Library-goers were forced to evacuate Ealing Central Library on Monday afternoon after staff had discovered bed bugs in the library’s soft furnishings. The library had posted a notice on its doors saying that it was temporarily closed due to a “pest infestation” as pest control was called in to treat the furniture that the pesky critters had made their home.
Part of the library had remained open whilst pest control treated the infected areas and furniture but was fully closed yesterday on Wednesday. It was expected that the library would reopen today if it was deemed safe enough, however, a recent update from Ealing Central Library this morning has said that they are unable to open today “on the advice of professional pest controllers who are still working hard with us to treat the bugs and give the library a top to bottom deep clean”.
The library has announced they will open the library once the bed bug infestation has been fully treated and apologised for the inconvenience caused.
A council spokesperson said: “The technical advice was that it was safe for both the public and staff to reopen the library – both in terms of controlling and preventing the spread of the infestation and in relation to the chemicals used to treat furniture.
“However, the council recognised that library users and staff had concerns and decided that temporarily closing the library was the right course of action.”
This comes after the viral news that bed bugs had been spotted on the Victoria Line in early October and after reports of widespread infestation that had taken over Paris. Videos of the pests on the tube had racked up over 1.9 million views on TikTok causing panic amongst some Londoners that the Parisian bed bugs had made their way across the pond, with other locals believing that these were isolated pest sightings and that they were probably just British bed bugs.