I was recently called out for a report of bed bugs in a house in Bromley. Not an unusual call out, quite common in fact. So I gathered all of my kit together that I needed and headed off to the address.
On arrival in the quiet backstreet address I saw nothing out of the ordinary. A typical 3-4 bed semi-detached house, paved front garden for cars and a few plants here and there. After knocking on the door 3 times and getting no answer, I was about to call the contact telephone number when an elderly lady finally answered the door. I introduced myself, explained why I was there and she let me in. She told me that she had found a bed bug in her bed, so off I went to investigate.
After opening the door to one of the bedrooms, I could see that something was wrong straight away. I continued to look in to three more bedrooms and found bed bugs in all of them. All of these rooms looked lived in, almost like bed sits. After my initial investigation I asked the lady if she had had any family staying with her to which she replied; “No, I let the rooms out to students.”
It turned out that she had been letting her rooms out to students for a couple of years. The students changed on a frequent basis and when they left, they always left the rooms in a mess. It only needed one of these “lodgers” to bring in a bed bug for it to spread throughout the house.
It ended up with the owner of the house having to throw all of the beds and furniture out because the infestation had got so bad. None of the students ever mentioned to her about the bed bugs, but they had been there for at least a year!
