Bedbug Control Tooting

Check the Room Before Each New Lodger

Every change of occupant is the time to look. Strip the bed, check the mattress seams and corners, look at the joints of the frame and the back of the headboard, and run a torch along the skirting behind the bed. Do it again a few weeks after they have moved in. A clean record at the start of a let makes any later conversation much simpler.

If you let the room through an agency or a room-letting site, keep a note of the date and what you checked. It costs nothing and helps if questions come up.

When Your Lodger Mentions Bites

Someone who works in a hospital will usually describe it clearly and early, which is a help. Ask them to show you where they were bitten and whether they have seen anything in the bed. Do not suggest they sleep in another room or on the sofa for a few nights; bedbugs follow the person, and you will end up with two rooms to deal with.

Ask whether their last room had any problems, but do not treat it as an accusation. Bedbugs can arrive in anyone's bag. What matters now is finding out whether the room is affected and keeping it to that one room. The shared areas of the house, such as a sofa in a living room they use, are worth a look too.

Planning Treatment Around Shifts

Night shifts and long days change the practical side. Heat treatment usually takes one visit but needs the room empty for most of a day, which is hard for someone who sleeps during the day after nights. Chemical treatment takes one to two hours a visit, and the room is usable again once dry, but it needs two, sometimes three visits about 10–14 days apart, so a placement ending soon affects the timing too.

Tell us your lodger's shift pattern when you ring and we will work out which option fits the house. Either way, they will need to strip and bag bedding and clear the floor of the room; the London guide on preparing for heat treatment explains what comes out before a heat visit.

Who Arranges and Pays

In a lodger arrangement, who pays for treatment depends on your agreement and on where the bedbugs came from, which is often impossible to prove. Put what you have agreed in writing. We are pest controllers, not legal advisers. Treatments start from £220, heat costs more than chemical, and the figure is given on the phone. If you let several rooms in Tooting, the London page on HMOs and serviced apartments may be more useful, and the Wandsworth borough page covers the local picture.

← Bedbug Control Wandsworth · Bedbug Control London