Bedbug Control Beddington

Why Old Wooden Beds Suit Bedbugs

Timber shrinks and splits over the years. Joints open by a hair, carvings collect dust in their grooves, and the underside of a slatted base is dark and rarely touched. Every one of those is the width of a bedbug. A four-poster adds a canopy, curtains and a frame overhead, so there is more of the bed to look at.

The places to check with a torch:

• Corner joints, pegs and bolt covers where the rails meet the posts
• Cracks and splits along the rails and in the headboard
• Carved panels and moulding, especially the recesses
• Slats, the rebate they sit in, and the underside of the base
• Curtain rings, pelmets and the top rail of a canopy

Please Do Not Take It Apart

It is natural to want to strip the bed down, but forcing old joints can damage the frame, and carrying the pieces through the house spreads whatever is in them. The bed does not need to come apart or leave the room for either treatment. Throwing it out is almost never necessary either; leave it where it is.

What you can do is take down any bed curtains and canopy fabric, bag them in the room, and hot-wash and tumble-dry them if the fabric allows. Anything that cannot be washed stays bagged in the room and is mentioned when you ring.

How Heat Reaches Into the Frame

With heat treatment, the whole room is brought up to a temperature bedbugs cannot survive and held there. The heat soaks into the timber, the joints and the carvings, and kills eggs as well as bugs. A thermal camera is used to find cold spots, which on a heavy bed are usually the thickest parts, the posts and the corner blocks, so those get particular attention. It is usually one visit and costs more than chemical.

If the bed is valuable or has an old painted or lacquered finish, tell us when you ring, so we can talk it through before anything is booked.

How Chemical Treatment Works on It

Chemical treatment applies a residual insecticide into the joints, cracks and seams of the frame, the mattress seams and the skirtings round the room. On a carved bed there is more surface to cover, and because the residual does not reliably kill eggs, the second visit, and sometimes a third, about 10 to 14 days later, matters. You can use the room once it is dry.

If you are not sure the marks on the frame are bedbugs, an inspection starts from £120. The Sutton page covers the first fortnight in the rest of the house. For a Beddington bedroom with a bed like this, a photo of it helps when you ring.

← Bedbug Control Sutton · Bedbug Control London