Home & Family
I'm 68, and for five months bed bugs kept my family out of my home
A grandmother of three from Kent, 68 · As told to the Vorinta team · 7 min read
My grandchildren used to beg to stay at my house. Then they started going home covered in bites, and my granddaughter told her mum she hated it here. I was too ashamed to tell anyone why.
This is how it started, what I tried, how I got them back, and what I'd say to anyone who is quietly getting used to the bites.
For 23 years, everyone came to my house
For 23 years, my house was the one everyone came to. Every school holiday and every Christmas, the spare room was made up, and the two little ones slept top to tail in the small beds.
I'd read them a story, and they'd beg for one more. In the morning they'd come down in their pyjamas for pancakes. There are fairy lights around the spare room window, because my granddaughter insists on them, even in summer.
My daughter drives down with the children on Christmas Eve, and my son brings his family on Boxing Day. Having them all under my roof is the best part of my year.
The first bites, in March
It started with a line of three small bites on my arm. I thought it was the new washing powder, so I put some cream on and carried on.
A few weeks later there were more, on my shoulders and the back of my neck. I didn't tell anyone. At 68 you get the odd itch, and you don't make a fuss.
At my age, you just get on with it
After a while, I honestly stopped noticing. The itching faded, and some mornings there was nothing there at all.
I didn't know then how common that is. Many older people barely react to bed bug bites, so it's often a visitor who notices first. In my house, the visitors were my grandchildren.
I'd stopped noticing the bites. That was the problem.
The first time the children went home with bites
At Easter, the children came to stay for four nights. On the last morning, my granddaughter had a cluster of red bites on her arm and the back of her neck.
My daughter thought it was midges from the garden. I wanted to believe that too, so I said nothing about my own bites.
On the drive home, my granddaughter scratched her arm until it bled. That evening my daughter rang to ask, a bit pointedly, whether I'd changed my washing powder.
Then it happened again at the May half-term
This time it was both of them. My grandson came down for breakfast with bites all along his arm, and he asked me a question I still hear: "Nan, why do we always go home from yours covered in bites?"
My daughter pulled the bed away from the wall, and that's when we saw them: small brown bugs along the headboard and in the gap by the skirting board.
She went very quiet, packed the children's bags, and they left that afternoon, a day early. She didn't say it, but I knew what she was thinking: Mum's house is dirty.
After that, the grandchildren didn't want to come
All through June, July and August there was one excuse after another: a busy weekend, a cold going round, a party they couldn't miss.
Then, in the summer holidays, I heard my granddaughter in the background of a phone call: "I don't want to sleep at Nan's. I hate it there. It makes me itchy." She's seven. She didn't mean to hurt me, but I sat in the kitchen afterwards and cried.
I kept the spare room door shut and stopped asking people round for tea. I've always kept a clean home, and I felt ashamed of it. The house everyone used to come to had gone quiet.
Everything I tried
I boil-washed every sheet and towel in the house. I bought two sprays from the supermarket, which made the bedroom smell for days, and I still wouldn't use them anywhere near the children's beds.
Then I rang a pest control firm. The man was kind, but the quote was more than my pension for the month, and he couldn't promise they wouldn't come back.
Every time I thought I'd got on top of it, another bite would turn up a few weeks later.
Why nothing I tried lasted
At the end of August, my neighbour's son-in-law explained it to me. He works for a letting agent, and he has seen more bed bugs than he'd like.
He told me they hide behind the headboard, along the skirting boards, and behind plug sockets and picture frames, and only come out at night. A spray only kills the bugs it actually touches, and then it wears off. The eggs hidden in the cracks hatch a week or two later, and it all starts again.
They also travel from room to room on clothes and laundry, so treating one room isn't enough. That's why he said you need something in every room, working every night, rather than one big treatment and then hoping for the best.
They don't live in the bed. They live in the cracks around it.
What I did next
That same week I ordered three Vorinta plug-ins: one for my bedroom, one for the spare room and one for the lounge. Each one plugs straight into the wall socket. A small light comes on to show it's working, and that's all there is to it.
There's no smell, no spray near the grandchildren, and nothing to put on the bed. There's nothing to refill and nothing to remember. It sends out a high-frequency sound, day and night, that most adults can't hear.
I also kept up the routine the NHS recommends: washing the bedding at 60 degrees, then at least half an hour in a hot tumble dryer, keeping clutter away from the bed, and hoovering along the skirting boards twice a week.
What changed
Every morning I checked the sheets and the mattress seams with a torch, the way he had shown me. A week went by, then two, then a month.
We haven't had a bite since September.
The grandchildren came back
In October, my daughter rang and asked, a little carefully, whether the children could stay for half-term. It was the first time they had stayed since May.
My granddaughter ran straight upstairs to check the fairy lights were still there. On the Sunday morning, she came down for pancakes and held out both arms to show me. Not a single mark.
Then she asked if they could stay one more night. I had to go into the kitchen for a minute.
This Christmas
The spare room is made up again, and the fairy lights are back up. Last week my daughter rang to ask what time she should bring the children on Christmas Eve.
I'm not one for big words. It's a relief, that's all. A quiet relief.
If you've got used to the bites too, please don't wait the way I did. You might be used to them, but your grandchildren aren't.
Why Vorinta, and not a cheaper plug-in off the internet
A note from the Vorinta team. You can find plug-ins online for a few pounds. Before you buy one, check the plug. This is something you leave switched on all night, every night, in the room where your grandchildren sleep.
In 2022 the Office for Product Safety and Standards stopped a batch of ultrasonic plug-ins at the UK border and had them destroyed: the live pins sat so close to the edge of the plug that you could touch them. It rated the risk of electric shock as serious.
- Made for UK sockets: a proper 3-pin plug, not a two-pin with an adaptor
- Tracked UK delivery in 2 to 5 working days, with the date shown before you pay
- A real person answers every email within 1 working day, Monday to Friday
- Nothing to buy again: no refills, no cartridges, no repeat visits
The Vorinta Bed Bug Plug-In
One plug-in for each room, with free UK delivery on 3 or more. You have 60 days to decide: every penny back, delivery included, and you don't post anything back.
P.S. If the family is coming for Christmas, don't leave it until December. Order now, and it's in every room well before anyone arrives.
Questions people ask before they order
Is it safe with grandchildren and pets in the house?
There are no chemicals, and nothing goes on the bed, the sheets or the children. Most adults can't hear it. Dogs and cats hear higher sounds than we do: most ignore it, but if yours seems unsettled, move the unit to another room. Don't use it in a room with hamsters, guinea pigs, rabbits or other small pets.
How many do I need?
One per room. The sound doesn't go through walls, so each room needs its own. Most people start with 3: the bedroom, the spare room and the lounge. For a whole house with hallways, 6 or 9.
What if it doesn't work for me?
Email us within 60 days of delivery and we'll refund you in full. That's the whole guarantee.