Bed Bugs in Reading Flats: What Should You Do First?

There Is Nowhere To Decant To

In a house, the instinct is to move to the spare room or the sofa — which is a bad idea anyway, but at least it is an option. In a one-bedroom flat there is one bed and one sofa, both in about forty square metres.

• Stay in the bed. Moving to the sofa in a small flat does not put distance between you and anything; it establishes a second site eight feet from the first
• Do not sleep at a friend's or a relative's while you wait. It is how a single-flat problem becomes two households
• Do not bring bedding or clothes with you if you do stay elsewhere
• Keep the bed as the only sleeping place until the visit, so the population stays where it started and where it can be reached

The Structure Is Not Yours

In a purpose-built block or a converted house, part of what matters is behind your walls and under your floor.

• The party wall your bed stands against — and whatever stands against its other face
• Service voids and pipe boxing, which pass between flats and are rarely sealed
• The floor void, particularly in a conversion of an older house
• Communal stairs, hall, lift and bin store
• A shared laundry, if there is one

None of that means it came from next door, and it usually did not. It means the scope of the inspection is a question for somebody with access to more than your flat.

Who To Tell, and In What Order

1. Your landlord or managing agent, in writing and dated, if you rent
2. The block's managing agent or the freeholder if you own, particularly where communal areas or another flat may be involved
3. The neighbours either side, if something is found — a short, factual message, not an accusation
4. Anybody who has stayed recently or who you have stayed with

Telling the neighbours is the part people dread and the part that makes the difference. Most people are relieved to be told, and a flat treated while the one next door is not is the flat that has this again.

The Communal Areas Are a Real Consideration

• Do not put a mattress or upholstered furniture in the communal bin store unwrapped. It is the fastest way to make this the block's problem rather than yours
• Wrap and seal anything being disposed of in the flat, before it goes through the door, and take it straight out of the building
• Bag laundry in the room, carry it sealed, and do not set the bag down in the hall
• Avoid the shared laundry with untreated bedding, or wash and dry it hot and bag it clean before it comes back

The Flat-Sized Inspection

Because it is small, a proper look is twenty minutes rather than an evening. Strip the bed and take a torch.

1. The mattress piping at the head end, both faces, and the corners
2. The top of the divan or frame under the mattress, and the divan drawers turned over
3. Behind the headboard, and the join between it and the wall
4. The bedside table joints and the back of its drawer
5. The sofa — seams, under the cushions, the frame beneath, the underside of the base
6. The skirting line and carpet edge on the wall the bed stands against
7. Socket faces on that wall

Reading: Studio Flats and Bed-Sitting Rooms

Where the bed and the living space are the same room, the useful distinction between "the bedroom" and "the rest" disappears, and two things follow.

• The sofa is not a separate zone — it is part of the same site and needs the same attention as the bed
• Preparation involves the whole room rather than one part of it, so allow more time for it than a one-bedroom flat would need
• Storage under the bed matters more, because in a studio there is always storage under the bed
• Clothes and bedding kept in the same room as the bed all form part of the laundry job