How to Tell If You Have Bed Bugs (and What to Do Next)

Start by working out what you have

It helps to separate two things: what is making you call someone, and what is causing it. The visible bed bugs are the first; the moisture, the gap or the food source behind them is the second, and only the second decides whether the result holds.

That is why an inspection comes before any product. It establishes the species, how far the population has spread, and which conditions on the property are sustaining it.

There is a fuller explanation of the bed bug treatment page, including what is and is not included.

How to tell you have a problem

Before numbers become obvious there is almost always a quieter stage. What to look for:

• Bites in a line or small cluster on skin exposed while sleeping.
• Dark specks along the stitching of an upholstered bedhead or valance.
• Activity that began within days of travel, a delivery or second-hand furniture.
• Rusty smears on sheets where a fed bug has been crushed in the night.
• Live insects in the bed base, headboard fixings or a bedside drawer runner.

If more than one of those applies, treat it as confirmed rather than possible. Disturbing the area first makes identification harder.

If you are not certain which pest you are dealing with, the full range of treatments we carry out lists what we treat and the signs that point to each.

Which method suits which situation

There is rarely one correct method. What follows is what each approach does well and where it falls short:

Ask which of these is being proposed and why. A technician who cannot answer that is guessing.

We set out the full process, timelines and warranty terms under bed bug treatment.

How the appointment runs

There is not much mystery to it, and most of it is quicker than people expect:

1. First look. Ten to twenty minutes looking - inside, outside, roof void or subfloor if relevant - then a plain explanation of what is going on.
2. Price confirmed. No work starts until you have agreed the price and know what it covers.
3. Treatment. Most general treatments take 45 to 90 minutes depending on the property size and how much access is involved.
4. Before we leave. A clear explanation of what happens next, so an increase in activity a few days later does not alarm you.

One thing worth knowing: with baiting and colony treatments, activity often rises briefly before it drops. That is the treatment working, not failing.

Getting ready for the treatment

Nothing elaborate, but these few things genuinely affect how well it works:

• Tell the technician what you have already applied yourself.
• Make a note of where you have seen activity and when.
• Cover or move fish tanks and turn off their air pumps.
• Clear a path to the roof void or subfloor access if there is one.
• Put food, utensils and pet bowls away or in sealed containers.

Afterwards, hold off on mopping treated skirtings and perimeters for a week or so - washing the treatment off is the most common reason a job underperforms.

What this means if you have kids or animals

Fair question, and worth more than a one-word answer. Professional treatment is safe around families and pets because of how it is applied, not because the products are inert:

• Nothing is applied to food preparation surfaces or anywhere food is stored.
• You are given a specific re-entry time, usually just until treated surfaces are dry.
• Baits, gels and dusts go into cracks, voids and secured stations - not across open surfaces.
• Fish tanks are covered and pet bowls and bedding moved before any treatment.

If anyone in the house has a specific sensitivity, tell us when you book - it changes which products we bring, not whether we can help.

That is worth checking before you book anyone, including us - licensed and insured technicians covers our licensing, insurance and how long we have been doing this.

What not to do

Things we routinely arrive to find, and what they cost:

• Throwing out the mattress but leaving the bed frame and room untreated.
• Moving to another bedroom, which spreads the problem through the house.
• Waiting for certainty rather than acting on the first signs.
• Treating once and stopping, when a follow-up is almost always needed.

None of these are unrecoverable - but tell the technician what has already been tried, because it affects what will work now.

Setting a few things straight

A few of these come up on nearly every job:

• Bed bugs mean poor hygiene. They are introduced by travel and second-hand furniture and occur in every standard of accommodation.
• You can treat it yourself. Retail sprays scatter them deeper into cracks and are a common reason infestations persist.
• Throwing out the mattress fixes it. They harbour in frames, bedheads, skirtings and furniture. Discarding the mattress alone does little.
• One treatment is always enough. Eggs hatch after treatment, so a follow-up is normal and expected.

The rest of what we handle is set out under the pest control services page.

What counts as an emergency

Some of this can wait a fortnight. Some of it cannot. The dividing line:

• Anyone in the household has a known allergy to stings.
• A tenancy, sale or inspection is imminent.
• Numbers have visibly increased over a week or two.
• There is damage to structural timber, cabling or insulation.

Outside those, a booking in the next few days is generally fine. Waiting a month is where it starts getting more expensive.

If your suburb is not mentioned above, the Sydney suburbs we cover will confirm whether we are out that way.

The guarantee, in plain terms

Our general treatments are backed for six months. That is a re-treatment guarantee rather than a refund, which is what actually helps.

The exclusions are the ordinary ones - a new pest is a new job, and a recurrence traced to an unfixed cause sits outside the cover. Termite barriers and baiting programs have their own longer warranties, conditional on annual monitoring.

It goes on the invoice, so there is no ambiguity about what was covered six months later.

If this is the second or third time you have dealt with it, a scheduled home service costs less over a year than repeated call-outs.

Stopping it coming back

The treatment buys you a clean slate. These keep it:

• Reduce clutter under and around the bed.
• Check the bedhead fixings and skirting behind the bed when you change linen.
• In a strata building, report activity early so adjoining units can be checked.
• Inspect second-hand furniture and mattresses carefully before they come in.
• Use a zipped, bed-bug-rated mattress and base encasement.

The moisture items matter most. If you only do one thing, fix the water.

Households that would rather not think about it tend to move to a regular residential program, which catches problems at the point they are still small.

Common questions