Bedbug Control Peckham

Why the Room Count Matters So Much

A treatment is priced and planned room by room. The figure you hear on the phone depends on how many rooms are involved and whether the job is heat or chemical, and heat costs more than chemical. Treatments start at £220 for a small job.

Getting the count right also decides whether the job works. Bedbugs left alive in an untreated bedroom next door will walk back into the treated one within weeks. So the question is not really how much it costs, but which rooms have to be dealt with for it to stop.

A Room-by-Room Check You Can Do Tonight

Take a bright torch into each room where anyone sleeps or sits for long periods, and look in the same places in every one.

1. Mattress seams and the label. Small dark spots, pale shed skins, or the bugs themselves tucked into the piping.
2. The base and frame. Lift the mattress, look along the top of the divan, and put the torch into the screw holes and joints of a wooden frame.
3. The headboard. Pull it away from the wall if you can. Upholstered ones are a favourite hiding place, which our headboard guide goes into.
4. The sofa. Under the cushions, along the seams and underneath. Someone who falls asleep on it most evenings makes it a second bed.
5. The skirting and carpet edge near each bed. Look along the first metre or so either side.

Write down what you find in each room, even if it is nothing. A room with nothing in it is useful information too. The London guide to places that get missed covers the less obvious spots.

What Counts as an Affected Room

• Any room where you have found live bugs, shed skins or spotting
• Any room where someone is being bitten, even if you have found nothing yet
• A room someone moved into to get away from the bites, because they usually take a few with them
• The living room, if anyone sleeps or naps on the sofa

Rooms nobody sleeps in, with nothing found, usually do not need treating. We will say so if we think a room can be left out.

When You Cannot Tell

Sometimes the check turns up bites and nothing else, or one room is clear and the next is full of storage you cannot get to. That is where an inspection earns its money. Inspections start at £120: we confirm whether it is bedbugs at all and which rooms have them before anything is spent on treatment. See bedbug inspections.

If you live in one of the larger blocks and the neighbours have them too, counting your own rooms is only half the picture. Our guide to estates covers that side.

What We Ask When You Ring

Have your notes to hand. We will want to know how many bedrooms there are, which ones you found signs in, whether the sofa is involved, and whether you rent or own. With that we can tell you whether heat or chemical suits the job and give you a figure on the phone. Nothing is booked until you have it.

Whether it is a terrace or a flat on an estate in Peckham, the count works the same way. For the wider picture across Southwark, including flat shares and blocks, see our Southwark bedbug control page.

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