How to Get Rid of Bed Bugs: What Actually Works

Bed bugs are not a sign of a dirty home. They are hitchhikers: they arrive in luggage, on second-hand furniture, in a delivery box, or through a shared wall in a block of flats. Spotless homes get them. What decides how bad it becomes is how quickly you act and whether you use the methods that actually work.

This guide is deliberately blunt about one thing. Cleaning does not get rid of bed bugs. Neither does a supermarket spray. Getting rid of them is a treatment carried out by a pest controller, and everything else you do is preparation and support for that treatment. We would rather tell you that than sell you a clean that cannot work.

First, be sure it is bed bugs

Plenty of bites are not bed bugs, and plenty of bed bug infestations are found before anybody is bitten. Look for the evidence rather than the bites.

• Small dark spots on the mattress seams, the bed frame joints and the headboard. These are droppings and they smear rust-coloured if you wipe them with a damp cloth.
• Tiny blood spots on the sheet, usually where you lie.
• Shed skins, pale and translucent, about the size of an apple pip, in the seams and crevices.
• Live insects, flat and oval, about 5mm, the colour of an apple pip. They hide within about two metres of where you sleep.
• A sweet, musty smell in a heavy infestation.

Check with a torch along mattress piping, inside the bed frame joints, behind the headboard, in the bedside drawers and along the skirting nearest the bed. Bites alone are not proof: they are often in a line or cluster and can appear days later, but people react very differently and some do not react at all.

What actually kills them

Professional treatment, which is the real answer

A pest controller will use insecticide, heat, or both, and will almost always need more than one visit because eggs hatch after the first treatment. Expect a follow-up around two weeks later, and do not assume failure if you see a bug between visits.

Whole-room heat treatment raises everything to a temperature that kills bugs and eggs in one go. It costs more and is the fastest route. Insecticide treatment costs less and takes longer, with visits spaced to catch the hatchlings.

Heat, which you can do yourself on the things that matter

• Wash at 60 degrees and tumble dry hot for at least 30 minutes. The dryer does more of the killing than the wash does.
• Tumble dry alone works for anything that cannot be washed hot but can take the heat, again 30 minutes on high.
• Freeze at minus 18 degrees for four days for things that cannot be heated. A domestic freezer set to its coldest will usually do it; less time does not.
• Steam at the surface kills on contact along seams and in crevices, but only where the steam reaches and only if it is slow enough to be hot at the fabric.

Containment, which stops it spreading while you treat it

• Bag everything you launder before you carry it through the house, and unbag it straight into the machine.
• Encase the mattress and the base in proper bed bug encasements and leave them on for a year. Anything sealed inside starves.
• Vacuum the seams, frame and skirting with the crevice tool, then seal the bag and put it in the outside bin immediately.
• Pull the bed away from the wall and keep bedding off the floor.

What makes it worse

• Sleeping in another room. The single most common mistake. Bed bugs follow the carbon dioxide you breathe out, and you take the problem to the sofa with you. Keep sleeping in the same bed until it is treated.
• Foggers and bug bombs. They scatter bugs deeper into walls and furniture and rarely reach where they hide. Several pest controllers will tell you a fogger turned one room into a whole-flat job.
• Throwing out the mattress. Usually unnecessary, expensive, and it can spread the problem through the building on the way out. If you genuinely must, wrap it and mark it.
• Repeat shop-bought sprays. Resistance is common, and partial kills push the survivors somewhere harder to reach.
• Waiting. A female can lay a few eggs a day. A fortnight of hoping is a materially bigger job.

If you rent

Tell your landlord or letting agent in writing as soon as you suspect it, and keep the message. In England, landlords are responsible for keeping the structure and installations in repair and the home fit to live in, and infestations are usually handled under those duties, especially in a block where neighbouring flats are involved. Reporting it early also protects you from being blamed for a problem that arrived through a shared wall.

How GlowSpark deals with it

We do not treat bed bugs. Pest treatment is not on our service list and we will not pretend otherwise: it needs a licensed pest controller, and a cleaner with a hoover cannot do it. What we do is the work either side of that treatment, which is real work and a lot of it.

• The preparation clean, before the pest controller comes. Treatments work far better on a room that has been stripped, laundered, decluttered and vacuumed. We strip and bag bedding for hot washing, clear the floor and the surfaces the treatment needs to reach, vacuum the seams, frame and skirting, and seal and remove the vacuum waste.
• The reset clean, after the treatment is finished. Once your pest controller confirms the job is done, we put the room back: full clean, laundry, and every surface wiped down.
• We follow your pest controller, not our own opinion. If they ask for something specific before or after treatment, tell us and we will work to it.

How we work in a home with bed bugs

These are our rules, not suggestions, and they are the reason it matters that you tell us:

• It is booked as the cleaner’s last job of the day, so nothing travels on to another home.
• The cleaner brings as little as possible in. No bag left on a bed or sofa, nothing on the floor, and anything that does come in leaves in a sealed bag.
• Bedding and laundry are bagged in the room before they are carried anywhere in your home.
• Vacuum waste is sealed and goes straight into your outside bin before the cleaner leaves.
• Their work clothes are bagged and washed hot at the end of the day, at 60 degrees and on their own.
• No sprays and no treatment from us. That is your pest controller’s work and we do not get in the way of it.

Please say so in the booking notes when you book. It is not something to be embarrassed about, and it matters: it lets us send the right length of visit, make sure the cleaner brings and bags what is needed, and take the precautions that stop anything travelling to another customer's home. A cleaner who finds out at the door may not be able to do the job properly.

Book the clean as a Deep Cleaning visit and write "bed bug preparation" or "after bed bug treatment" in the notes, along with anything your pest controller has told you. You can book a GlowSpark cleaner from £25 an hour for a deep clean, with a two-hour minimum and the price before you confirm. If you are not sure whether to book before or after treatment, ask us and we will tell you straight, even when the answer is "wait and call the pest controller first".

Keeping them out afterwards

• Keep the encasements on for a full year.
• Check second-hand furniture in daylight before it comes through the door, especially upholstered items and bed frames.
• When you travel, keep the case off the bed and off the floor, and check the mattress seams of the room you are staying in. Unpack straight into a hot wash when you get home.
• Look at the bed seams once a month for a few months after treatment. Finding one early is a small job.

Bed bugs are miserable and they are also beatable. Move quickly, use heat, get a professional in, and do not sleep somewhere else. Book a GlowSpark deep clean for the preparation or the reset, and put the details in the notes so we arrive ready.