Bedbug Chemical Treatment Redbridge

The Calendar, Start to Finish

Put the whole course in your diary when you book, not just the first date. In most flats it runs like this:

The phone call. You tell us the rooms, how long it has been going on and whether you rent. We give a price for the course and a date for the first visit.
Visit one. One to two hours. We treat the seams, frames, skirtings and the other places bedbugs hide. You stay out until the surfaces are dry, then use the room as normal.
The gap. About ten days to a fortnight, while the eggs that were already laid hatch and the young bedbugs cross the residue.
Visit two. We look at what has happened since and treat again.
A third visit, sometimes, where it has been going on a long while or the room is crowded with furniture. We tell you at the second visit if we think it is needed.

Why the eggs make it a course, and where the product goes, are set out on the London chemical treatment page for the full explanation. This page deals with the flat you live in.

Getting In Through a Shared Front Door

In a house split into two or three flats, the technician often has to get through a street door you do not control and up a staircase that belongs to everybody. A few things make the visits run without a hitch:

Give us the flat number and tell us which bell is yours, or whether you will come down.
If you will be at work for the second visit, sort out a key or a neighbour now, not the night before.
Keep the dates you were given. Pushing a visit back by a week can let a new batch of eggs be laid before we return.
If the bedbugs came from the flat above or below, we will say so honestly. Treating one flat in a conversion while the next one is left alone tends to move the problem rather than end it.

If you rent, tell your landlord or agent in writing as soon as you know. Who arranges and pays depends on the tenancy and the cause, and we are pest controllers, not legal advisers.

Dark spotting and staining along a mattress seam, a common first sign of bedbugs

Getting Ready for Each Visit

The job you do is similar each time, and in a small flat it is quick once you know it:

Strip the bed and hot-wash the bedding, then keep it bagged until the treated surfaces are dry.
Clear the floor of clothes, shoes and bags, especially under the bed and along the skirting.
Leave the furniture where it stands. We need to get behind it, and dragging it into the hall spreads them.
Before visit two, note where you have seen bedbugs since the first one. Photos help.

If the whole family sleeps in one room, the preparation is tighter and the bed is everyone’s. The Ilford page is written for exactly that flat.

Living in a Small Flat Between Visits

This is the fortnight where the course is won or lost. In a flat with one bedroom and a living room, the temptation is to move onto the sofa. Do not. The bed has the residue on it; the sofa does not, and moving to it hands the bedbugs a fresh place to settle.

If you sleep on a sofa bed as your only bed, tell us, because then it is the bed and it gets treated as one. Hoover the floors as normal, but do not wipe down skirtings or shampoo the carpet, and put away any spray from the shop.

A few quiet nights in the gap do not mean they have gone, and bites can come back for a night or two as the eggs hatch. Do bedbugs bite every night? explains the pattern, so you are not ringing us after the first bite, or cancelling the second visit after the first calm week.

Bedbugs and eggs along the edge of a timber bed frame

When a Flat Needs Heat Instead

If more than one room is affected, if someone in the household cannot face three weeks of visits, or if an earlier chemical course did not hold, heat treatment in Redbridge is usually the better call, even though it costs more. We will tell you on the phone which way we would go.

What the Course Costs

Treatments start from £220, and chemical costs less than heat. The price we give you on the phone is for the course, with the follow-up visit included, and it depends on how many rooms are involved. Ring 0800 955 1018. For everything else about bedbugs in a family home, see our Redbridge page.

← Bedbug Control Redbridge · Bedbug Chemical Treatment London, in full

Questions

Bedbug Chemical Treatment Redbridge — Questions

How long does the whole course take?

Usually two visits about ten to fourteen days apart, so a little over two weeks from first to last. Occasionally a third visit is needed, which adds another gap of the same length.

Do I need to be in for each visit?

Someone needs to let us in, but you do not have to stay. You need to be out of the treated rooms until the surfaces are dry, which is usually a few hours.

The flat below has bedbugs too. Will treating mine work?

It will deal with what is in your flat, but they can come back through the building. Tell us, tell your landlord or managing agent in writing, and ask whether the other flat can be treated at the same time.

Can I sleep on the sofa until the course is over?

No. Keep sleeping in your own bed, which is the treated place. Sleeping elsewhere usually spreads them to the living room.

I have had no bites for a week. Can I cancel the second visit?

Please do not. The eggs laid before the first visit are still hatching, and the second visit is there to deal with them. A quiet week is normal part-way through.

What does it cost?

Treatments start from £220. We price the course, follow-up included, on the number of rooms, and give you the figure on the phone before anything is booked.

How we treat