Home Pest Control

What a home pest plan covers

Most homes around Denver do not have one big pest problem. They have a handful of smaller ones that show up at different times of year: ants in the kitchen in spring, wasps building under the eaves in summer, spiders in the basement and the garage, and boxelder bugs or mice looking for a warm place to spend the winter. A home pest plan deals with all of them on a schedule, so you are not calling someone new every time a different pest appears. Our standard plan is a visit every season, with free re-service between visits if covered pests come back.

What happens on a visit

The first visit is the longest. The technician walks the outside of the house, looks at the foundation, the doors, the windows, the vents, the garage and any crawl space, and asks what you have been seeing and where. Most of the work is outside: knocking down wasp nests and webs from the eaves, treating cracks and entry points around the foundation, and placing baits where ants are traveling. Inside, we treat only where there is a reason to, such as a kitchen with ants or a basement with spiders, and we use baits and crack and crevice treatments rather than spraying open surfaces. Each later visit repeats the outside work and checks anything you have reported.

Pests we see on the Front Range

Some local pests come and go with the seasons. Boxelder bugs gather on warm south and west walls and move indoors in August and September. Elm seed bugs, first found in Colorado in 2017, have spread to the Front Range and get into homes from mid-June through September, especially near Siberian elms. Miller moths, the adult stage of the army cutworm, pass through in late spring. They are a nuisance but do not breed indoors. The western black widow is the most common widow spider in Colorado and likes garages, wood piles and window wells. For boxelder bugs and elm seed bugs, Colorado State University Extension puts sealing gaps around windows, vents and pipes first, and vacuuming up the ones that get inside, rather than spraying indoors.

Treatments, labels and your family

Every product we use is applied the way its label directs, and the label is the law for how a pesticide may be used. Before we treat, the technician tells you what to put away, and afterward how long to keep people and pets off treated areas. Your service ticket lists what was applied and where. If someone in your home has a health condition or a sensitivity, tell us when you book, and we will talk through the options. Colorado also keeps a registry of people who are sensitive to pesticides, and licensed applicators must try to notify registered people before certain treatments, such as pest control in a multi-unit building where they live. We check the registry before those jobs.

What a plan does not cover

Termites, bed bugs and rodent exclusion work are separate services with their own prices, because they need different inspections, products and follow-up. Your plan agreement lists exactly which pests are covered, and there is no long-term contract.