Complete guide · Thane, Mumbai & Navi Mumbai · Working since 2001
Spray-only treatment kills adult bed bugs but does not reach the eggs, so the infestation returns. What works is 100°C thermal steam in seams and joints, a CIB-approved low-odour spray in cracks, and a follow-up visit at 15 days.
Bed bugs are called khatmal in Hindi and dhekun in Marathi, and in Thane and Mumbai most people say khatmal whichever language they speak. हिंदी में पढ़ें
| Business | A Sai Pest Control, working since 2001 |
|---|---|
| Base | Khopat, Thane West 400601 |
| Speciality | Bed bugs only (khatmal / dhekun) |
| Method | 100°C thermal steam plus CIB-approved low-odour residual spray |
| Thermal steam in use since | 2007 |
| Inspection | Free, before any charge is confirmed |
| Treatment time | 1.5 to 2.5 hours for a standard flat |
| Follow-up visit | Day 15, included in the price, never charged separately |
| Residential charges | 1 BHK ₹3,500 · 2 BHK ₹4,500 · 3 BHK ₹5,400 |
| Commercial | Quoted after an on-site inspection only |
| Hours | 7:00 AM to 10:30 PM, all seven days |
| Licence | Insecticide Licence, Department of Agriculture, Government of Maharashtra. Udyam registered. |
| Phone | +91 98191 04077 |
Almost everyone who reads a page like this has already tried something. A can of spray from the shop, or a general pest control visit, or both. The room is quiet for a week or two. Then the bites start again, and the conclusion is that nothing works on bed bugs.
The reason is the egg. A bed bug egg is about a millimetre long, pale, and glued deep into a mattress seam, a cot joint, a plywood gap or a stitching fold in a sofa. It has a hard outer shell that ordinary residual sprays do not get through. A spray-only visit deals with the adults you can see. The eggs sit through it untouched, hatch over the following one to two weeks, and the room is back where it started.
That is the whole problem in one sentence: adults die easily, eggs do not. Any treatment that does not deal with the eggs is buying you about three weeks.
There is a second reason, and it matters just as much in Mumbai and Thane housing. Bed bugs move between flats through wall cracks, shared plumbing ducts and electrical conduits. If the flat next door is infested and yours is treated alone, the treatment can be done correctly and still not hold. That is not a failure of method. It is a failure of scope, and it is worth finding out before you spend anything.
Bites alone do not confirm anything. Skin reactions vary a great deal from person to person, and two people can sleep in the same bed while only one of them shows marks. Physical evidence is what settles it, and ten minutes with a torch is usually enough.
Bed bugs are regularly confused with cockroach nymphs, carpet beetles, booklice and ticks, and the treatment for each of those is completely different. Our page on the signs of bed bugs shows what each sign looks like in detail.
This page is for identification purposes only. For any skin reaction, please consult a qualified doctor. We are pest control specialists, not medical practitioners.
There are dozens of household cures for bed bugs circulating online. Some of them genuinely help. Several do nothing, and one of them is dangerous. After more than two decades of this work, here is an honest sorting of them.
Hot washing. Bedsheets, pillow covers, curtains and affected clothing, washed hot and dried on the highest setting the fabric allows. This is effective on what goes into the machine, and you can do it today.
Vacuuming. Mattress seams, cot joints, sofa folds, worked slowly with the nozzle. It lifts out a share of the bugs and eggs. Seal the bag and put it outside the house immediately afterwards, not in the kitchen bin.
Reducing clutter around the bed. This does not kill anything, but it removes hiding places and it makes any professional treatment reach further. It is the single most useful thing you can do before a visit.
Naphthalene balls. No effect on bed bugs. They add a smell and nothing else.
Kerosene or petrol. A serious fire risk indoors, and the bed bugs survive it anyway. Please do not try this.
Neem, camphor, clove and similar repellents. Bed bugs may move away for a while. They do not die. They shift into a wall crack and return.
Throwing away the mattress. Usually the most expensive mistake in the whole problem. The new mattress arrives into a room where bed bugs are still living in the cot joints and the skirting, and within days it is in the same condition. Dragging an infested mattress through the building also spreads bugs along the corridor.
Sleeping in another room. This is the most common mistake we see. The bugs follow the person, and the household ends up with two infested rooms instead of one.
It is not a competition between two methods. They reach different places, which is exactly why they are used together.
| Approach | Eggs inside fabric and joints | Wall cracks, skirting, conduits | Protection left behind |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shop-bought aerosol | Not reached — the shell resists the spray | Surface only | Very little |
| Residual spray alone | Not reached | Reached | Yes |
| Thermal steam alone | Acted on directly by sustained heat | Not reached — a nozzle cannot enter a wall cavity | No |
| Steam plus spray, with a day-15 return | Acted on directly by sustained heat | Reached | Yes |
Sustained contact with steam at 100°C breaks down eggs and live bugs on the spot, and dry thermal steam carries very little moisture, which is why it is used on mattresses, upholstery and wooden furniture rather than soaking them. But steam only works where the nozzle reaches. It cannot travel into a wall crack, behind a skirting board or inside an electrical conduit, and those are exactly the places bed bugs retreat to between feeds. The CIB-approved low-odour residual spray covers that half.
We have been using thermal steam alongside spray since 2007, before it became a common line in Indian pest control advertising. If a quotation you have received does not mention what is being done about the eggs, that is the question to ask.
Photograph the insect, or the dark spots on your mattress seam, and send it to us on WhatsApp. We will tell you what it is at no cost and with no obligation to book anything. If it turns out not to be a bed bug, we will say so and point you in the right direction.
After the visit, keep the treated rooms closed for three to four hours while the spray dries, then open the windows for twenty to thirty minutes before going back in. Do not wet-mop the treated skirting for about 48 hours, or the residual layer that is meant to stay there is removed. Keep the day-15 appointment even if the room looks completely clear, because that is exactly when it usually looks clear.
Bed bug treatment costs ₹3,500 for a 1 BHK, ₹4,500 for a 2 BHK and ₹5,400 for a 3 BHK. Inspection is free and happens before any figure is confirmed. Every residential price includes the day-15 follow-up.
| Property | Charges | What is included |
|---|---|---|
| 1 RK / 1 BHK | ₹3,500 | Free inspection · 100°C steam · CIB-approved residual spray · day-15 follow-up · written aftercare |
| 2 BHK | ₹4,500 | Beds, sofas, joints, cracks and curtains across two bedrooms · day-15 follow-up |
| 3 BHK | ₹5,400 | Full flat coverage — beds, sofas, wardrobes, skirting and curtains · day-15 follow-up |
| Hotels, PGs, hostels, offices | On inspection | Site audit · room-by-room plan · staff guidance · treatment documentation |
We do not publish a per-room commercial rate. Floor area, room count and infestation level vary too much between properties for a fixed figure to be an honest one. The full breakdown of what moves a residential quotation is on our bed bug treatment cost guide, and shared accommodation is covered on our page for hotels, PGs and hostels.
Our team works out of Khopat, Thane West, seven days a week. One number, one team, no subcontracting. Approximate driving time from the office in normal traffic:
These are travel times, not a promise about a slot. Thane and the Mulund–Bhandup belt can usually be offered a same-day or next-day inspection. For Mumbai and Navi Mumbai we confirm a visit window on the call instead, because we would rather be accurate than early.
The steam stage is heat only — no product is applied while steaming. The stage that follows uses a CIB-approved low-odour formulation, placed into cracks, joints and skirting at label dosage rather than across open surfaces.
Occupants and pets should step out during the spray stage and stay out for two to four hours, until treated surfaces are dry. Cover aquariums and switch the pump off. Move pet bowls, food and children’s toys out of the rooms being treated beforehand. Every customer receives written pre-treatment and post-treatment instructions, and the technician goes through them before starting. Tell us in advance if anyone in the house is elderly or bedridden, because the sequencing and re-entry timing for that room need to be planned rather than rushed.
Do bed bugs spread disease? No. Bed bugs are not known to transmit disease to humans. What they cause is bites, itching, broken sleep and a great deal of distress — and in a shared flat or a PG, arguments. That is reason enough to deal with them properly, without anyone needing to overstate the risk.
Because the eggs survived. A bed bug egg has a hard outer shell that ordinary residual sprays do not penetrate, and it is glued deep inside a mattress seam or a cot joint. The adults die, the eggs hatch one to two weeks later, and the infestation restarts. This is why the treatment needs heat on the seams and a second visit timed to the hatch.
You can reduce the numbers. Hot washing, careful vacuuming and decluttering all help, and they are worth doing whether or not you call anyone. What household methods cannot do is reach the eggs inside seams, joints and wall cracks, which is why an infestation that has spread beyond one bed usually needs professional treatment.
In most cases, no. Discarding a mattress is usually the most expensive part of a bed bug problem and it is often unnecessary, because the seams are exactly where thermal steam is most effective. If a mattress is badly damaged or heavily soiled the technician will tell you honestly, but we do not recommend replacement as a matter of routine.
No. Naphthalene has no effect on bed bugs. Neem, camphor and similar remedies may move them away for a while but do not kill them, and they return from the wall cracks they moved into. Kerosene is a serious fire risk indoors and the bed bugs survive it anyway, so please do not try it.
Yes, it is the same insect. Khatmal is the Hindi name, dhekun is the Marathi name, and in Thane and Mumbai most people say khatmal in everyday speech regardless of language. If you searched for khatmal pest control, this is the treatment you are looking for.
A standard flat takes 1.5 to 2.5 hours, depending on the furniture layout and how far the infestation has spread. Larger properties and commercial premises take longer and are planned after the inspection.
Because any eggs that survived the first treatment will have hatched by then, and the young bugs are at their most exposed. The day-15 visit is what breaks the breeding cycle. It is included in the price on this page and is never charged separately.
Bed bug treatment costs ₹3,500 for a 1 BHK, ₹4,500 for a 2 BHK and ₹5,400 for a 3 BHK. That price includes the free inspection, the steam and spray treatment, and the follow-up visit on day 15. Hotels, PGs, hostels and offices are quoted after an on-site inspection, because floor area and infestation level vary too much for a fixed rate.
Yes. The inspection is free and there is no obligation to book after it. A technician checks the mattress, cot, sofa, curtains and skirting, tells you what has been found, and confirms the charge before any work begins.
No. Bed bugs are not known to transmit disease to humans. They cause bites, itching, disturbed sleep and considerable distress, which is reason enough to treat them properly. For any skin reaction, please consult a qualified doctor — we are pest control specialists, not medical practitioners.
The steam stage applies heat only, with no product involved. The residual stage uses a CIB-approved low-odour formulation applied at label dosage into cracks and crevices rather than across open surfaces. Keep children and pets out of the treated rooms for two to four hours until surfaces dry, cover aquariums, and follow the written aftercare sheet the technician leaves with you.
Speak to us before deciding. In buildings with shared walls, bed bugs move between adjoining flats through wall cracks, plumbing ducts and electrical conduits. Treating one flat while the flat next door stays untreated is one of the most common reasons an infestation comes back, and where we see that pattern we say so on the spot.
Call or WhatsApp with your area and the size of the flat and we will give you the earliest slot on the call itself. Thane and the Mulund–Bhandup belt can usually be offered a same-day or next-day inspection. For Mumbai and Navi Mumbai we confirm a visit window rather than promise a time. We work from 7:00 AM to 10:30 PM, all seven days.
Tell us your area and the size of your flat, and you will get a straight answer on charges and the earliest slot on the call itself. Inspection is free. The day-15 follow-up is included.
Treatments use Central Insecticides Board (CIB)-approved formulations alongside 100°C thermal steam. A Sai Pest Control holds an Insecticide Licence issued by the Department of Agriculture, Government of Maharashtra, and is Udyam registered. Written pre-treatment and post-treatment guidelines are provided to every customer.
