Where Do Bed Bugs Hide Around Bed Frames?

1. Metal Frames: The Least to Find

A welded metal frame with few fixings offers meaningfully less than any other type. There is no timber to hold a screw recess, no fabric, and joints that are either welded shut or a single bolt.

• Bolt holes at the corners, and the recesses around them
• The open ends of hollow tube, where they are not capped
• Where slats or a mesh base sit in their supports
• Any decorative curl or scroll that creates an enclosed gap

That is a real advantage if you already own one. It is not on its own a reason to replace a bed you have, because the mattress and the headboard are unchanged either way.

2. Wooden Frames: Considerably More

Timber and fixings together produce a lot of small enclosed gaps, and a wooden frame is where an established infestation usually outlasts the mattress.

• Bolt and screw recesses. A countersunk hole is very close to the ideal dimensions
• Cam locks and dowel holes on a flat-pack frame
• Slat housings — where each slat end sits in its support, and the rubber holders on a sprung base
• The joint between side rail and headboard post
• The centre rail and its supporting leg
• Splits and checks in the timber itself, on an older frame

3. Divan Bases: More Again, and Mostly Unlooked At

A divan is a timber box under fabric, and almost everything about it is enclosed.

• The stapled fabric edge around the top face, at the corners particularly
• Inside the drawers — the backs, the undersides and the runners
• The empty recesses the drawers slide into, enclosed on five sides
• The underside of the base, including corner blocks and castor housings
• The join between the two halves of a split base

The drawer recesses and the underside are the two places most householders never look, and between them they account for a great deal of what an inspection finds.

4. Upholstered and Ottoman Beds: The Most

A fully upholstered frame combines everything above with fabric seams, piping and buttoning, and an ottoman adds a large enclosed void with a lifting mechanism in it.

• Every seam and piped edge on the frame and headboard
• Button recesses on a buttoned finish
• The stapled fabric on the underside
• The gas struts, hinges and pivot points of a lifting mechanism
• The lining of the storage void, and its corners

Maidenhead: Storage Beds and Small Bedrooms

Storage beds are popular anywhere bedrooms are tight, and they are the construction that most rewards a proper look. The drawers come right out, get turned over and get checked on their backs and runners, and the empty recesses behind them get a torch.

It is also the construction where preparation matters most. A storage bed that is full cannot be properly inspected or properly treated, and emptying it is the single most useful thing a household can do beforehand — keeping everything inside the same room.

What This Changes About Treatment

A bed is a structure rather than a surface, so it comes apart. Drawers out, headboard off the wall, slats lifted where the design allows. A treatment that left a bed assembled would have missed most of what was in it, however carefully the mattress was done.