A Sofa Is Three Layers
Layer one: the soft furnishings
Cushions, covers, throws and anything removable. Fully accessible, and where covers are removable and washable they can be dealt with the same way bedding is — a hot wash and a full hot tumble dry cycle.
Layer two: the outer upholstery
The fixed fabric over the arms, back and platform, and its seams and piping. Accessible from outside, and this is where most visible evidence sits: the crease where seat meets back, the seam where each arm meets the seat, and the piping round the platform.
Layer three: the interior
Frame, webbing, springs and padding, behind a stapled dust cover on the underside. This is the layer that decides everything. It cannot be reached from outside, and whether it can be reached at all depends on the dust cover.
The whole decision, in one question. Is there activity in layer three, and can layer three be opened? A sofa with everything in the first two layers is usually treatable. A sofa with an established population in the frame, behind a cover that cannot be opened, usually is not.
Where To Look, By Layer
- Underneath first. Tip it and look at the dust cover, the frame visible through any tear, and the leg and castor housings
- The crease where the seat platform meets the back, cushions out
- The piping round the platform and the front rail
- The seam where each arm meets the seat, both ends
- Cushion seams and piping, both faces, and inside any zip
- Buttons, tufting and any deep-buttoned back
Starting underneath is the step people skip and the one that most often answers the question.
Construction Differences That Matter
- A stapled dust cover can be opened by somebody treating the piece. A glued or heat-bonded one is a different proposition
- Fixed, non-removable cushions remove the easiest part of the job
- Deep-buttoned backs add dozens of small recesses
- A sofa bed adds a mechanism, hinges, and a mattress that folds into a cavity — the hardest common construction there is
- A recliner adds a mechanism and a motor housing
- Feather-filled cushions make no difference to habitability; the insects are in the seams either way
Caversham: The Sofa Bed Question
A sofa bed used as a spare bed is a bed, and it should be treated as one when a job is scoped — counted alongside the bedrooms rather than mentioned as furniture.
It is also the piece where the treat-or-discard question is genuinely hardest, because the mechanism and the folded mattress edges shelter more than either a bed or a sofa does on its own, and neither is easy to reach. Open it out fully before anybody looks at it.
Whatever Is Decided, the Room Is Still the Room
Removing a sofa does not remove what is in the carpet edge and the skirting behind it, and it says nothing about the bedroom the sofa was colonised from. A living room with an infested sofa is a room in the job rather than an item in it.
Do not cut open the dust cover yourself to look. Once it is open you have converted an enclosed void into an open one in a room people use, and you have removed the one barrier between what is inside the frame and the rest of the floor.
Bed bugs in Caversham? Pest Control Specialists Berkshire treats bed bugs from £220 for the first room. Bed Bug Treatments in Caversham has the full detail, or call 0118 336 1366.