How Long Does Pest Control Usually Take?

Camp Hill Resident, Margaret asks

“We enquired about pest control recently and my husband was told that a regular treatment is going to take all day. This seems excessive. I don’t understand why it should take so long? How long should pest control take?”

Apart from pricing this is one of the most frequently asked questions we get here at Pest-Ex.

All day certain seems certainly excessive, however it does depend on what’s being done. In any case, understanding how long a treatment or inspection may take is important as home owners are usually busy people and they’ll want to know –

• How long the treatment is going to take so they can plan out their day
• If they need to vacate the premises if it’s a big job
• If the time involved is going to influence the price

We answer Margaret’s question and give some insights into time frames when it comes to different types of treatments along with what you can expect.

It depends on what type of pest control treatment is being done

As said above, the time it takes to perform different types of treatments can vary a lot. To give you some idea of how, here’s a few brief explanations of some of our most common jobs.

Regular pest control treatments

Description : If we’re doing a treatment on a small residential unit and it’s in a complex where there might be dozens of units, we’re usually in each unit for approximately 30 minutes. Mind you, these are straight forward jobs – there aren’t any active pest related issues. We’re just in, doing the job and we’re out. The treatment might be part of a annual service or regular inspection. Jobs like this involve an internal spray only, internal perimeter spray, gelling of the kitchen cupboards and your drawers. Dusting of the roof void and that’s pretty much it.

Pests : Treatments of this nature would be spraying for your everyday type pests such as cockroaches, spiders and silverfish. In other words, general pest control.

Time : 30 minutes

Pest control with an active infestation

Description : So, a job where the customer wants their house treated for pests and they have an active infestation – jobs like this usually take a bit longer, around an hour and a half. The reasons are obvious, it typically involves a bit more groundwork –

• Identifying the issue
• Consulting with the customer
• Determining the best course of action
• Performing the treatment
• Implementing preventative measures

For instance if the customer has an ant problem, we’ll do an internal spray, internal gel baiting, crack and crevice dusting, roof void dusting, weep holes on the outside, dusting in the wall cavities, as well a full perimeter spray including the lawn, gardens and yard.

Pests : A treatment like this is an advanced treatment, that will take care of ants, roaches, spiders, silverfish … everything.

Time : An hour and a half. Sometimes, we can spend half an hour to 45 minutes just spraying around all the external areas.

Termite barrier installation

Description : A termite barrier treatment will normally take sixteen hours labour for one technician. Usually, we’ll break that up and put two technicians on it for one day. We do that because it’s a big day to send a single technician out to be digging, drilling and trenching for two days straight. So, we usually send two technicians for eight hours to do a termite barrier.

With a termite barrier, we trench in the soiled area up against the home. We’ll trench down to the footings and apply 10 litres of Termidor product per metre and then back fill the soil, so there’s a continuous barrier right around the property. Any concrete areas involves having to drill a small 10mm hole every 200mm apart which we then inject with the same Termidor product (10 litres per metre) under the concrete against the house.

This ensures a complete and continuous barrier zone around the house.

Pests: Termites / White ants

Time : One full day (8 hours)

What may cause unexpected delays

Sometimes when performing simple tasks such as a termite inspection, the time can vary greatly depending upon the nature of the job. If it’s a straight forward job and we don’t find any issues, it may take as little as 25-30 minutes.

However we do see some jobs take much longer.

For example, even in small apartments or townhouses that should only take us half an hour, we’ve often spent an hour and half or even longer performing inspections due to finding active infestations where we’ve got to disassemble kick-boards, or, we’ve got to pull out dish washing machines, or microwaves and so on.

So it can vary depending upon the type of pest and the nature of the job.

As another example, if it’s a bed bug problem especially … bed bug problems can take two days to fix a small unit. Unlike other pests which might involve a simple treatment with spray, with bed bug pest control treatments, we’ve got to disassemble the beds, the actual furniture itself… the bedside drawers etc. It’s can be quite time consuming.

Of course we only quote at a fixed rate and not hourly, so our customers know exactly what the job will cost, even if it does take us a bit longer.

Can customers wait around or do they have to leave?

We understand that for the majority of people, they’re searching for how long pest control takes, because –

• They have time sensitive commitments
• They’re considering leaving the property during the treatment
• They might be concerned about cost

As said above, we charge fixed rates, so time isn’t a factor that can influence cost.

For most jobs, we will perform the treatment and be in and out quite quickly. For more complex jobs, that might take a whole day, we might encourage the property owner to spend the day with friends or family. This isn’t always the case though. It’s entirely up to the property owner.

I think for most people the biggest misconception about time involved with pest control is that they believe that we’ll be tenting the property and steaming the inside for days on end with toxic chemicals. This is certainly not the case as pest control is safer and application tools and chemicals are a step ahead of what was available to pest control company’s many years ago.

Ready to work with Pest-Ex?

Pest-Ex have been providing pest control services throughout Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Tweed Heads and Logan City since 2006. We have performed thousands of pest inspections and have more than 7,000 happy customers.

We’re also –

• Fully insured and licensed
• Our pest controllers are among the most experienced and qualified in the pest control industry
• We only use environmentally friendly products, and are dedicated to providing pest control solutions that are safe for your family and pets
• We are flexible, and can work in residential, commercial and industrial properties

Talk to Pest Ex today for all your pest management and protection services – we look forward to hearing from you!