Bed Bug Heat Treatments for HMOs & Landlords

The Situation

A house in multiple occupation is one habitat with partitions in it. The occupants are separate households; the bed bugs are not. They move along joist ends and service voids, under skirtings and through the gaps around pipework, and they cross on shared sofas, in shared laundry and on people.

Which is why piecemeal treatment fails here more reliably than anywhere else. Treat room four, and in three weeks room four has it again from room three, which nobody inspected because nobody in room three had complained yet.

Photographs on this page are for illustration purposes only.

The approach

Inspect the Building, Treat What Is Affected

The method that holds is straightforward and it is not the cheapest first invoice: inspect every room and the communal spaces, establish the actual extent, then treat everything affected in one co-ordinated operation rather than as a series of call-outs.

Communal areas matter more than landlords expect. A shared sofa is a harbourage and a crossing point at the same time; a shared laundry moves infested textiles between rooms; a corridor with a carpet gripper is a route.

Treating rooms that are genuinely clear is money wasted, and we will tell you which they are. Treating one room out of four that are affected is money wasted too, and rather more of it.

Photographs on this page are for illustration purposes only.

Who pays

Getting It Moving Before It Spreads

The commonest cause of a small HMO problem becoming a large one is the fortnight spent establishing responsibility.

Broadly, a problem arising from the condition of the building tends to sit with the landlord and one arising from how a room is being used tends to sit with the tenant, but the tenancy agreement governs. In an HMO there is a further point: once it is in the communal parts or in more than one room, it is a building problem, and building problems are the landlord's.

We are content to quote to landlord, agent or tenant, and to inspect and report first so that the discussion is about what is actually there rather than what everyone assumes.

Photographs on this page are for illustration purposes only.

Records

What to Keep, and Why

For a licensed HMO, a written record of what was found, what was done and what remains outstanding is worth having on file. It demonstrates that a report was acted on, with dates, which is the thing that matters if a tenant complains to the council or if licensing asks.

Ask for it when you book. It also gives you something concrete to give tenants, which tends to reduce the temperature of the conversation considerably.

Between tenancies, a check of the four usual places at changeover costs nothing and catches things before the next tenant does.

Short answers

Heat Treatment Questions

Accommodation and rental property

If You Manage Somewhere People Sleep

The problem is different when the bed is not yours. These set out what changes.