To think that £3200 quote for blitzing bed bugs is extortionate?

[goldengoddess]

Help, I've got bed bugs and am stressed out about it. Can't sleep for imagining bugs crawling over me.

Just been quoted £3200 by Rentokil for a heat treatment which promises to eradicate bugs and eggs with one simple easy treatment - apparently they heat up the affected rooms to 70 degrees and that kills everything.

The alternative is spraying toxic chemicals which I've been quoted £1,200 for. That includes five visits to ensure entire eradication of bugs. However, that involves loads of hassle, emptying every drawer and wardrobe, removing everything from the walls, all books from bookcases and washing every item of clothing in the house, ideally at 60 degrees or over!! Feel faint at the prospect of so much upheaval and washing....

Has anyone had recent experience of bed bugs, or used the heat treatment? What was effective? Would really appreciate some advice. Thanks!

DianaT i think all you can do is minimise the risk of picking up bed bugs when travelling, hence the advice to avoid putting your case on the bed, where a bug could hop into your case and travel home with you. I guess if you were being super careful you could put your nightclothes in a airtight plastic bag and wash immediately on return home. Similarly when you get home empty your suitcase away from the bedroom and store somewhere like a garage where no one sleeps.

But according to Rentokil, they are often called out by Transport for London to kill infestations on the tube/trains, so they could easily hop into your bag/clothes while commuting. Urgh, i feel completely invaded, short of installing a sheep dip style contraption at the front door I am not sure how you can prevent them returning. Other than following all the advice above!

Well i first became aware of an infestsation because I saw a bug
Haven't you been bitten?

Traccs Not really, I have had a couple of itchy spots on my face, but they weren;t that bad I just dismissed them as midgies or something. However, my husband did get badly bitten about six months ago and his hand swelled up as it it were an allergic reaction, so I think the bites affect people differently.
My son, whose room is also affected, has been bitten too

Before spending a shit-ton of money eradicating bed bugs which haven't bitten you I'd make damn sure your symptoms are not psychosomatic.

That's shocking. l'd be contemplating a can of petrol and some matches.
l agree with the previous posters. Get in touch with your council pest control department.

Sounds hellish, how you described that to me OP! Like something out of a horror film. Thinking back I rem seeing a programme about it a couple of years ago, and recall them being all over the place. The remind me of cockroaches in a way. Hope you get it sorted and thanks for the tips about suitcase's.

jimmyhill i can assure you that my symptoms are not psychosomatic! I have seen with my own eyes several live bed bugs crawling on my bed and headboard. Though I guess I could be hallucinating!

Here he is!! www.bed-bugs.co.uk/

Not bed bugs, but when we had an ant infestation our council pest control were £££s cheaper than any commercial company and included 3 visits in total if we needed them for a 12 month period

I have now found an amazing sounding company based in Norbury who appear to be world experts on bed bugs and their eradication. They seem to be the leading authority on the subject and are quoted widely on TV and articles on bed bugs. Anyway, more importantly, they offer a bespoke service and are extremely affordable. Have got them booked in for Monday, the soonest I could get an appointment, and they say that 75% of infestations are eradicated after one visit, and 99% after two. So fingers crossed they will blitz the blighters once and for all.......

Would you give a link to them, please?

We just got rid of bedbugs and I can also recommend Bedbugs UK in Norwood (Excited101's link). We had one visit for advice on preparation and one treatment visit. two rooms treated, total cost £300.

and lots of

Unless you have a very heavy infestation or you have previously used DIY sprays (which tend to scatter them rather than kill them) they will almost certainly be on the beds rather than elsewhere in the room.

On our bed they were under the wooden slats of the bed base, in DS's bed they were in the underside mattress buttons and seams. It actually helped me mental health wise to lift up the mattress and see exactly where they were, that there were only a few, mostly in one or two places and not swarms of the fuckers.

If you want to be extra prepared for Monday, get in some pallet wrap (I got it from Argos - www.argos.co.uk/product/6252182 ), plenty of heavy duty bin bags and some extra hoover bags if you have a bag hoover.

We only had to bag up stuff from within 3 feet of the beds. Anything we were keeping got wrapped in 3 layers of pallet wrap for safe decontamination at a later date.

The lovely bug lady brought round dissolving laundry bags. Bugs quite like dirty laundry so you seal it all up in these bags then put the whole thing in the washing machine and wash on at least 60. That way you don't risk spreading them through the house. The seams of the bag dissolve in water so you just fish out the soggy bag at the end. I've now bought some on Amazon for use on trips away.

Hello @magimedi I haven't 'seen' you for ages!

I live not far away from you and when I lived in Brixton a few years ago I got a local company to help. I think it was around £200 for a one bedroom flat - the chemical treatment does the job well and they never had to come back. I also bought bed bug sprays myself to randomly spray (I think they die if they come into contact with it, even if they crawl over it where you have sprayed although I might be talking rubbish). Be warned it's highly toxic - spray and then run out the room and keep doors closed. Use some fabric to cover your mouth when spraying.

I'm surprised you haven't been bitten. The bites are insanely itchy and often appear in rows. Often on your lower legs, ankles or hands.

Bed bugs are becoming resistant to pretty much everything. Even professional companies who use pesticides are having to use combinations of formulae and be much smarter about how they are using them. This is why it's a really bad idea to try self treatment with pesticides - what doesn't kill them makes them scatter.

On bites - some people don't react at all to the bites, others react very badly. I thought I was a non-reacter because DH was getting bites but I wasn't. The snag with our treatment was that we discovered the bugs while DS was in the process of moving out. This meant one of us had to move into his vacated room for the duration, to keep the bugs in place until they were killed. I volunteered because I thought I was a non-reacter. Wrong! As soon as I moved into that room I was getting bitten to fuck.

So I think as well as some people reacting and some not, they do seem to prefer some people to others. Given the choice, they'd bite DH rather than me, but once I was the only one there they happily fed off me.

How did you get on today OP?