The Terminex thread got me thinking: how many homeowners have regularly scheduled pest control service? For just termites? Or out quarterly to spray for roaches and other pests? Or do you just call them as needed and take care of small problems yourself? I’m a new homeowner and I’m still trying to figure all this stuff out.
The house we bought three years ago had sat empty for quite some time and when we moved in, we noticed we had a lot of wood roaches in the basement. The house was new so it wasn’t a previous owner that had caused the problem. We still have them come out about every other month just to keep things under control and will call them if there’s anything unusual going on (like seeing mice or when the wasps get bad in the summertime). Our property backs up to a gully/undeveloped property so sometimes you just get critters no matter how careful you are. Is it necessary to have them come out that often? I don’t know but it gives me some peace of mind.
My mom had monthly pest control service in Seattle, for ants. I don’t know if her house was on a gargantuan underground ant colony or what. She noticed ants on her TV, and when she opened the lower doors in the entertainment center, the ants were swarming – if you wanted, you could have grabbed them by the handful.
The service worked – no ants, or any other bugs.
My son bought the house after mom died and he stopped the service. The ants came back, and he’s trying to control them with spray but it’s not working very well.
We get a powder at the local co-op. Mix it with water, spray around the outside of the house twice a year – it kills everything. Hell, it might be DDT.
I like this syndicatd newspaper columnist http://www.askthebugman.com/
He used to work as an exterminator and now says that when they want to come out on a schedule it’s a scam, and worse can be a health hazard.
I used 'em (a local company) for the first year after we bought our house. They were nice enough to inform me that I lived in Black Widow central. Shudder Though I think that was more of a ruse to guarantee our future business, as I’ve yet to see one after 4 years in or around the house. Plenty of other creepy crawlies though…
That next spring we bought a gallon sprayer of the Ortho Home Defense bug spray and we spray one or twice a year around the windows and doors and I personally think it works very well. High praise from someone who screams and runs at the sight of the little buggers.
We’re only renters, but we have the pest control company spray every 90 days on the outside, and at least every 6 months on the inside. We also have a lot of messy kids who shed crumbs in the living room or leave dirty dishes in the basement for weeks on end, so it’s necessary.
Before we did that, I found roaches in the basement that chased me.
We just get the little kids out of the house for a day while they spray.
Wow, there must be something wrong with me. I’ve never called a pest control company. I guess I’d call one if I had an overwhelming infestation of fleas or cockroaches or carpenter ants, but I guess I’ve been lucky so far. We’re lucky up here, too, because the winters are cold enough to kill a lot of bugs.
Last summer, our house was full of crickets (they apparently thrive during droughts), and we have Asian lady beetles and box elder bugs creeping out of the light fixtures and electrical outlets all fall and winter every year, but we just vacuum those up, as do most people around here. Spiders are allowed to live until they get so big that the dogs chase them. Spiders are, by the way, the best pest control service of all, and they’re cheap.
I live in one of the prime regions of the country for fire ants and giant roaches that you can practically saddle up and ride, but so far I’ve had good results with a bit of boric acid powder in the cabinets and along the floorboards, so have felt no need to call a pest control service. OTOH, I’ve got no kids or pets that might play in or try to eat it.
In my previous (rented) place we had six-monthly pest sprayings, with about the same result.
When I first moved down south, I was told that “all” homes in Florida get roaches and palmetto bugs.
YIKES!
I immediately contracted for Pest Control service and have had it done regularly for the last twenty years.
It is well worth it for my piece of mind. In addition, they will come out again and spray should I see anything between service calls. (Four times per year.) They also do my lawn and around the outside of the house.
I have heard it is a “scam” but since I have often read to this day, even on this message board, that if you live in Florida, you get bugs in your house and I don’t have that problem.
There has never been a roach or palmetto bug in my house. The worst I can claim is sugar ants and the service was out the next day setting traps at no additional charge.
I am done now because even writing about this is making me shudder.
Roaches BLAH!
We have a termite inspection contract - we pay an annual fee, and they come and inspect the interior and exterior of the house, and the yard, for evidence of termite infestation. This was suggested to us (as I noted in the Terminix thread) because our area has a significant termite problem. Friends of ours who had not received that advice wound up having to spend some serious cash (grand or more) to treat their house, though IIRC tenting wasn’t involved.
I think that if we did find infestation, the treatment would be free under the terms of the contract. Hopefully it would not get as far as requiring tenting in our case either since we’d presumably find it relatively early.
Back when we had cats, we had the house sprayed a couple of times to get rid of their initial flea infestation (they were both outdoor cats before we adopted them) and we’ve had our current place sprayed once or twice for ant infestations, though neither of those was / has been an ongoing regular spraying.
I live in South Carolina. If you don’t have a termite bond here you are a fucking moron. (The people I bought my house from were from Utah and evidently they breed fucking morons out there or something - at any rate, at the inspection they were all “termites? er?”) So they come out once a year to inspect on the bond. Also, they come out quarterly to spray for roaches, because again, down here roaches are a fact of life. Not those little dumb ones, the giant flying ones.
I grew up in Gainesville and even the best house had the occasional (gigantic, monster flying) roach (which ouwld invariably head directly towards you, even running up chair legs). But it’s interesting, I was talking to an old friend who still lives there and she says you don’t see roaches like that anymore because geckos (which have mostly driven out the native chameleons) keep them in check.
Anyayw, thanks for the response, y’all. This is one of those things there’s a lot of conflicting advice on and, of course, the pest control companies themselves advocate regular spraying which always makes me suspicious. But I have lived in apartments for 20 years and we always had regular spraying so I’m not sure what to do with a house.
There are no geckoes in South Carolina. There are, however, enormous flying roaches.
Sometimes I really feel we have the worst of all possible worlds.
That guy is syndicated? I’ve read his column for years in the Albuquerque Journal but I always figured it was only a local Saturday column because he lives in Sandia Park (in the Albuquerque metro area.) Anyone else know the column in question?