How Do You Inspect a Divan Base for Bed Bugs?

Before You Start

• Get the mattress off and lean it against a wall in the same room
• Have a torch, and a bank card for opening out fabric edges
• Clear enough floor to pull the base away from the wall and tip it
• Empty the drawers into a bag or box that stays in the room

The Procedure

1. The top face

With the mattress off, work along the stapled fabric edge that runs round the top of the base. The corners are the most productive part of it. Where two halves of a split base meet, work along that join as well.

2. The drawers, out and inverted

Pull each drawer right out and turn it upside down. The underside of the drawer bottom and the back of the drawer box are two of the most productive surfaces on the whole bed, and neither is visible with the drawer in place. Check the runners on both the drawer and the carcass, including the screw heads.

3. The empty recesses

With the drawers out you have exposed something that does not exist the rest of the time: a cavity enclosed on five sides, dark, and close to a host. Torch each one properly, front to back, along the top edge and into the corners.

4. Underneath

Tip the base up on its side. You are looking at the stapled fabric on the underside, the corner blocks, the castor or leg housings, and any timber frame visible through a torn dust cover. On a base that has never been moved this is often the busiest surface on the item.

5. Where it meets the floor and the wall

While it is out of position, look at the carpet and skirting where the base normally stands. Activity there is a perimeter finding and it means the same thing perimeter activity always means: this has been running a while.

Ottoman and Lift-Up Bases

An ottoman base is a divan with one large void and a mechanism, and it adds three things to the list.

• The gas struts and their pivot points
• The hinge line where the platform meets the base
• The lining of the void and its corners, particularly at the head end

It also stores considerably more than a drawer divan does, which makes emptying it before any treatment more important rather than less.

If You Cannot Move It

Some divans are heavy, some rooms are tight, and some people cannot lift them. That is a reasonable position and it is worth saying at the booking rather than apologising for on the day.

What you can do without lifting anything: take the drawers out and invert them, torch the recesses, and work along the top fabric edge. That covers a good proportion of the item, and the underside gets done as part of the visit.

Twyford: Why This Item Specifically

Divan bases are the default bed in most British bedrooms and they are the item householders are least likely to have looked at. In a room where somebody has checked the mattress carefully and found nothing, the base is the most likely place for the answer to be.