Guests, Luggage and Turnover: How Bed Bugs Reach Wembley Homes
Bed bugs do not live on people. They ride along in the seams of a holdall, the folds of packed clothes or the joints of a bed, and they get off wherever those things are put down. A home with a steady flow of arrivals and departures simply has more chances of receiving a few, so a flat or house that has hosted a lot of people recently is worth checking.
Event Days and Overnight Guests
When a match at Wembley Stadium or a concert at OVO Arena Wembley brings friends and relatives to stay, they sleep on sofa beds, air beds and spare mattresses, with their bags on the bedroom floor. If one of them picked up bed bugs somewhere else, nobody may notice anything until days or weeks later, when the visit is long forgotten. Jot down the dates of recent stays; it helps when you ring.
Hotels, Short Stays and Travel
There are hotels near the stadium, and plenty of people who live here travel for work or holidays. Any bed anywhere can pass on bed bugs, so this is not about one place. What matters is what happens to the case when you get in: unpacked on a hard floor, clothes straight into the wash, seams looked over before it goes under the bed. If you let a room or flat for short stays, check the bed properly between each booking.
Furnished Lets and Changing Tenants
Many of the new flats around Wembley Park and Olympic Way are rented, and in a furnished let the mattress, headboard and sofa stay while the people change. Bugs left behind by one occupant can still be there for the next. If you have just moved in and are waking with bites, tell your landlord or letting agent in writing straight away. The guide to how bed bugs get in covers other routes.
Next Door and Downstairs: Neighbours in a Block
In a block, the bugs in your bedroom may have started next door, or may be heading there. They can follow pipes and cables through walls and floors, and a mattress dragged along a corridor can drop them at another flat's door. If you find them, let the neighbours you know on either side and above and below, so they can look at their own beds. The guide on bed bugs spreading between flats explains the routes, and Pest Control Wembley covers how large buildings are run.
Checking the Beds Before You Call
Start with whichever bed a guest used most recently, then your own. Look along the mattress seams and piping, the joints and screw holes of the frame, the back of the headboard and the folds of a sofa bed. The first signs guide shows what the dark spotting and pale shed skins look like. Bites alone prove little, because people react so differently, and itchy marks can also come from fleas or the larvae of carpet beetles in Wembley.
What Not to Do
- Do not start sleeping on the sofa or in the spare room, which gives you another room to treat
- Do not send guests home with bedding to wash, or take yours to a relative's machine
- Do not leave a mattress in a shared corridor or lift lobby, where it can reach a neighbour
- Do not set off shop foggers, which can push bugs into wall gaps and next door
- Do not throw furniture out before asking us, as a mattress can often stay
Booking and Around the Visit
When you book, tell us which rooms have signs, whether it is a flat or a house, whether it is let furnished, and when people last stayed. If more guests are due, say so. We will explain how to get the rooms ready, and the room preparation guide gives an idea of the kind of thing involved.
Keep sleeping in your own bed unless we tell you otherwise, so the bugs stay where they are being dealt with. How long things take to settle depends on the rooms and how established the bugs were, and this guide on timescales explains why. If bites carry on past the time we give you, ring us again.
Keeping Bed Bugs Out When People Come and Go
- Give guests a hard floor, a chair or a luggage rack for their bags rather than the bed or carpet
- After a stay, strip the spare bed or sofa bed, wash the bedding hot and look along the seams
- In a furnished let, check the mattress and headboard on moving day, before anything is unpacked
- After a trip, unpack beside the washing machine and inspect the case before it is stored
For the borough as a whole, see Bed Bug Control Brent, and the Brent bed bug advice covers first steps in more depth.
