Bedbug Treatment for Serviced Apartments and HMOs in London

Every failed block treatment we are called to second has the same history: the units were done one at a time, as access allowed, over several weeks. That is not a treatment, it is a tour.

Why Phasing Matters More Than Product

Bedbugs in a shared building are not confined by the walls in the way the tenancy agreements are. They move along pipe runs, through floor voids, under doors and through the gaps where cables pass.

Treat flat 3 on Monday and flat 5 a fortnight later, and the population in flat 5 simply carries on and reseeds flat 3 in the interval. You have paid twice and ended up where you started.

The Access Problem, Honestly

This is where block work actually goes wrong, and it is worth being realistic before quoting dates.

• Notice periods. Tenants are entitled to proper notice for entry, and giving it properly takes days you have to build in
• Refusals. Some tenants will not want anyone in, often because they are embarrassed. Handle it as embarrassment rather than obstruction and most of them come round
• Keys and key safes. An accurate key register is worth more than an extra technician on the day
• Working tenants. A single daytime slot excludes half the building. Evening and weekend access is usually what makes a block possible
• Empty units. A void between lettings is an opportunity, not an exemption — treat it while nobody is in it

How a Block Is Actually Phased

1. Survey first. Every unit inspected, in as few days as possible, so the map is drawn before anything is treated.
2. Group by connection, not by number. Units sharing a wall, a riser or a floor void get done together, whatever their door numbers say.
3. Notice goes out for the whole group at once, with evening and weekend options offered from the start rather than as a concession.
4. Treat the group inside as tight a window as access allows. Same day where possible, same week at worst.
5. Communal areas at the same time — corridor seating, laundry rooms and shared lounges are the connective tissue.
6. Follow-up across the whole group on one date, not unit by unit as each reaches its own fortnight.

Communal Areas Are Not an Afterthought

Shared laundry rooms, corridor seating, communal lounges and shared storage are how a building's units stay connected even when every flat has been treated.

A laundry room in particular: people carry infested bedding to it, sit on a fabric chair while they wait, and carry something else back.

Serviced Apartments: Hotel Problem, Housing Access

Serviced apartments get the worst of both. The turnover of a hotel, with guests arriving from anywhere with luggage, but without hotel housekeeping looking at a mattress seam between stays.

The answer is usually a short check at changeover — the seam at the head end, under the mattress corner, the headboard — and interceptors under the bed legs so that a glance does most of the work.

Who Pays, in Practice

Not legal advice, but the pattern is consistent: in most tenancies the landlord or managing agent arranges and pays, particularly where the property was let with the problem already present. Attempting to bill one tenant in an HMO is usually both unprovable and counterproductive, because the building is the unit.

The more useful observation is that arguing about it for a month costs considerably more than the treatment, because a month is two more generations.

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