When Should a Landlord Arrange Bed Bug Treatment?

Arrange It Straight Away If Any of These Apply

• The tenant has found live insects or shed skins, not just bites. That is not a question any more
• There are dark spots on the mattress seam or the frame. Same
• Bites have continued for more than a week or two, whatever else has been tried
• More than one person in the property is affected
• It is a shared house or a converted building, where a delay means other units rather than just more of this one
• The last tenant reported something similar and it was not resolved on paper
• Somebody has been treating it themselves with a shop product — that usually means it has spread

The Arithmetic of Waiting

Waiting is tempting because a report might be nothing, and because the tenant may be able to sort it themselves. It is worth being honest about what the wait costs.

1. A population grows while nothing happens, so the same treatment has more to reach
2. It spreads within the property — to a second bedroom, to the sofa, to the room next door
3. In a shared or converted building it spreads beyond the unit, and the job stops being one flat
4. The tenant starts sleeping elsewhere in the property, which moves the problem with them
5. The tenant starts using shop products, which scatters it
6. The relationship deteriorates, and that has its own costs

None of those makes the first visit more expensive by itself. All of them together are the difference between one room and a building.

What Is Reasonable To Ask For First

Asking for a bit of evidence before booking is fair. Asking for proof is not, because the evidence is genuinely hard to find early and the tenant is not an inspector.

• A photograph of a bite pattern, or of anything found
• Which room, which bed, and which side of it
• When it started and whether it is getting worse
• Whether anybody else in the property is affected
• Whether there has been any second-hand furniture recently
• Whether they have travelled or had visitors staying

Six questions, one message. It costs nothing, and it makes the inspection more useful when it happens.

Do Not Make the Tenant Prove It First

The commonest way this goes wrong is a landlord who asks for proof, a tenant who cannot produce it because early evidence is sparse, and six weeks of messages while the population grows.

An inspection resolves the disagreement in an hour and it is the least expensive thing in the whole sequence. It is also the only step that produces a record, which matters if this later becomes a dispute about who was responsible.

Reading: Between Tenancies

The gap between tenancies is the easiest time to deal with this and the easiest time to miss it, because an empty property gives no signal at all — nobody is being bitten, so nothing gets reported.

1. Strip the beds and check the mattress piping at the head end
2. Take out the divan drawers and turn them over
3. Look behind the headboard and along the join with the wall
4. Check the sofa — seams, under the cushions, the frame beneath
5. Do it before the redecoration, not after, so anything found is dealt with while the place is empty