I had bed bugs twice and this is how I escaped the horror’

It all started when I woke up with bites on my eyelids. I was just starting my university year abroad in Bordeaux, France – presumably the most carefree year of my life. I was living with a French family in a lovely apartment in the city centre. It was all a very pleasant experience, but soon after I moved in, I kept waking up with new bites.

Initially, I blamed it on mosquitoes. After all, Bordeaux lies on the Garonne River. But when I developed allergic reactions, I went to see a doctor. It didn’t take him long to break the news. He pulled out a green leaflet with brown creatures drawn on it. A bug I had never heard of before. Well, only through a Slovak idiom. We say that when someone is as rude as a bed bug, they are truly unbearable. Soon after, I got to experience just how ruthless they can be.

I ran home and immediately lifted the mattress to check the bedframe. And there it was, a tiny brown bug crawling on the wooden slat. At the time, I had no clue how difficult it was to get rid of bed bugs, so I didn’t panic. In fact, I was relieved to finally know the real source of my bites. These are harmless, aren’t they?

But my laissez-faire approach quickly vanished when I kept getting bites even after sleeping in another room. A rookie mistake. Changing bedrooms in a home infested with bed bugs can actually make things worse, as it increases the risk of spreading them to new areas. Bed bugs are drawn to body heat and carbon dioxide, and while they can only detect these cues at short range, they can move quickly through the home in search of a host.

My landlord refused to address the issue urgently, saying they first needed to thoroughly search for a good pest control company. Bed bug treatment is notoriously expensive, often starting around £400 and reaching up to £3,000 for a multi-bedroom home. In an article for iPaper, a journalist reported spending £2,000 to get rid of bed bugs.

So, my radical solution for getting rid of them was one more accessible to a student without a permanent home – moving away. But I carried with me the trauma that comes from dealing with the pests. The more I read online, the more paranoid I became. As Google advised, before unpacking, I sealed all my clothes in bin bags in case I’d brought any bed bugs with me. While more common in severe infestations, bed bugs can occasionally hide or lay eggs in clothing. They also easily hitchhike in suitcases.

My new place never felt like home. Instead, I spent hours in French laundrettes, waiting for clothes and bedding to wash at 60-90°C, desperate to kill off any living creatures or their eggs.

Even after moving, I kept getting the occasional bite. I didn’t know exactly where they were coming from, but I was certain it was bed bugs. Determined to prove my theory, I searched every dark corner with a torch – mattress seams, wardrobes, floorboards, suitcases. I didn’t find anything, but I already knew that bed bugs are incredibly difficult to spot, as they usually hide from light by squeezing into tiny cracks near the bed. They typically come out only at night to feed, leaving clusters of bites before retreating back into the dark.

But four years on in London, on a peaceful evening after work, I saw one crawling on my couch. I couldn’t believe it. “How did a bed bug end up in my house again?” I asked in disbelief, staring at my flatmates. “How is this even possible?”

Whenever I talk to people about the issue, I make sure they understand that having bed bugs has nothing to do with how clean a home is. This myth often leads people to spend hours cleaning and hoovering, thinking that will solve the problem. But bed bugs aren’t drawn to dirt – they’re after blood.

One sector particularly affected is the hotel industry. The Cambridge-based company Spotta, which provides detection technology to help businesses identify infestations early, told the Express that for hotels, the consequences can be disastrous, with negative reviews damaging reputations and reducing bookings. Research by Booking.com showed that 50% of London hotels had a bed bug complaint on the platform between 2023 and 2024, with a 300% increase in complaints over the past two years.

A female bed bug can produce around 3-5 eggs per day, but can lay up to 12.

Robert Fryers, CEO at Spotta, said: “You can go from two bed bugs to thousands in the space of months,” highlighting the need for early detection.

Fortunately, my experience in France had made me hyper-alert to bed bugs, so I was able to detect them relatively early. This time, our landlord had a reliable local company based in Lewisham that knew exactly what to do.

We were lucky to have only a small infestation, but the experience debunked several myths I had believed about treatment. Often, people are wrongly advised to turn their entire home upside down. I was told the key to effective treatment is not spraying everything indiscriminately, but targeting the specific routes bed bugs are known to travel.

The pest controller used a combination of cypermethrin and cimetrol, chemicals designed for professional use. Mixing is essential, as bed bugs today are increasingly resistant to treatments. After diluting the pesticide in water, he sprayed it on the floor and the sofa.

In the end, the process wasn’t as dreadful. All we had to do was leave the flat for a few hours over a period of five weekends – although we didn’t see a single sign of bed bugs after the first treatment.