Bedbug Control Southfields

Before the Guests Arrive at Your Home

Give your own beds a proper look a week or so before you leave. Lift the mattress, check the seams and the corners of the base, and look along the headboard. If you have had any unexplained bites recently, find out why before you hand the keys over, not after.

Put out freshly washed bedding, and leave a luggage rack, a stool or a clear bit of hard floor for their cases so bags do not sit on the bed. A short note asking them to tell you straight away if they notice anything odd is sensible and does not need to sound alarming.

Arriving at Their Home

1. Park the bags first. Leave cases on a hard floor, the bath or a rack while you look round.
2. Check the beds you will use. Seams, corners, the headboard and the frame joints; a phone torch is enough.
3. If you see signs, tell the owner. Photograph what you found and ask to use another room, or talk to the swap platform about your options.
4. Keep clothes in the case or on hangers. Avoid piling them on the bed or on upholstered chairs.

Our guide to finding bedbugs while away covers moving rooms and packing in more detail; most of it applies to a private home as much as a hotel.

Coming Home to Southfields

When you get back, unpack somewhere other than the bed, ideally a hard floor near the washing machine. Wash what you wore on a hot cycle, and anything that cannot take a hot wash can go through a hot tumble dryer or be bagged until you know it is clear. Our guide to wool, silk and delicate fabrics explains what to do with things that would be ruined in the machine.

Then look over your own beds again. Your guests slept in them, and a check now, while things are fresh in your mind, is far easier than trying to work out weeks later where bites came from.

If You Find Something at Either End

At their home, it is their problem to have treated, but tell them clearly and in writing. At your home after the swap, do not strip the room or move the bed out; keep sleeping where you are and ring us. An inspection, from £120, confirms what is there before any money goes on treatment.

If it is confirmed, we talk you through heat or chemical treatment for the rooms involved. Treatments start from £220 and the figure depends on the number of rooms. The Wandsworth borough page covers the wider picture for different kinds of home in the area.

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