Questions

Start with what you can see or hear. Droppings, gnawing and scratching at night point to rodents. Mud tubes, hollow wood or a swarm of winged insects point to termites. Insects that keep coming back to the kitchen or bath usually mean a nest close by and a recurring treatment.

If you are not sure, pick “Not Sure” on the request form and describe what you found. The first visit sorts it out.

Yes. A house with mice in the kitchen often has ants or spiders along the same foundation. Mention everything you have noticed when you book, so the inspection covers all of it instead of one problem at a time.

Treatment deals with the pests inside now. A repair deals with how they got in. If an opening stays open, new mice, wasps or squirrels find it again, often within weeks. When an inspection turns up a gap, a torn screen or chewed wood, the repair is what makes the treatment last.

Keep food in sealed containers, clear clutter away from the walls where activity shows up, and leave droppings and nests where they are until they can be looked at. Do not stuff foam into a hole you think animals use: if something is still inside, it chews out somewhere else or dies in the wall.

Bait stations work outside and in garages, where a locked, tamper-resistant box keeps the bait away from children, pets and wildlife. Traps work best inside the living space, where a dead mouse in a wall is the last thing anyone wants. Many houses use both: stations along the foundation, traps where activity shows up indoors.

For an uncapped chimney or a vent with a missing or rusted screen, yes. Those are the openings squirrels, birds and raccoons use first, and a cover costs far less trouble than removing an animal and its nest later.

For a house with no history of trouble, once a year is a sensible baseline, with termite checks in spring when swarms happen. Rentals are worth checking between tenants. Small businesses with food, storage or trash areas, and houses that have had cockroaches or rodents before, benefit from a regular schedule through the year.

Often, yes. Many lenders ask for a wood-destroying insect report before closing, usually on the standard NPMA-33 form. It records visible signs of termites, carpenter ants and wood-boring beetles. Sellers sometimes order one early so there are no surprises once a buyer is under contract.

Anything that can hurt someone or spread fast: stinging insects nesting by a door or play area, rodents in the living space, a bat or other animal loose in the house, bed bugs, or a termite swarm coming out of a wall indoors. Ants on the counter or a spider in the basement can wait for a regular visit.

Close the doors to the rest of the house, open a window in that room and turn off the lights; many bats leave on their own. Never touch one bare-handed. If the bat was in a room where someone was sleeping, or anyone may have been bitten, keep it contained and call your doctor or the county health department before it is released.

Look at the waist, the wings and the antennae. A termite swarmer has a thick waist, straight antennae and four wings of equal length that break off easily. A flying ant has a pinched waist, bent antennae and front wings longer than the back ones. Swarmers indoors, or piles of shed wings on a windowsill, mean termites are in the structure.

Treatment goes after a colony that is already feeding on the house, usually with a liquid barrier in the soil along the foundation or with bait. Monitoring stations sit in the soil around the house and are checked on a schedule, so new activity is caught before it reaches the wood. Many homes get treatment first and monitoring afterward.

Droppings are the quickest clue. Mouse droppings are about the size of a grain of rice and pointed at the ends; rat droppings are about the size of a raisin and blunt. Mice show up in cabinets, drawers and walls. Rats in this area are usually Norway rats, which burrow along foundations, under decks and near garbage.

Do not block the opening yet. Listen for when the noise happens: scurrying at dawn and dusk suggests squirrels, heavy thumps at night suggest raccoons. The animal and any young have to be out before the entry is sealed, and an uncapped chimney needs a cover once it is clear.

Because the work behind them is different. Two houses with mice can need very different exclusion work: one has a single gap at the gas line, the other has open foundation vents, a gap under the garage door and a chewed soffit. Access matters too: a crawl space you can stand in is a different job from one with a foot of clearance.

A one-time treatment suits a single problem with a clear cause, such as one wasp nest or a mouse entry that gets sealed. Ongoing service suits pests that come from outside every season, such as ants and spiders along the foundation, and properties where people come and go, like rentals and small businesses.

Call or send the request with your ZIP code. Places next to the communities listed may still be reachable, depending on the job and the schedule. If it is too far, you will hear that plainly.

What you saw, where you saw it, and how long it has been going on. Add the building type (house, townhome, rental unit or business) and anything about access, such as a locked crawl space or pets at home. Photos of droppings, damage or a nest help, and they can go by email.

The request goes to the office, and you hear back by the contact method you picked to set a day for the visit. Nothing is booked until that reply, so for an urgent problem, call as well.