How Much Does Bed Bug Treatment Cost in Greenwich? First & Additional Room Prices

The Published Price

The number of rooms is confirmed at the inspection, before anything is applied. If fewer rooms need treating than you expected, that is the figure you pay.

Why These Are the Highest Room Rates We Publish

Flea and carpet moth treatment are also priced by room, at £180 for the first and £60 for each additional. Bed bugs cost more per room than either, and the difference is not the product. It is the inspection and the return visit.

A flea treatment covers floor areas: the perimeter, under the furniture, the places the animal uses. It is thorough but it is broadly the same work in every room. A bed bug treatment is a search followed by targeted application, and the search is most of what you are paying for.

• Mattress and base seams, folds and labels.
• Bed frame joints, screw holes and the underside of slats.
• Headboard fixings and the wall behind them.
• Bedside furniture, drawer runners and the backs of drawers.
• Curtain hems, skirting joints and the carpet perimeter.
• Sockets, switch plates and picture frames where an infestation is established.

Every one of those has to be checked in every room being treated, and the treatment is then applied to the harbourages that were found rather than broadcast across the floor. That is slow work and it is the work that determines whether the result holds.

The Follow-Up Is in the Price

A second visit is a normal part of a bed bug programme rather than a sign that something went wrong. Eggs are considerably more resistant than the insects that laid them, and the follow-up is timed for what hatches after the first treatment.

It is worth checking, when comparing prices, whether a cheaper quote includes that return visit or charges for it separately. A single-treatment price for bed bugs is not a like-for-like comparison.

How the Room Count Is Decided

By what is actually infested, established at the inspection. Not by the number of bedrooms, not by the size of the property, and not by what somebody guessed over the phone.

That cuts both ways and it is meant to. One bedroom in a four-bedroom house is one room of work. A studio flat where the bed, the sofa and the storage share a single space is also one room of work, and charging that as though it were a whole property would be wrong.

Two Other Ways People Spend More Than They Need To

Throwing the mattress out

It is the first instinct and it is almost always the wrong move. A mattress on the landing does not remove an infestation that has already spread into the frame, the bedside table and the skirting - it removes the item that told you where the bugs were. It also risks moving them through the rest of the property on the way out. You have then paid for a mattress and still need the treatment.

Spraying it yourself first

Retail insecticide around a bed kills what it touches and disperses the rest into the room, turning one harbourage into several. The treatment that follows is then a larger job than it would have been.

Rented Property, HMOs and Guest Accommodation

Room-based pricing suits a let property because it produces a defensible figure rather than an estimate that moves. Rooms in HMOs, hotels and guest accommodation are assessed and priced individually. Tell us how many rooms are involved and whether any are currently occupied.

A Note on Embarrassment

Bed bugs travel on luggage, on bags and in second-hand furniture, and they are found in spotless homes and good hotels routinely. Having them says nothing about how a home is kept. It is worth saying plainly because embarrassment is the single most common reason people wait months before calling - and waiting is precisely what turns a one-room job into a three-room one.

What the Inspection Looks Like From Your Side

The inspection is most of what you are paying for, so it is worth knowing what it involves - partly so the room count makes sense to you, and partly because people are often surprised by how long it takes.

Beds are dismantled to the extent needed to see the joints and screw holes. Mattresses and bases are turned and the seams, folds and labels are checked. Headboards come off the wall. Bedside furniture is pulled out and the drawers come out of it. Curtain hems, skirting joints and the carpet perimeter are checked, and in an established infestation so are sockets, switch plates and picture frames.

That is done in every room being assessed, which is why an inspection of a three-bedroom house is not a five-minute job, and why the room count that comes out of it is a finding rather than an estimate.