedbug treatment is aimed at the bed, the furniture and the edges of sleeping rooms. It is not designed to reach mice in the walls or cockroaches behind the cooker, and a mouse or cockroach treatment will not touch bedbugs in a mattress seam.

First, Make Sure Which Pest Is Which

Bites are the usual trigger, and bites alone do not tell you much. Flea bites tend to be around the ankles and lower legs, and fleas usually point to a pet. Bedbug bites are more often on skin exposed in bed, but people react very differently and some do not react at all. Carpet beetle larvae, biting mites and even dry skin get blamed on bedbugs.

Look for the insect itself or its signs: dark spotting along mattress seams for bedbugs, droppings in kitchen cupboards for mice, and brown shiny insects that scatter when a kitchen light goes on for cockroaches. The London guide bedbugs or something else helps tell them apart, and an inspection from £120 confirms whether bedbugs are present.

Why One Treatment Cannot Cover Them All

• Bedbugs hide close to where people sleep and sit, and are treated with heat or a residual insecticide in seams, frames and skirtings.
• Mice live in voids, under floors and behind kitchen units, and are dealt with by baiting or trapping and by blocking the ways in.
• Cockroaches gather in warm, damp places near food and water, mostly kitchens and bathrooms, and are treated with gels and baits there.
• Fleas breed in carpets and pet bedding, and need the pets treated by a vet or pharmacist as well as the home.

Each is its own job with its own preparation. Some also pull in opposite directions: flea treatment asks you to vacuum everything thoroughly, while before a chemical bedbug visit you leave the furniture in place for us to treat behind.

The Order That Usually Works

1. Tell everyone involved about every pest: us, your landlord or housing officer, and any other contractor.
2. Deal with the pest in the sleeping rooms first if it is bedbugs, because that is where people are being bitten each night.
3. Have kitchen pests treated on a separate visit, as the kitchen is rarely part of a bedbug job.
4. Keep chemical bedbug visits and other pest visits apart, so neither job disturbs the other’s treated surfaces.
5. Get fleas dealt with alongside the pets, so the home and the animals are treated together.

If you choose heat for the bedbugs, pets have to be out of the room for the day, which is a good time to have them treated for fleas at the same time. Heat does not leave anything behind in the room, so it will not clash with another contractor’s baits, but tell us where those baits are so they can be moved out of the heat. The heat treatment page and chemical treatment page cover each route for homes in the borough.

Clutter, Damp and Shared Buildings

Several pests at once often have a common cause: a lot of stored items, gaps around pipes, or a building where problems pass between flats. Clearing floors, sealing food, and reporting damp and gaps help with every pest at once. In a block or a converted house, report all of it to the landlord or housing provider in writing. Who arranges and pays depends on the tenancy and the cause; we are pest controllers, not legal advisers.

Bedbugs use the same gaps around door frames and pipes that other pests do. See bedbugs in door frames and architraves for how those are treated.

← Bedbug Control Newham · Bedbug Control London