Who to hire for bed bugs

Short answer

A licensed pest manager with specific bed bug experience, and expect a multi-visit program rather than one spray. Bed bugs hide in seams, frames, skirtings and power points, survive months without feeding, and are widely resistant to common insecticides — retail products mostly scatter them into adjoining rooms.

Soon, not tonightIt will not usually get cheaper by waiting, and it is rarely worth an after-hours rate.

What to do before anyone arrives

  1. Confirm it is bed bugs. Collect one in a sealed container or photograph it — bites alone are not diagnostic and people are frequently treated for the wrong thing.
  2. Do not start moving mattresses and furniture between rooms. That is the single most effective way to spread an infestation through a house.
  3. Do not throw the mattress out yet. It marks the house as infested and a competent treatment usually saves it.
  4. Bag affected bedding and clothing and wash hot and tumble dry hot, then keep it sealed until the treatment is done.
  5. Write down where you have travelled or what second-hand furniture has come in recently. It genuinely helps.

What to ask when you book

  • How many treatments are included and over what period?
  • Are you using heat, chemical, or both, and why?
  • What preparation do you need from me — and get this in writing, because treatment failure is usually preparation failure.
  • Are you treating adjoining rooms, and in an apartment, what about neighbouring units?
  • What is the follow-up and the warranty?

What changes the price

No dollar figures here: this directory holds no price data and an invented range is worse than none. What follows is what makes one of these jobs cost more than the same job next door, which is the part you can actually use when comparing quotes.

  • Severity and how many rooms are involved.
  • Heat treatment, which is effective and equipment-intensive.
  • Number of visits.
  • Preparation, and whether the operator does it or you do.
  • Apartment buildings, where adjoining units matter.

What you can do yourself

Is this licensed work?

Pest management licensing applies. Heat treatment is a specialised service some operators offer and others do not.

There is no national register. Search the licence number with the regulator for the state the work is happening in.

Licensing thresholds and certificate requirements differ by state and change with amending regulation, so this page describes the mechanism rather than quoting a figure. The regulator’s own page is the current answer.

Common questions

Who should I hire for bed bugs
A licensed pest manager with specific bed bug experience, and expect a multi-visit program rather than one spray. Bed bugs hide in seams, frames, skirtings and power points, survive months without feeding, and are widely resistant to common insecticides — retail products mostly scatter them into adjoining rooms.
Do I have to throw out my mattress?
Usually not. Professional treatment, combined with an encasement that traps anything remaining inside, saves most mattresses. Discarding it without treating the room does nothing, because the majority of a bed bug population is not in the mattress — it is in the frame, the skirting and the surrounding furniture.
Why did the treatment not work?
The two usual reasons are that the preparation was incomplete, so treated and untreated areas sat side by side, and that only one visit was done when eggs were always going to hatch afterwards. A program that does not include at least one follow-up is not a bed bug treatment.

Find a Pest Controller near you

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Who to hire for

General information about who does what, not advice about your specific job. Licensing, consumer law and council rules differ by state and change; the regulator for your state is the current source. More guides to hiring a tradesperson.