Bed Bugs

Bed bugs are indifferent to how clean a home is. What draws them is warmth, carbon dioxide and blood. They almost always arrive from somewhere else — in a suitcase, in second-hand furniture, in a bag after a stay away. Finding them is not a hygiene failure, and it should not be treated as one.

How to recognise them

An adult bed bug is 5–7 mm long, about the size of an apple seed, flat and oval. After feeding it swells, lengthens and turns reddish-brown. Nymphs are much smaller and translucent or whitish-yellow; while they are unfed they are close to invisible to the naked eye. The eggs are pinhead-sized and pearl-white.

Most people see the evidence before they see the insect:

• Dark faecal spots that bleed into fabric the way a felt-tip pen does
• Rusty smears where a bug has been crushed
• Eggs around 1 mm across and pale yellow shed skins
• A heavy, sweetish odour in a closed room

Where they hide

A bed bug is about as thick as a credit card and will use any crack that will take it. Start the search at the bed: the piping and seams of the mattress, its tags, the base, and the cracks in the frame and headboard.

In a heavy infestation they move beyond the bedroom — into the seams of sofas and chairs, between cushions, in the folds of curtains, in drawer joints, inside electrical sockets, under lifting wallpaper and along the junction of wall and ceiling.

What it means for health

Bed bugs have not been shown to transmit disease. What they do cause is well documented: allergic reactions to the bites, secondary skin infections from scratching, disturbed sleep and anxiety. The US Environmental Protection Agency classifies them as a pest of significant public health importance.

Leaving a light on does not stop them biting.

How the treatment works

Bed bugs are not a problem that a single spray solves. Most of the work is a careful search: a treatment applied before you know which rooms are affected and which items they are living in will always fall short.

The survey starts at the bed and follows the infestation outwards. Which side of the bed the signs concentrate on, whether there is anything in the neighbouring rooms, and what is happening in adjoining flats all set the boundary of the treatment. We do not diagnose from bite marks: skin reactions vary enormously between people and prove nothing on their own. What we are looking for is the insect, the faecal spotting, the eggs and the shed skins.

Treatment is directed straight at the harbourage and into the cracks and crevices around it. Because the eggs are unaffected, one visit is rarely enough, so a follow-up is planned in. Before we start, we leave you a written list of what to do — which textiles to wash, what to bag, which furniture to pull out.

Afterwards, do not move the bed or the furniture into another room. Carrying an infested item is the quickest way to take the problem with you. For the same reason, ask us before you take a mattress you want rid of down the stairs.

What you can do

Wash bedding, sheets and clothing at 60 °C. Anything that cannot be washed can be bagged and left in a freezer for a few weeks instead. Cut down clutter in the bedroom — every box and pile is another place to harbour. Check the seams and joints of second-hand furniture before it comes through the door, and do not unpack a suitcase in the bedroom after travelling.

Avoid spraying a shop-bought aerosol at the bugs you can see. It usually scatters them and spreads the infestation into neighbouring rooms, which makes the job considerably harder.