Bed bugs are carried into a property. They do not develop in one, they are not a sign of anything about the household, and by the time most people find them they have been there a while. Pest Control Specialists Berkshire treats bed bugs in houses, flats, HMOs and rented property across twenty Berkshire towns, from £220 for the first room.
This is the most useful thing on the page and it is worth putting first, because the question almost everybody asks before any other is what they did wrong.
Nothing. Bed bugs have no interest in dirt, food waste or clutter. They feed on blood and they need somewhere dark and tight to sit between meals, and that is the whole of their requirement. A spotless house meets it exactly as well as an untidy one.
What they need is transport, and they get it from luggage, from second-hand furniture, from an overnight bag, from a previous tenancy or from an adjoining flat. Every infestation started with something being carried through a door.
The practical consequence. If you think you might have bed bugs, the sensible thing to do is look, today, at the piping along the top edge of the mattress at the head end. It takes five minutes and it is where most first evidence is found.
Almost everything that turns a one-room problem into a three-room problem is done by the household within a day of finding them, with entirely sensible intentions.
Bed bugs locate a host by the carbon dioxide you breathe out and by warmth. Moving to the spare room does not starve them out; over the following days and weeks they work towards the new room, and whatever you carry with you goes tonight. It is the single most common reason a household ends up paying to treat two rooms.
A mattress or a bed frame carried out through the house sheds along the way, and the landing, stairs and hall become part of the problem. Very little genuinely has to be disposed of, and nothing should be until somebody has looked at it.
There are four kinds of evidence, and only the first three are reliable, because live insects spend most of their lives out of sight.
Bites are what sends most people looking and they prove very little. Reaction varies enormously between people and a significant proportion show no visible reaction at all, so two people can share a bed and an infestation while only one of them has anything to show for it.
Close to where somebody sleeps, in a gap that touches them on both sides. Not on open surfaces, however dark.
Bed bugs are not hard to kill. What is hard is reaching them, and every one of the reasons this problem drags on is a version of that one difficulty.
You will be given the preparation and aftercare instructions that apply to the treatment used on your property. Raise children, pets, pregnancy or any respiratory condition in the household at the booking rather than on the day, so it can be taken into account.
Requirements vary with the treatment and the property and you will be told what applies to yours. Preparation has two purposes: give access to everywhere the bed bugs are, and make sure nothing leaves the room carrying them.
Do not empty the room before it has been seen. The evidence of where activity is concentrated is exactly what a thorough clear-out scatters, and scattering it moves the problem as well as hiding it. Wait until you have been told what preparation is actually needed.
Follow the instructions you are given, and one of them deserves emphasis: do not deep clean treated areas until you are told you can. Washing and scrubbing treated surfaces can interfere with the method used, and it is regularly done a few days later by somebody who simply wants the room back to normal.
Report new activity rather than waiting to see whether it settles, and note where it is and how big the insects are - both are useful.
Bed bug treatment starts from £220 for the first room. That is the price of the first room rather than the price of the job, which is a distinction worth being clear about before anybody rings.
What changes the figure is how many rooms people are actually sleeping in, how far activity has spread beyond the bed, and whether furniture away from the bed is involved. The more accurately you can describe that on the phone, the closer the estimate will be to the final one.
Where more than one room is involved, treating them together rather than one at a time over several months is both cheaper and more likely to work — sequential treatment of connected rooms is how an infestation survives a treatment.
Houses, flats, HMOs, student and shared accommodation, and landlord or agent managed property are all treated. In shared buildings the two things that matter most are scope and paperwork.
Who is ultimately responsible for the cost depends on the tenancy agreement and the circumstances, and it is not something a pest controller can rule on. What we can supply is a clear written record of what was found and what was done.
Anywhere people sleep can be affected: guest houses, lets, annexes, care premises and staff accommodation. The pattern is different in a room where the occupants rotate, because evidence accumulates in the seams whether or not anybody is there to report bites.
The two habits that make the most difference are checking the mattress piping at every changeover, while the bed is already stripped, and keeping a written note of any report, room, date and finding. Commercial and managed-premises enquiries are accepted across the service area.
“We recently discovered bed bugs in one of our bedrooms and contacted Pest Services Berkshire after reading their excellent reviews. From the first phone call they were professional, reassuring and incredibly knowledgeable. The technician arrived on time, carried out a thorough inspection and explained the treatment process clearly. The problem was resolved quickly and we can finally sleep without worrying.”
— Philip J. Leyshon
“Brilliant Service Bed Bugs have been terminated and all bedrooms are clean of the infestation. Good Job.”
— Roy Ernest Raby
Published in batches rather than all at once. Guides still being written are marked as such rather than linked to a page that is not there yet.
Treatment starts from £220 for the first room. The final cost depends on how many rooms are affected and how far activity has spread beyond the bed.
Look for physical evidence rather than relying on bites: live insects, dark spotting that smears when wiped, pale cast skins, or millimetre eggs cemented into a seam. Start with the mattress piping at the head end, then the frame joints, then behind the headboard.
Yes. Left alone they extend outward from a bed slowly, but they move a whole room at a time when people carry things or change where they sleep. Moving to the spare room is the commonest way it happens.
Usually not. A mattress in sound condition is one of the more treatable items, because the harbourage is at the seams. Carrying it out through the house is also one of the reliable ways to spread an infestation. Do not throw anything out before it has been looked at.
Usually yes — access to the bed, the furniture and the floor line, and bedding stripped and hot washed. Follow the specific instructions given for your treatment rather than a general checklist, and keep everything you move inside the same room.
Shop-bought products go on to open surfaces, which is where bed bugs are not, and they reach no eggs at all. Their commonest effect is to disturb an infestation and encourage it to spread further into the structure and into adjoining rooms.
Yes — houses, flats, HMOs, student and shared accommodation, and landlord or agent managed property across Berkshire. In a flat, say at the booking whether the neighbouring flats are occupied.
Months at ordinary room temperatures, and longer in a cool room. That is why a property standing empty between tenancies does not clear itself, and why furniture stored in a garage is not safe by default.
Yes. Reading and Slough are both covered, along with Windsor, Maidenhead, Ascot, Bracknell, Sandhurst, Newbury, Thatcham, Wokingham, Crowthorne, Theale, Henley-on-Thames, Pangbourne, Twyford, Woodley, Caversham, Earley, Hungerford and Cookham.
Call 0118 336 1366. Tell us what you have found and where, how many rooms people are sleeping in, and whether the property is owned or rented.
Twenty Berkshire towns, each with its own page written for that place.
Bed bug treatment from £220 for the first room, across twenty Berkshire towns, for houses, flats, rented property and managed accommodation.
Treatment starts from £220 for the first room. Tell us how many rooms people are sleeping in, what you have found — live insects, dark spotting, cast skins — and how long it has been going on, and we will come back to you.
Bed bug treatment from £220 for the first room. Tell us which rooms people are sleeping in and what you have found.