Knowing how bed bugs move is the most useful thing you can learn about them, because it tells you both how they got in and how to stop them going further. The short version: they are poor travellers on their own legs and excellent stowaways.
They cannot fly, jump or swim
Bed bugs have no working wings and cannot jump. On their own they crawl, and they do so fairly quickly over short distances, a few metres in a night if they are hungry. That is enough to get from one bed to the next room, or through a gap in a wall to the flat next door, but not much further. Every long-distance move is passive: something carries them.
Passive spread: how they travel across town and across the world
Luggage and bags
Hotels, hostels, coaches, trains and planes are where most people pick bed bugs up. The bugs crawl into the seams and pockets of a suitcase left on or near a bed, and travel home with it. Research from the University of Sheffield (Hentley and others, 2017) found bed bugs were twice as likely to gather in bags containing worn clothing as in bags of clean clothes, which suggests that the smell of used laundry draws them in. Keeping dirty clothes in a sealed bag while away makes sense on that evidence.
Second-hand furniture and mattresses
Beds, sofas, bedside tables and headboards are the next big route. Bed bugs and their eggs sit in joints, staples and fabric folds where you will not see them without a torch. Items left out on the street are a particular risk, because there is a reason someone put them there.
House moves and visitors
Moving house carries everything at once: furniture, bedding, boxes and bags. In cities with a lot of shared renting, such as Leeds, the summer move between student houses is a known risk period. Bed bugs can also arrive with visitors who have them at home, usually in a bag or coat left on the bed.
Clothes and people
People do sometimes carry a bed bug on clothing, but bed bugs do not like heat and movement and rarely stay on the body. They are much more likely to be in a bag, a coat on a chair, or a laptop case than on you.
Active spread: how they move around a building
Once inside, bed bugs spread out from the first bed as their numbers grow, or when they are disturbed. Common pathways are:
- along the floor and skirting into the next bedroom;
- through wall voids, pipe runs and gaps round sockets, especially where walls are shared;
- up and down the building along service risers in flats;
- on furniture people move, for example sleeping on the sofa to escape bites, which simply gives the bugs a second base.
Terraced and back-to-back houses, which Leeds has in large numbers, share walls on more than one side. That makes it more likely that a problem next door becomes yours, and it is one reason a technician will ask whether neighbours have had bed bugs.
What helps them spread faster
- DIY sprays and foggers. Many shop products repel bed bugs without killing them all, pushing them into new rooms.
- Throwing out the mattress. Carrying an infested mattress through the house drops bugs and eggs along the route, and the new mattress goes back into an untreated room.
- Treating one room in a shared house. The others become a reservoir that refills the treated room.
- Clutter. It does not attract bed bugs, but it gives them more places to hide and makes treatment less effective.
How to stop them spreading
The NHS and the British Pest Control Association give similar advice. In practice that means:
- Keep sleeping in your own bed until it is treated. The bugs stay where the food is.
- Wash and dry hot. Bedding and clothes from affected rooms on a hot wash and a hot tumble dry, then into sealed bags.
- Do not move furniture out of the room until a technician has looked at it.
- When travelling, keep your case on the luggage rack or in the bath, not on the bed; check the mattress seams and headboard when you arrive; and keep worn clothes in a sealed bag.
- Check second-hand furniture with a torch along every seam and joint before it comes indoors.
- Tell your landlord or neighbours. In flats and terraces, the building needs dealing with as a whole. Our page for student houses and landlords explains how to report it.
For businesses with a constant flow of guests, the risk is higher and the routine matters more. Our page on hotels and businesses covers housekeeping checks and what to do after a guest report.
If you think they have already arrived, an early inspection is the cheapest point to deal with them. Fill in the form below and we will line up a technician who covers your Leeds postcode.