Does Dry Cleaning Kill Bedbugs in Waltham Forest?

When you are dealing with bedbugs, most fabric is easy to deal with: bag it, wash it hot, dry it hot. The awkward pile is everything that says dry clean only on the label. It is usually the more expensive clothing, and people understandably do not want to ruin it or leave it sitting in a bag for months.

What Dry Cleaning Can Do

Dry cleaning puts clothes through a solvent wash and then a heated drying and pressing stage. The combination is generally understood to kill bedbugs and their eggs on the items that go through it. We cannot speak for the exact process at any particular cleaner, so it is fair to ask them what their cycle involves.

What dry cleaning cannot do is anything for the room the clothes came from. It cleans the coat. The wardrobe, the bed and the skirting are still where they were.

Getting Items There Without Spreading Them

The risky part is the journey. A coat carried loose through a hallway, left on the back seat of the car or dropped on the shop counter can shed bugs at every stop.

1. Bag each item in the room it came from, before it crosses the doorway.
2. Use a strong, clear bag and tie or tape it shut.
3. Tell the cleaner what it is for, so they can keep it sealed until it goes into the machine.
4. Do not open the bag at home to check it first, or hang the item in the hallway while you wait to go.
5. When it comes back, keep it in its cover and out of the bedroom until the room has been treated.

Being straightforward with the cleaner is the right thing to do, and most would rather know. Some may prefer not to take it, in which case the options below are worth a look.

Lower-Cost Alternatives

Dry cleaning a whole wardrobe is expensive, and a lot of it is not necessary.

• A hot tumble dryer. Many items that must not be washed will still take a spell in a hot dryer, which is where the killing happens anyway. Check the care symbols first.
• Leaving it where it is for treatment. Clothes hanging in the treated room during heat treatment are heated along with everything else. Ask when you ring which of your items should stay and which should come out.
• Sealed and set aside. Things you do not need for now can stay bagged and away from the bedrooms until after treatment, and then be dealt with calmly.
• Only what was near the bed. A coat that lives in the hall cupboard and never went near the bedroom is much lower risk than a jacket thrown over the bedroom chair every night.

Which Items Are Worth It

Think about where each item has been. Anything that sat on or beside the bed, lived in the bedroom wardrobe or went to a place where you suspect you picked them up is worth treating. Things stored elsewhere in the house can usually wait until the bedroom is dealt with. For curtains that are marked dry clean only, the guide to blinds and window frames covers taking them down.

Making It Part of the Plan

Dry cleaning is one small piece of a bedbug job, not the job. The bedroom still needs heat or chemical treatment, and the preparation guide for heat explains what comes out of the room and what stays. If you live in a shared house, agree with the others who is dealing with what, so nobody carries a bag of unsealed clothes through the hallway on the morning of the visit.

← Bedbug Control Waltham Forest · Bedbug Control London