Bedbug Control Whitechapel

Check the Bed Before You Hand Over the Keys

The time to look is before anyone else arrives, not after. If something turns up later, you want to know whether it was already there. Strip the bed and go over it with a torch:

• The piping round the mattress edge, and under any label or handle
• The corners and joints of the frame, and the slats where they sit in their brackets
• The back of the headboard and where it is fixed to the wall or frame
• The skirting and carpet edge on the side of the bed you get out of

Photograph what you see, dated, even if it looks clean. If you find dark spotting or pale shed skins, do not let the room until it has been looked at. An inspection starts at £120 and tells you whether you have a problem before you pass it on to a stranger.

Setting Up the Room for a Guest

A few small changes make it much less likely that anything a guest brings gets into the bed or your belongings:

1. Give the suitcase somewhere to go that is not the bed. A luggage rack, a chair or a clear patch of hard floor, well away from the headboard.
2. Empty one drawer and one hanging space and lock or remove the rest of your clothes, so a guest's things are not mixed in with yours.
3. Put fresh, hot-washed bedding on and leave a spare set, so the guest is not bringing in their own.
4. Ask the guest to tell you if they are bitten or see anything on the sheets, and make it easy for them to say so without it turning into an argument.

If the Guest Says They Have Been Bitten

Take it seriously but do not assume. Bites vary a great deal, some people do not react at all, and plenty of other things bite. Ask for a photo of the sheets and the mattress edge rather than of the bite. A pharmacist or GP can help the guest with any skin reaction, and 999 is for signs of a severe allergic reaction.

If the signs are real, the guest should not move to a sofa or a friend's place with the same luggage, because that is how it travels on. Ring us and we can look at the room while they are still there. Whether it arrived with them or was there before is exactly why the dated photos from before they came are worth having.

Coming Home After a Trip

Your own luggage has been through hostels, hotels or other people's homes too. Unpack in the kitchen or bathroom rather than on the bed, put clothes straight into a hot wash and dry, and check the case seams before it goes back under the bed. Then strip your bed and check it again, the same way you did before you left.

If you find signs, the choice between routes is the usual one. Heat treatment is usually one visit and gets the eggs, which suits a room you want back quickly. Chemical treatment costs less but is usually two or three visits about 10–14 days apart. If you rent the flat in Whitechapel yourself, check your tenancy allows subletting before you do it, and report any bedbugs to your landlord in writing; who pays depends on the tenancy and the cause, and we are pest controllers, not legal advisers. Shared flats and busy households across Tower Hamlets are covered on the borough page.

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