- When You Should Skip It
- When It Pays for Itself
- The Blunt Arithmetic
- What We Will Tell You on the Phone
An inspection costs from £120. A treatment costs from £220. Spending the first before the second is sensible in some situations and pointless in others, and it is worth being straight about which is which.
When You Should Skip It
Do not pay for an inspection if you already have the answer.
- You have caught one and it is unmistakably a bedbug. There is nothing left to confirm
- You have clear spotting and shed skins along the mattress seam. That is a diagnosis
- It is one bedroom, caught early, nothing has spread. The scope is not in doubt either
- A hotel with a confirmed report in one room, where the priority is the room back in service rather than certainty
In all of those, ring and book the treatment. An inspection would tell you what you already know and delay the thing that fixes it by a week.
When It Pays for Itself
You are not sure what you have
Bites and nothing else. Around half of the inspections we do in this category find something other than bedbugs — carpet beetle, fleas, or nothing at all. A treatment bought on the strength of bites alone is a treatment that may do nothing whatever.
A previous treatment did not hold
The most valuable inspection there is. A treatment fails for a reason — a missed harbourage, too small a scope, resistance, or re-introduction — and repeating it without knowing which is how people pay three times. £120 to find out is obviously better than £220 to guess again.
You do not know how far it has spread
This is where an inspection makes the difference between a treatment that works and one that half works. Treating a bedroom when the sofa is also involved leaves you with a live population and a bill.
You are buying, letting or taking over
Before a purchase, before a tenancy, before taking on a block. It costs a fraction of inheriting the problem, and it gives you something in writing to negotiate with.
You are a landlord or agent with a tenant's report
An inspection gives you a position. Right now you have a tenant's account; afterwards you have a professional's written finding, which is a different thing when you are deciding what to spend and explaining it to an owner.
The Blunt Arithmetic
- Inspection, finds nothing: £120, and you have not spent £220 treating a room that did not need it
- No inspection, treat anyway, was never bedbugs: £220 wasted, and the real cause still there
- No inspection, treat one room, it was two: £220 and a second job
- Inspection after a failed treatment, finds the missed harbourage: £120 that prevents a third attempt
What We Will Tell You on the Phone
Ring and describe it, and in most cases we will tell you which of the two you need before anyone books anything. If you have caught one and you can see spotting, we will say go straight to treatment, and that conversation costs you nothing.
A company that recommends an inspection in every case is selling inspections. A company that never recommends one is guessing.
Related Questions
Is the inspection fee deducted from the treatment?
Ask when you ring. It depends on the job and we would rather give you a straight answer on the phone than print something here that turns out not to apply.
Can I send photographs instead of booking an inspection?
Often, yes, and it costs nothing. A clear picture of a mattress seam or a captured insect on WhatsApp is frequently enough for us to tell you what you have.
How long is an inspection report valid?
It describes what was there on the day. For a purchase or a letting that is exactly what you want; as ongoing assurance it is worth nothing a month later, because a guest can bring one in that evening.
Bedbug Inspections London — Advice
Everything else written up for this service, and the service page itself if you would rather just get a price.
Tell Us About the Property
Tell us what you have seen and where, and we will tell you what it needs.