Although this review is about six months in the making, I knew I had to write it…read more
It could happen to you. You never want it to. But it happened to us, in the early summer of 2017. I had no idea where to even start in solving my problem of bed bugs. UGH!!!! I am an expat who finds myself living in Hong Kong and I did not have a clue on how to address this immediate problem. I WAS FREAKING OUT!
It can happen to anyone really. Although difficult to pinpoint, I believe my husband actually transported our, what turned out to be very small, bed bug problem home with him from the US back to Hong Kong, versus any of the countless questionable areas around Asia his luggage and clothes could have picked them up. Maybe even his airline seat versus a hotel bed, we don't actually know. You won't know either.
But once you have them, all you want is to have them gone. And you will pay any price to have them gone, if you are anything like us. We were freaking out, because we are the cleanest, most tidiest, museum corners people you can possibly ever meet. How could this happen to us?
Wanting to rectify this quickly and no company 100% guaranteeing complete extraction, we took a gamble and went with Johnson Group. The front desk team in our building said as well that they had seen others use them from time to time and had good results. I found them on-line to begin with. They were expensive, but as with all things in life, you get what you pay for.
The Johnson Group professionals who showed up to our home in a matter of days were professional and mostly spoke Chinese. They took apart our bed and our couch (the problem was actually centralized to our fabric covered couch only in the end). They worked on our closets and our rugs. Their methods are not scientific, but they are thorough. They steamed and searched every part of our home. Heat is the only thing that is going to kill them. Their workers put my mind at ease in the process. The cost includes them coming twice.
Although our problem was small compared to many, Johnson Group was reliable, professional, showed up on time and were sensitive to our mental anxiety. They came for the initial visit and then they returned about a week later to do it all again, just to ensure things were taken care of. Our apartment is less than 600 sq feet and we were charged $14,000HKD. In the end, our bed bug problem went away and all went back to normal. We now take freaky precautions when we travel to avoid this happening again (only put luggage on slick surfaces, pulling back sheets to look at the mattress, washing all clothes (clean and dirty) the minute we get home from trip, use a hand steamer to steam our luggage when we return from a trip as well).
Johnson Group indicated that Hong Kong has a bed bug problem, that is most commonly brought into a home via "helpers" versus other avenues, but you never know. Again, it can happen to anyone.
But regardless of how you got them and although there is no company that will guarantee 100% success, I was confident in putting our trust and our money in the hands of Johnson Group.