Don't switch bedrooms yet
Stick with your normal sleeping arrangement for now, true near Rainham too, where riverside and marshland industrial land to the south. A bed bug problem that moves to a second room because you changed beds is harder to treat than one kept to a single room. Leave the mattress where it is and don't carry loose bedding from room to room while you work out how far it has spread.
Confirm what you are seeing
A bed bug is small, flattish and reddish-brown once it has fed, roughly the size of a pip from an apple, and it walks rather than hops or flies. A bite pattern on its own is not proof, since reactions differ hugely from person to person, so the search is really for the insect, its shed skins, or the dark spotting it leaves along a seam.
Check every bed in the home
Start at the mattress edge nearest the sleeper and work your way out to the frame, the headboard and finally the skirting and any nearby sockets. What you find, and in which rooms, is what any quote for treatment will be based on, so it is worth checking a spare bed or a sofa-bed too, even one that is barely used.
If you live in a flat above a Romford shop or in a shared house
Because bed bugs travel on belongings and along pipe runs, living above one of Romford's shopping parades, or sharing a house with other tenants, means the problem can spread further than your own room without anyone noticing straight away. Let the other people in the building know as soon as you find something.
Tell the right people
Anyone renting should let the landlord or agent know without delay, and check the tenancy terms on pest issues, as anyone near Hornchurch will recognise, where a mix of interwar semis and later estates spreading out towards the Essex border. Anyone managing a block needs telling too if there is a chance more than one flat is affected. Bed bugs are not a sign of anything anyone did wrong, which is worth remembering when you raise it.
Getting ready for treatment
Most of the prep work is straightforward: wash what you can on a hot cycle, seal the rest in bags, and clear floor space around each bed that needs treating, as anyone near Elm Park will recognise, where compact 1930s semis built along the arterial road out towards Hornchurch. There is usually no need to throw the mattress away; treatment is designed to deal with it in place.
Booking bed bug treatment in Havering
Bed bug treatment in Havering is £220 for the first room and £120 for each additional room, and the Havering bed bug control page sets out what a visit involves. Book bed bug treatment and let us know which rooms you have checked and whether anyone else nearby is affected.
