The First Hour After a Guest Reports It
What happens in the first hour decides whether this is one room out for a day or a floor out for a week. In order:
- Move the guest, but do not move their luggage through the hotel. Suitcases are how bedbugs travel. Bag the luggage, or at minimum keep it off the new bed and out of the new wardrobe.
- Do not strip the room. Instinct says get the linen off and the room cleaned. Stripping a room before anyone has looked at it destroys the evidence that tells us how long it has been going on and how far it has gone.
- Close the room, do not clean it. Housekeeping walking a vacuum and a cleaning trolley from that room to the next one is the most common way a single room becomes three.
- Take the linen off in a bag, in the room. Not down the corridor over an arm.
- Photograph what the guest found, then ring us. A picture of the seam usually tells us before we arrive whether this is bedbugs, carpet beetle or nothing at all.
- Hold the rooms either side and the ones above and below. You do not have to take them off sale yet. You do have to have them looked at.
Getting the Room Back Into Service
This is the number that matters to you, and it is the main reason hotels choose heat over chemical even though it costs more.
Heat: the same day
A heat treatment runs during the day and the room is re-lettable that evening once it has cooled. One room, one day out of inventory, no return visit in the diary and nothing left in the room that a guest could smell or react to.
Chemical: across the course
Cheaper per visit, but the room is affected across a two to three week cycle with a technician coming back into it. For a property running at eighty per cent that maths rarely works, and we will tell you so rather than sell you the cheaper line.
Discretion, In Practice
Every pest company says discreet. What it means here, specifically:
- Unmarked vehicles, and no company name on anything that comes through the front of house
- Plain uniform on request, with our own branding covered
- Attendance out of hours and overnight where that suits your occupancy better
- Service lift and back-of-house access as standard, never the guest lift
- Equipment brought in cased, not wheeled through a lobby
- Paperwork emailed rather than handed over at reception
The Rooms Either Side
Bedbugs move along pipework runs, through shared voids and under connecting doors. The room that was reported is rarely the only one involved, and it is often not the one they started in.
So an inspection of the neighbouring rooms, above and below as well as either side, is part of dealing with a report rather than an upsell after it. It is also the only way to give you an honest answer when a guest asks whether the rest of the floor is clear.
Hotel Bedbug Treatment London — Questions
Can you come without the hotel looking like it has a problem?
Yes. Unmarked vehicle, plain uniform, back-of-house access, equipment cased. Most of our hotel work is done without anyone in the public areas knowing we were there.
How fast can a room go back on sale?
With heat, the same evening once the room has cooled. With chemical, the room is usable within hours but is part of a two to three week cycle, which is why most hotels take the heat route.
Do you work overnight?
Yes. For a lot of properties out of hours is easier than daytime, and it costs no more in most cases.
Will you check the rooms either side?
We will recommend it every time and we would rather you said no than were never asked. Bedbugs travel through voids and along pipework, and the reported room is often not the original one.
Can we put you on a contract rather than call each time?
Yes. For properties that want scheduled inspections between guest stays and a known response when something is reported, a contract works out better than calling it in every time.
Hotels — Questions Answered in Full
Written up in full — how each one works, what it costs you and how it goes wrong.
When a Guest Reports Bedbugs
Handling the person, not the room. The conversation, the offer, and the review that follows.
Read more →
Treating Without Closing the Hotel
The practical logistics of working inside a live hotel, from access routes to fire alarms.
Read more →
Putting the Room Back Into Service
Not how fast it can go back on sale, but how you satisfy yourself it should.
Read more →
The Ninety-Second Housekeeping Check
A trainable routine your room attendants can run between every stay.
Read more →
Stopping Them Spreading Between Rooms
Linen, trolleys, vacuums, uniforms and voids. The five routes, and how each is closed.
Read more →Bedbug Control Across London
Every service runs on the same two treatment routes and covers all 33 boroughs. Start at the bedbug control London page if you are not sure which one you need.
Tell Us About the Property
Tell us how many rooms are involved and what your occupancy looks like this week, and we will work round it.