What should I do while waiting for your intervention?

The most common mistake — and the most expensive — is emptying a shop-bought aerosol over the problem. Against cockroaches and bed bugs alike, untargeted spraying acts as a repellent: it kills only a small part of the visible population and drives the rest into neighbouring rooms, service ducts or adjoining flats. The result is an infestation that spreads, becomes harder to locate, and makes the professional treatment that follows longer and more expensive.

The second reflex to avoid is the emergency evacuation of your belongings. Putting a suspect mattress out on the landing, carrying clothes into another bedroom or storing boxes at a relative's house is the surest way to spread bed bugs through the whole home — or into your family's. Instead, isolate suspect linen in sealed plastic bags and wait for the technician's instructions.

What you can do that genuinely helps is observe. Note where and when you see the pests, take photos if you can do so safely, and look for the signs — droppings, black streaks along mattress seams, gnawed packets or packaging, noises in the walls at night. This information shapes our diagnosis. Depending on the pest, a few extra steps help: for rodents, store food in airtight containers and remove sources of water; for cockroaches, clean up grease splashes and empty the bins every evening; for wasps and hornets, keep away from the nest and never try to destroy it yourself — that's the single biggest cause of accidents.

Key points

• Don't spray insecticide at random: it scatters the pests
• Don't move infested belongings from room to room
• Note and photograph the areas where you see them
• Rodents: food in airtight containers, no source of water
• Wasps and hornets: never approach the nest or destroy it yourself

Useful pages

• How a visit works
• Our advice on the blog
• Tell us about your situation

Request a free quote06 99 17 18 81