Found a Bedbug on Your Pillow: What to Do Tonight: Westminster

Nothing you do tonight will solve the problem, and that is fine. The aim for the next few hours is narrower: keep the evidence, stop it spreading to another room, and get some sleep. Treatment starts with a phone call tomorrow.

Catch It and Keep It

The single most useful thing you can do is keep the insect. It answers the first question anyone will ask, which is whether it is a bedbug at all.

1. Press a strip of clear sticky tape over it, or tip it into a small jar or sealable bag.
2. If it gets away, note where it went: into the headboard, down the mattress seam, behind the bed.
3. Take a clear photo of it, and of the pillow or sheet where you found it.
4. Look along the mattress piping nearest the pillow with a torch for dark spots or pale skins, and photograph those too.

Do not squash it into the pillowcase and throw it away. A crushed insect is hard to identify, and one in a jar is proof.

Do Not Move the Bed or Yourself

The urge is to drag the mattress out, or to go and sleep on the sofa. Both make it worse. Bedbugs hide in the bed and follow the sleeper; moving either gives them a new room to settle in.

• Leave the mattress and frame where they are. Do not carry them into the hall or down the stairs.
• Do not throw the mattress out unless we later advise it.
• Sleep in your own bed tonight, with clean bedding, rather than on a sofa or in another bedroom.
• Do not reach for a shop spray. It scatters them into places that are harder to treat.

What to Strip Tonight

You do not need to empty the room. Deal with the bedding and leave the rest.

1. Take the pillowcase, sheets and duvet cover off inside the bedroom and put them straight into a bin bag.
2. Tie the bag before you carry it out, and take it directly to the washing machine.
3. Wash on the hottest setting the labels allow, then tumble dry hot if you can.
4. If the machine is shared or in a communal laundry, keep the bag sealed until you can use it.
5. Remake the bed with clean bedding from a cupboard outside the bedroom.

Clothes on the bedroom floor or a chair can go in the same way. Leave the wardrobe alone for now; we will tell you what needs doing before treatment.

If You Are Staying Somewhere Else

If this is a hotel or a short-let flat rather than your home, tell reception or the host straight away and ask for a different room, ideally not next door. Keep your luggage closed and off the bed and floor, on a rack or in the bath. When you get home, open it on a hard floor and wash everything hot, as set out on the Westminster page.

Who to Call in the Morning

Ring us on 0800 955 1018. Tell us what you caught, where you found it, how many rooms people sleep in, and what kind of building it is. If you have a clear bug and spotting on the mattress, we can usually go straight to treatment, which starts from £220. If you only have bites or an insect you cannot identify, an inspection from £120 settles it first.

If you rent, tell your landlord or agent in writing the same morning; who arranges and pays depends on the tenancy, and we are not legal advisers. For bites that itch or swell, a pharmacist or GP can help, and anyone with signs of a severe allergic reaction should call 999. Once a date is set, when you can sleep in your bed again explains the nights after.

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