Bedbug Control Twickenham

The First Hour Back Through the Door

Bedbugs that travel home do so in luggage and in clothes, not on people. The single most useful habit is keeping the cases out of the bedroom until they are empty.

1. Unpack on a hard floor. A hallway, kitchen or bathroom is better than the bedroom carpet or the bed.
2. Everything fabric goes straight into the wash. Worn or not, run it on the hottest setting the labels allow, then a hot tumble dry if the fabric can take it.
3. Things that cannot be washed go into a sealed bag until you have had a chance to look them over.
4. Look at the cases before you put them away. Check the zips, the piping, the wheel housings and the lining seams with a torch.
5. Store the cases away from beds. Not under the bed, not on top of the wardrobe in the room you sleep in.

Bites That Started on the Trip

If you were bitten while away, it is worth thinking about where. On a cruise it may have been one cabin for the whole voyage; on a coach tour it may have been one hotel out of six. Tell the operator in writing, with dates, while it is fresh. For marks on the skin themselves, a pharmacist or GP is the right person to ask, and if anyone shows signs of a severe allergic reaction, call 999.

Not every itchy spot after a holiday is a bedbug bite. Mosquitoes, sandflies and plenty of other things bite people abroad and at sea. Our guide on telling bedbug bites from mosquito bites explains why the bite alone rarely settles it.

When Signs Turn Up at Home Weeks Later

A bedbug carried home in a case may not show itself straight away. It needs to find a host, feed, and for numbers to build before most people notice anything. New bites in your own bed some weeks after the trip, small dark spots on a mattress seam, or a live insect on the headboard are the things to act on.

At that point, ring us before you strip the room or move into the spare bed. An inspection from £120 tells you whether you have them and how far they have got. If it is one bedroom caught early, chemical treatment is often enough; if the luggage, the wardrobe and the bed are all involved, heat reaches the lot in one visit. Both start from £220, with the figure for your rooms given before anything is booked.

Before the Next Trip

The habits that help coming home help going away too: keep the case on the luggage rack rather than the bed, and look at the mattress seams and headboard in each new room before you unpack. For breaks closer to home, our guide to cottages, campsites and B&Bs covers the checks for self-catering and small guesthouses.

← Bedbug Control Richmond · Bedbug Control London