Reading in an Oct 2023 newspaper, “Bedbugs are found on Paris Metro and are on their way to the UK” brought back the experience we had in 2022. Apart from starting to itch immediately just at the mere though of these hardy critters feeding on your body and the mental anguish it can cause.
One of our tenants called to say their child was being bitten by bedbugs and please can the landlord sort it? The tenant had been in the property for 2 years, so it was definitely not the landlord's obligation to sort it out as it was introduced by the tenants themselves.
How did it get there?
A bedbug or its egg might have hitched a ride on a handbag, attached to shoe and found a happy new home to raise its family in your home. Or that second hand wardrobe was infected.
How does that work?. You sit on a bus. A bedbug attached to another person’s shoe sticks to yours and you walk it straight into your home. Or you brought that wardrobe with its infestation into your home. (PS never bring second hand furniture into your home without a fumigation and keeping it in quarantine outside your home)
Bedbugs wont die on their own and will multiply within months. Bedbugs can double every 16 days. They hide during the day and are active at night (12 to 5am) when humans are in deep sleep. They are attracted by body heat and CO2 emissions from our breath and hide within a few metres from our beds and rest 3 to 7 days between meals. They can live a long time without any food.
How do Bedbugs get into your home
Bed bugs hide in second-hand furniture, clothes, books, toys, shoes, suitcases and bags to hitch a ride into your home. Once inside your home and near a food source (you or your children) — often in your bedroom — adult females can lay two or more eggs per day. Doing some research just brought it all back and say you know a guest from abroad or just driving on the tube can introduce bed bugs into your property and you don't know it until a few weeks later when they've multiplied to millions of thousands and they start biting. You and your poor child comes out in a huge rash. What do you do?
1. Detect -How to detect bedbugs
Most people only suspect a bed bug infestation only when they find unexplained bites on their bodies, especially after a night’s sleep. Bedbug bites are painless and sometime occur in lines.
The problem is that some people don’t even have a reaction for several days or no reaction at all. This can allow an infestation to get started in their home and remain unnoticed until the bed bug population increases so much, that bed bugs start to be seen. Bites and itching but this is not consistent or reliable see NHS advice
Go look for the presence of bedbugs and see if you see the following in your bedroom:
Dark/black stains - on the mattress and surrounding area from blood.
Sweet scent - An unpleasant, sweet, sickly scent in areas where bedbugs hide.
Small dark spots - Small dark blood spots on bedding known as 'faecal pellets'.
Live insects - despite being small (adult are only 4-5mm long) it’s possible to spot live bed bugs and shed skins.
Aggregation of bedbug families in corners on ceilings or floor (could look like dust or mould).
Lines where they walk (these are sticky and leave stained trails from the ceiling to the bed)
Little shell like domes (the old shells of the nymphs) on curtains, carpets, mattresses and bedposts.
Where to look: Along mattress seams, b ehind bed boards, in bedframes and on bedposts, i nside holes for bed screws, b ehind loose wallpaper and chipped paint, u nderneath skirtings and wooden strips, o n the wardrobe frames and inside bedside drawers, i nside curtain poles, inside books and stuffed animals, inside and behind picture frames.
Don't forget to look for tell tale signs in all other rooms as well , anywhere where people sit or have slept, around edges of all carpets, in sofas, under sofa cushions, in lounge curtains.
2. Avoid those Bedbugs multiplying
Avoid having clutter around your bed (Make your bed a sacred island).
Don't put soft toys, clothes and scatter pillows on the floor (ever!)
Do not bring second hand furniture into your home without carefully checking and isolating first.
Do not bring luggage or travel clothing into your home without isolating, checking and treating it first. (assume it is contaminated).
Regularly vacuum thoroughly in nooks an crannies (not just the middle of the floor) and steam floors, sofas and mattresses and have bedbug traps.
Always have mattress cover that gets washed every 2 weeks and tumbled dried (or steam cycle) to kill any critters and eggs and mites.
There are some things you can do to avoid picking them up from hotel rooms like never putting suitcases or clothes on beds or floors. Look out for our blog on "What not to do in a hotel room" .
3. Eradicate
Find where they hide and start by vacuuming and steaming cleaning every nook and cranny.
Wash & tumble dry or steam all bedding. Do this every few days to catch all survivors or newly hatched or unhatched eggs.
Freeze bedding like cushions and duvets to kill live bedbugs and eggs.
Then set traps to see if you can catch any. Buy Bedbug traps and put sticky tape around bed legs. You can make your own sugar and yeast traps.
Get special bedbug plastic mattress covers to prevent these critters from coming out of your mattress to come feed on you . See life cycle below. Or get a new mattress and make sure the new one doesn’t get infected by sealing it in a special bedbug mattress cover.
Sprinkle diatomaceous earth all around the skirtings and in between floorboards. Its not poisonous, dehydrates and rubs through all insects exoskeleton (scull like cover)so it will help against fleas and mites as well (scull like cover). Diatomaceous earth and vacuuming washing and steam cleaning are your natural secret weapons.
Dispose of wooden bedframes, mattresses, curtains, fluffy toys, scatter cushions and pillows if you can't wash, freeze steam or treat these items properly or safely.
Investigate poison spray combos or contact a pest control company to do several sessions of spraying. You will need to leave the home for a while to allow the poisons to evaporate. Don't steam clean after that as it will remove the poison.
5. Understanding bedbug lifecycle can help you fight them
By understanding the bedbug lifecycle, you can prevent them from surviving and multiplying.
Bedbugs originally lived on bats and then moved to feed on cave dwellers and after that were carried by humans all over the world. They love our nice warm and humid homes, beds and bodies.
Adults lay about 7 eggs a day during their lifetime of about a year.
These tiny white eggs (size of a salt grain) are laid in the cracks of bedframes and seams of mattresses. (80 percent of eggs survive to become reproductive adults)
After 7-15 days the eggs hatch and nymphs come out who shed their skin after every bloodmeal every 3 days or so and turn from a 1.5mm see-through nymph to a 6mm red brown nymph (They shed or moult 4x). This can take a few weeks to 4-6 months while they live off human blood. They shed their skins one last time and become adults who live off blood which allows them to mate, lay eggs and then the cycle starts all over again.
If there was absolutely no host available to feed on blood, a young bed bug could die within several weeks, while an adult bed bug could survive as long as 5 months under optimal conditions of heat and humidity before dying of starvation.
I hope you win the battle as its mentally exhausting problem to deal with
PS.
We have used the Bedbug Ladies in London to eradicate bedbugs from a vacant property a few years ago and they were excellent and very discreet. See contact details below if you want to contact them .
They helped us treat a property which was totally infested by bedbugs. The tenant's never reported a bedbug problem to us and lived with the problem for a few years. We only discovered this after the tenants moved out. Hopefully the are happy with their bedbug problem in their newly built home. They were probably hoping to run away from their bedbug problem but as they took all their furniture we are sure they carried their bugs with them May they live happily ever after with their bedbugs.
We may earn referral fees from some links
Comentários