A Bed Nobody Has Slept In Since February
An insect that feeds every week or two when there is somebody to feed on can sit out a long stretch when there is not. In a house where the top room is opened at Christmas and used again at Easter, that is exactly what happens: whatever a visitor left behind in October is still in the frame joints when the next person unpacks. Nobody has been bitten in the meantime, so nothing has been looked for, and the search that would have taken twenty minutes in October now covers two floors.
The habit worth forming is to strip a guest bed the day after somebody leaves rather than the day before the next arrival. Take the bedding off, stand the mattress on its side, and work along the piping, the label seams, the slat ends and the bolt holes of the frame with a torch. Dark spotting like ink pressed into the fabric, pale cast skins and the insects themselves are what settle it; skin reactions vary so much between people that they settle almost nothing. The first signs guide shows the marks, and the guide to their daytime hiding places explains why a glance at a made bed finds none of it.
Where the Suitcases Live Between Trips
Dollis Hill station is on the Jubilee line and the cases in these houses travel. What matters is less where a bag has been than where it is set down when it comes home and where it is kept afterwards. A case unzipped on a duvet and then pushed under that same bed gives anything riding in it the shortest possible journey. Unpack on a hard floor or in the bath instead, send what can take a hot wash straight to the machine, and run a finger round the lining seams and the wheel wells before the case is closed.
Many of these houses store luggage in the cupboard cut into the eaves behind a loft-conversion knee wall, which is dark, dry and rarely opened - fine for the case and fine for a passenger in it. If a bedroom has been fitted into the roof, keep the stored bags at the far end of that cupboard rather than against the partition the bed stands against. The guide to how bed bugs get in covers the other routes, though working out which one it was rarely changes the job.
Furniture That Arrives Through the Garage
Houses this size take in furniture steadily: a bed frame for a teenager, a wardrobe that fits an awkward alcove, an armchair for the loft room. A great deal of it pauses in a garage or a shed on the way, and a fortnight in a cold garage does nothing whatever to a bed bug. Look a piece over where it stands outside, in daylight, before it is carried through the hall: joints and screw holes, the back face of a headboard, the webbing and stapled lining under a chair, and the runners of any drawer in a divan base. The guide to sofas and bed frames shows what is worth pulling apart and what is not.
Working Out Which Rooms to Book
A room is counted when it has evidence of its own, not because it is next door to one that does. Go through the house bed by bed, including the sofa bed and any mattress that gets put on a floor, and treat every room where you find spotting, skins or live insects. Bedrooms that turn up nothing are better left alone and checked again in a week. If the biting is around the ankles and there is a cat or dog in the house, look at flea treatment in Dollis Hill instead, and an itchy rash with a completely clean bed is often the bristly larvae behind carpet beetle treatment rather than anything that bites.
Getting Several Bedrooms Ready in One Week
- Work through one room completely before opening the door of the next, so nothing crosses the landing
- Wash bedding as hot as the label allows, bag it straight out of the drum and leave the bag in the room it came from
- Empty the drawers of a divan base and the bottom of a fitted wardrobe, bagging the contents where they stand
- Pull beds, sofa beds and chests far enough off the wall for the skirting and the carpet edge to be reached
- Keep everybody sleeping where they already sleep: a child moved into the guest room simply adds a room to the bill
- Leave shop-bought foggers and aerosols out of it, since they push survivors into the floor void and along to the next room
The room preparation guide sets out the general shape of that work, and we will go through it for your particular rooms when you book. Ask before anything is taken to the tip: a mattress usually stays, and this guide explains the reasoning.
Booking and the Weeks That Follow
When you ring, say whether the address is a whole house or a flat in a converted one, how many rooms have signs, which floor each of them is on, and whether anyone stayed recently. Keep checking the same seams and joints afterwards. Finding the odd insect for a while is not by itself a sign that something has gone wrong - this guide covers the reasons - and how long the whole thing takes depends on the house and on how long the bugs had been there, which the timescale guide goes into. If bites are still happening past the period we describe, come back to us.
Keeping Them Out of a Dollis Hill House
- Strip and inspect the guest bed within a day of visitors leaving, while you still know who stayed
- Offer a guest a rack or a hard chair for their bag instead of the end of the bed
- Keep spare mattresses and sleeping bags sealed in the loft between uses and look them over as they come out
- Check a second-hand frame, headboard or chair outside on the drive before it comes indoors
- Leave enough clear floor under each bed that you can see it with a torch without moving anything
Bed Bug Control Brent sets out the service across the borough and the Brent bed bug advice deals with the first day or two. Rooms in a house over in Cricklewood are counted the same way, and everything else these houses get is on Pest Control Dollis Hill.
