£180 a room for two treatments three weeks apart; each further room £95
Bed bugs
Itchy bites in a line in the morning, tiny dark spots on the mattress seams, a sweet musty smell: a heat-and-spray treatment of the room, the bed, the furniture and the skirting, repeated three weeks later to catch the ones that hatched, with a preparation sheet that matters as much as the treatment. Discreet, unmarked van on request.
Bed bugs come home in luggage and second-hand furniture, and Cardiff has a lot of both: students, hotels, the furniture shops on City Road. They are not a sign of a dirty house and they do not carry disease, but they bite, they spread room to room, and they do not go away on their own. The treatment that works is two visits three weeks apart, because the eggs survive the first and hatch in about ten days; anyone who offers one visit is selling you a second infestation.
The first visit starts with an inspection: the mattress seams and the bed frame joints, the skirting behind the bed, the plug sockets, the curtains and the sofa. We steam the mattress and the frame, which kills eggs on contact, and spray the cracks and voids with a residual insecticide that keeps working for weeks. The preparation sheet asks you to wash all bedding and clothes from the room at sixty degrees, bag them, vacuum, and leave everything else where it is so the bugs stay put. Most failures come from people moving into another room the night after the treatment.
Landlords and letting agents use us for flats and HMOs in Cathays and Roath, and the report says which rooms were treated, with what, and what the tenant was asked to do, which is what a dispute needs. Hotels and guest houses get an inspection the same day and a treatment that night, and we come in an unmarked van and a plain shirt if you ask.
What is included
- A thorough inspection of the room and the next ones
- Steam on the mattress and frame, residual spray in the cracks
- A second treatment three weeks later, included
- A preparation sheet that actually works
- A written report for the landlord or the agent
- An unmarked van and a plain shirt on request
What it costs
£180 a room for two treatments three weeks apart, the inspection, the preparation sheet and the report included; each further room on the same job £95. A survey on its own is £60, off the job if you book. The call-out is £85 by day and £130 by night and comes off the job if you book it. Not sure what you have? The identifier covers 12 pests, including bed bug.
Questions about bed bugs
Do I need to throw the mattress away?
Almost never. Steam kills the bugs and the eggs in the seams, and a zipped encasement afterwards traps anything we missed. Throwing it out spreads them down the stairs.
Can I stay in the room?
Yes, from four hours after each treatment, and you should, because you are what brings the survivors out to cross the treated surfaces.
Seen something? Ring. Anything else, book a slot.
The 24-hour line is answered by a technician, and the call-out is a fixed price before anyone leaves. For anything that can wait for the morning, the booking form takes two minutes and we reply within the hour in working hours with a two-hour slot. Not sure what it is? The identifier will tell you, and what it costs.