Can Bed Bugs Live Behind a Headboard?

Why It Is Such a Good Place

Three things have to line up for a harbourage to be genuinely good, and a wall-fixed headboard is the rare object where all three do.

1. A gap that touches on both sides. The board sits a few millimetres off the plaster, which is a continuous slot the whole width of the bed
2. Darkness and no disturbance. Nothing cleans behind it, nothing moves it, and it may not have come off the wall since it went up
3. Directly above a sleeping head. The shortest possible journey to a host, every night

Compare that with a headboard bolted to the bed frame, which moves whenever the bed does and usually stands clear of the wall. Same object, considerably less use to an insect.

Taking One Down

This is a ten-minute job and it is worth doing before anybody concludes a room is clear.

1. Photograph the fixings before you undo anything
2. Pull the bed away from the wall first, so you can get behind
3. Most wall-fixed boards hang on a French cleat or on two brackets and lift straight up off them
4. Lift it clear and lay it FACE DOWN on the bed, not on the floor and not against another wall
5. Torch the back of the board and the wall behind it, at a low angle
6. Check the cleat or brackets themselves, and the plugs in the wall

What a Padded or Buttoned Headboard Adds

A great deal, and it is the version most commonly fitted to a wall.

• Seams and piping right round the panel, on both faces
• Button recesses, each one a small dimple with fabric drawn into it
• The stapled fabric edge on the back, which is exactly the detail a divan base has and for the same reason
• Any gap where the fabric meets the frame at the bottom edge

On a buttoned board the buttons are worth going over one at a time. There are usually a few dozen and it takes a couple of minutes.

What Finding Something Here Tells You

Activity behind a headboard is not early-stage. It means the population has been established long enough to use somewhere other than the mattress seams, which usually places it at months rather than weeks.

It also means the wall behind the bed is in scope — the skirting below it, the socket faces on it, and anything hanging on it above the bed.

Maidenhead: The Fitted Bedroom Version

Where a headboard is part of a fitted bedroom — built in with side cabinets, lighting or a bridging unit over the bed — it may not come off at all. That is worth saying at the booking rather than discovering on the day, because it changes how the head of the bed has to be dealt with.

The same applies to a headboard that is upholstered directly onto a wall panel. It is not a reason for anything drastic; it is a reason for the inspection to know in advance.