Where the Stored Things Are Matters
Bedbugs live close to where people sleep. A box of baby clothes sealed in a loft since the last child grew out of them is at much lower risk than a bag under the bed in the room where the bites started. Start by working out where each item has been stored and for how long.
- In the affected bedroom: assume it could be involved and treat it as part of that room.
- In a cupboard off the same landing: check it carefully before anything comes out.
- Sealed in the loft or a shed for a long time: lower risk, but still check before use.
- Borrowed or bought second-hand recently: check it whatever room it is in.
Checking Cots, Prams and Car Seats
Hard equipment gives bedbugs plenty of joints and seams. Look with a torch at the corners of a cot frame and around its bolts, the underside of the cot mattress and its piping, the folds and stitching of a pram hood and carrycot, the straps and padding of a car seat, and the rim and lining of a Moses basket. You are looking for small dark spots, pale shed skins or the insects themselves. The London guide to places bedbugs hide that get missed is useful here.
Do not bring any of it into the bedroom of a new baby until you are happy it is clear. If you find something you cannot identify, keep it in a sealed bag or photograph it and ring us.
Clothes, Blankets and Soft Toys
Anything that can take a hot wash should get one, followed by a hot tumble dry if the label allows. Bag items in the room they are stored in, carry the tied bag to the machine, and put the clean items into fresh bags afterwards rather than back into the old box. Soft toys and blankets that will not wash hot are covered in our guide on dry cleaning and bedbugs.
Please do not throw everything out in a panic. Most baby clothes wash perfectly well, and binning bags from an affected room often means carrying them through the house untied.
Treating a Home With a Baby or a Baby on the Way
Tell us when you ring if you have a baby at home or are expecting one. With heat treatment, equipment that tolerates heat can stay in the room and be treated with it, but plastics, some car seat parts and anything with electronics may need to come out, and we will say which. With chemical treatment, a residual insecticide is applied to seams, frames and skirtings, and you will be told on the day when the room can be used again and what should stay out of it for now. Follow those instructions for the cot and the nursery.
Treatments in Wood Street start from £220, with the exact figure on the phone once we know the rooms involved. An inspection from £120 is worth it if you only suspect bedbugs. See the Waltham Forest page for the rest of the household side.
Bedbug Control Wood Street — Questions
Can I use a second-hand cot we were given?
Check it carefully first, especially the joints and the mattress seams. If you have any doubt, keep it out of the bedroom until it has been looked at.
My baby has marks. Are they bedbug bites?
They may or may not be. For any marks on a baby, speak to a pharmacist, health visitor or GP, and call 999 if there are signs of a severe allergic reaction.
Will the pram be treated if I leave it in the room?
It can be, depending on the method and what it is made of. Tell us what is there when you ring and we will say whether it stays in or comes out.
Does the loft need treating in our Wood Street house?
Not usually. Lofts are far from where people sleep. We look where the signs are, and a loft only comes into it if something there is showing them.
Elsewhere in Waltham Forest
The other areas in the borough, each written around a different situation.
Bedbug Advice for Wood Street
Picked for this page: the guides that go further on what matters for Wood Street.
A Letter From School
What the letter usually means, how to check your child's bag and bed, and keeping it in proportion.
Read more →
The Places That Get Missed
Beyond the bed and the two-metre radius: the harbourages that survive a mediocre inspection.
Read more →
Can Bedbugs Survive a Heat Treatment?
Sometimes, yes. Here are the five ways it happens, and how each one is avoided.
Read more →
Does Dry Cleaning Kill Bedbugs?
What dry cleaning can do, getting things to the cleaner without spreading bugs, and when a hot dryer does instead.
Read more →Bedbug Treatments in Waltham Forest
Every service has its own page for Waltham Forest: heat, chemical, hotels, commercial premises and inspections.
Covering Wood Street
Tell Us About the Property
Tell us which rooms have bedbugs and what baby things are stored where in your Wood Street home, and we will suggest how to handle them.