Bed bugs
Bed Bugs in Finchley's Shared Buildings
A converted house near the stations and a flat over a shop on Ballards Lane have something in common: the floors, stairs and pipe runs are shared with other households. Bed bugs are carried in, usually by a person, but once they are established they can move along pipework and through gaps at skirting level into the next flat. Whether bed bugs spread between flats explains how that happens.
Flats over the shops
The flats above the parades on Ballards Lane and the High Road are reached by a door beside the shop front and a narrow stair, sometimes shared by two or three flats. Every sofa and bed that goes up those stairs brushes past the others' doors. Short lets and quick changes of tenant are common in flats like these, and belongings move in and out often.
Second-hand furniture
Finchley's flats are often furnished from charity shops, online listings and whatever was left by the pavement. Much of it is fine, but a second-hand bed frame, headboard or sofa is one of the easiest ways to bring bed bugs home. Check joints, seams and screw holes outside before it comes upstairs. How bed bugs got into your home covers the other routes.
Checking Before You Call
Strip the bed in daylight and look along the mattress seams, the frame joints and behind the headboard, then any sofa someone sleeps on. You are looking for dark spotting, pale shed skins and live bugs; the first signs has more. Bites around the ankles in a flat with a pet may be fleas in Finchley instead, and itchy skin with small hairy larvae along the carpet edge can point to carpet beetles.
What not to do
- Do not carry the mattress down the shared stairs or leave it in the side passage or by the shop's bins
- Do not move to the sofa or into another flat
- Do not buy another second-hand bed until this is dealt with
- Do not throw furniture out before asking: a mattress does not always have to go
What to Tell the Freeholder, Landlord and Neighbours
The treatment is for the rooms in your flat, but the building is shared, so the right people should know. The area page covers who normally arranges what in a converted house; for bed bugs, this is what each needs to hear.
- Your landlord or letting agent, if you rent: which rooms are affected and when you first noticed
- The freeholder or managing agent: that there are bed bugs in the building, so they can let the other flats know and check the common parts
- The neighbours who share your stairs or the flat directly above or below, so they can check their own beds
- If you live over a shop, the landlord of the flat, who can pass it on to whoever owns the building
You do not have to wait for all of that before booking your own flat, and it is better not to.
Around the Visit
When you book, tell us whether it is a flat in a conversion, a flat over a shop or a house, and which rooms have bugs or bites. Bedrooms and a living room with a sofa bed are counted; halls, landings and the shared stair are not. We will tell you how to get the rooms ready; preparing a room for bed bug treatment gives an idea. How quickly it settles depends on the rooms and how established the bugs are, and if you are still being bitten after the period we give you, get in touch. For the borough-wide page, see Bed Bug Control Barnet.
