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WATER NEAR YOUR HOME can attract pests, creating a serious problem for homeowners. Stagnant water sources, such as low spots near foundation, leaking sprinkler pipes, or clogged gutters, become breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Excess moisture also attracts termites, ants, clover mites and rodents, who seek shelter in damp environments. Standing water near your foundation can even lead to extensive structural damage, giving pests easy access to your home. To prevent infestations, regularly inspect your property for water accumulation, repair leaks, and maintain proper drainage. Taking these steps can minimize pest risks, safeguarding your home from both water damage and unwanted pests it invites. VEGETATION TOUCHING YOUR HOME can create a pathway for pests to bypass our chemical treatment and invade your home. Trees, shrubs, and vines can act as bridges, allowing insects like ants, termites, and rodents to easily access your roof, attic, or walls. Overgrown plants trap moisture against the structure, fostering conditions for mold and attracting pests like carpenter ants and termites. Thick vegetation can also obstruct proper ventilation, leading to higher humidity levels inside, which pests love. To prevent these risks and ensure the best results from your pest control service, trim vegetation regularly, maintain a buffer of 4-6 feet between plants and your home. Keeping plants well-maintained is a key step in protecting your home from pests. STORING ITEMS NEXT TO YOUR HOME can attract pests and create a habitat where pests can thrive. Piles of wood, old furniture, or discarded boxes provide ideal hiding spots for rodents, insects, and termites. These items can also trap moisture next to your siding, encouraging mold growth and inviting pests like ants and earwigs. Rodents often use stacked materials as entry points into your home, while carpenter ants can easily move from stored wood next to your foundation into the crawlspace or basement. To avoid these risks and ensure the most effective pest control treatment, store items away from your home’s exterior. If items must be stored near the house, elevating things up on cinder blocks and 2x4s can allow us to treat the ground under the items which will provide you with way better results! MULCH AND DEBRIS AGAINST YOUR HOME’S SIDING can attract pests and cause serious moisture damage. Mulch provides a perfect damp environment that invites earwigs, ants, and other insects to nest near your foundation. Piles of leaves and grass clippings offer additional hiding spots for rodents and pests, which can then easily find their way into your home. Over time, this buildup also traps moisture, which can cause siding rot and lead to mold growth. The most common spots to watch for are window wells and foundation vents. Keep those areas clean to ensure the best results. Often, insects can live under that debris and completely avoid the products we apply. To minimize pest problems and ensure the best results from your pest control service, keep flowerbeds clear of leaves and maintain at least a 6-inch gap between mulch and the lower edge of your siding. NEGLECTING HOME MAINTENANCE can lead to pest problems that compromise your home’s integrity. Small issues like missing caulk, damaged weatherstripping, and broken foundation vent screens can provide easy access for insects and rodents. Leaky pipes and clogged gutters create damp conditions that attract many pests. Failing to maintain your roof or siding can lead to hidden entry points for pests, allowing them to invade unnoticed. Regularly inspecting your home and addressing maintenance concerns promptly will ensure you receive the best possible results from your pest control treatment. SOMETIMES YOUR NEIGHBOR’S PEST PROBLEM CAN BECOME YOUR PROBLEM. One example is when a nearby neighbor has wasp nests on their house and you are trying to enjoy the outdoors around your home. Wasps can travel a long distance and will be very attracted to the smell of your BBQ grill or food you have prepared. If your neighbor has chickens, the mice population in the area will almost always explode. Sometimes there isn’t a lot you can do because your neighbor might be unwilling to make any changes, but there are often still things we can do. Let your neighbor know you have concerns and hopefully they too will work to keep your neighborhood pest free. If the problem is significant, at times we will talk to the neighbors and see if they would be willing to let us help them solve the problems. IN SUMMARY, for the best possible results, make any corrections possible to avoid conducive conditions outlined above, and try to make sure we have full, unobstructed access all the way around your home. If we can apply a continuous, wide barrier all the way around your home, the chances of spiders and insects getting inside your home drop drastically!

Mice may seem like a small and harmless nuisance, but they can cause significant problems for homeowners. Not only can they potentially get into your home or garage, but they can also pose serious health risks and cause major problems outside too. That's why controlling mice around your home is crucial for maintaining a safe, healthy environment. BBQ GRILLS & PATIO FURNITURE Mice tend to chew on just about anything, from wires and insulation to furniture and personal belongings. Even if they aren’t getting inside your home, mice frequently get on BBQ grills, contaminate patio furniture, and often get into parked cars & RVs. Few things are more disgusting than discovering mice droppings in and around your BBQ grill, and the damage they can cause inside a car or RV can easily result in thousands of dollars in remediation.

How to plan for your service to ensure the best results We will text you when we are heading to your home. Ideally, pets and people would be inside when we arrive and stay in until the products we will be applying have had a chance to dry. This typically takes 1-2 hours, depending on weather and other landscaping/site conditions. For the absolute best results, try to have all toys, personal items, etc. pulled out away from the house at least 6 feet so that we can provide you with a wide, continuous barrier all the way around your home. During this visit, BBQ grills should be covered, all pet dishes should be either brought inside or moved well away from your home, and windows should be closed. If we will also be treating the interior of your home, we will typically start inside. During the interior treatment, ideally pets would be secure in one area that won’t need to be treated, and kept out of treated areas for 1-2 hours. People can remain inside the home during the service, but especially small children should be directed to not be too close to the technician. Pulling easy-to-move items away from walls will allow us to give you the best possible results. This is especially important in storage areas, laundry rooms, or anywhere else you have seen significant pest activity. What to expect once you are on our Home Protection Plan Once you are on our Home Protection Plan, a few days prior to each service, our office will text you and let you know which day we will be coming. Please reply to this text if you have any special concerns about your upcoming visit. On the service day, the technician will text you letting you know when they are actually heading to your home. This will give you an opportunity to get kids and pets inside and make any last-minute preparations for your service. If you won’t be home during the service, please make sure pets are inside and that gates are unlocked so that we can easily access all areas that need to be serviced. If we can’t reach some areas, we will do what we can, but the service will likely not be as effective. Help us give you the best possible results and plan for your visit! Unless there is a concern with pest activity inside your home, regular services default to being exterior-only. Once we have finished, we will leave you a written summary of the services that were performed, along with notes regarding any special concerns, and it will include the date and time of the service. This time stamp is important to help you determine when it is safe to allow pets and children back into the areas that were treated. You should wait until the products are dry – typically 1-2 hours. After each service you will receive an emailed invoice. The email contains a secure link to pay online. If you prefer to pay with a check, you will need to mail it in. The mailing address is at the bottom of our written service summary. We do not accept in-person payments, cash, or crypto currency. If you encounter any pest problems between services, just call/text/email us and let us know. We want you to be happy with the service, but we can’t fix anything if we don’t know there is a problem! Your service will automatically renew each year. We will send you a letter during the winter with important information about the upcoming year of service. What pests are and are not covered Your service covers all of the normal household invaders such as spiders, nuisance ants, wasps, earwigs, etc. Flying/swarming insects such as boxelder bugs, pine beetles, flies, and gnats will be greatly reduced, but can never be fully eliminated because they can be flying in from nearby properties, and once they encounter the product we applied, it can take a day or two before they die. Our services do not cover wood destroying insects such as termites & interior carpenter ants. It also does not include stored product pests, often found as a result of storing pantry goods too long. We can provide treatments/service for ticks, mosquitoes and mice, but they would be performed at an additional cost. Ask for details. Safety information  All of the products we use should be avoided until dry (1-2 hours). Nothing we apply inside will be going airborne so there is no need to leave your home. The products we use inside have virtually no odor and they will not cause staining. If you have specific concerns, just ask your technician before they start. We have treated many thousands of homes and we have never had an issue where a person or pet experienced any ill effects after our service. Refer to your service agreement for more details.

Question: If I have pest problems between my regular services, will you come out and take care of it? Answer: Absolutely! In most cases there would be no charge. Please refer to your original agreement/quote for more details. Question: Are your products kid & pet friendly? Answer: All of the products we use should be avoided until dry – typically 1-2 hours, but after that they are kid and pet-friendly. We often use products that are biologically derived from the chrysanthemum flower. Additionally, most of the products we use are approved by the Environmental Protection Agency to be used even inside hospitals, daycare centers, veterinary clinics, and restaurants. We consider safety to be our biggest responsibility. Question: Do your products smell? Do I need to leave my home during the service? Answer: It is extremely rare for a customer to smell the products we apply (especially inside their home). None of the products we apply inside will be going airborne. It is virtually never necessary to leave your home during service. Question: Will the products you use damage surfaces in or around my home? Answer: As long as a light mist of water will not damage the surface we are spraying, then our products will not damage the surfaces they were applied to. If you have a hardwood floor that can’t be cleaned with moisture, please let us know and we will avoid those areas. Question: Will your products hurt or kill my plants? Answer: No; none of the products are phytotoxic. We also try to be extra careful and avoid getting near any edible plants. If you have any specific concerns regarding plants that you want us to avoid, please text our office and we will attach those concerns to the notes we have on your account. That way, the technician will always review that information right before each service. Question: Will the products you use still be effective after it rains? Answer: Yes! Most of the products we use are non-water soluble and designed to stay effective through most weather conditions. Additionally, most of the areas we apply the products are at least partially protected from the rain. (Examples: under eaves, under the lower edge of the siding, etc.) Question: How do I know the technician was actually at my home? Answer: We will always text you a few days prior to each service and then again when we are actually driving to your home. Once service is complete, we will leave a detailed summary of the service at your door. Additionally, all of our trucks have GPS tracking so our office can verify exactly when we were at your home. Please call us if you ever have concerns. Question: Do I need to be home at the time of service? Answer: No. Please just make sure pets are inside and gates are unlocked so we can provide you the best possible service. Also, moving personal items such as toys, stored items, pet dishes, etc. away from the home before service will allow us to be as thorough as possible which can greatly increase the effectiveness of our service. Question: Will you be treating inside my home each time too? Answer: Typically, once a customer is on a regular maintenance plan, there will not be any need to apply chemicals inside your home. We never want to apply a product when it isn’t needed and there is no target pest. However, IF you are seeing spiders/insects inside your home, you can always request that we treat inside and out. Question: Are you licensed and insured? Answer: Absolutely. We always strive to conduct business 100% by the book. You can verify our licensing through the Washington Department of Agriculture website. Question: What forms of payment do you accept? Answer: All standard credit/debit cards and personal checks. We do not accept cash or cryptocurrency. Question: Do I need to sign up again each year? Answer: No. Your service plan automatically renews each year, but you can cancel without penalty after four service visits (3 days notice prior to your next service visit is greatly appreciated). Please refer to your quote/agreement for details, and never hesitate to ask if you still have any questions.

Have you noticed extremely little tiny bugs around sinks, toilets, bathtubs, or out in the garage? There is a good chance you’ve got springtails. Spokane Pest Pro can help you identify these arthropods and help determine why they have presented in the areas you are seeing them. We can also give you professional advice on ways to eliminate them.

Pest control companies tackle mice control several different ways. Many companies come in, quickly determine where most of the mice activity has been (usually by just asking the customer), set down some rodenticide stations inside, place some mice bait stations outside, and tell the customer they will be back in a month to check everything. They charge significantly for this initial visit, and they continue to charge big bucks for those follow-up visits. Over time, the mice problem will probably eventually end, but during those several months, mice will continue to cause damage and contamination, as they die from poison in the home, often in inaccessible or unnoticed areas. We have seen them die up inside of couches, in kitchen cabinets, and numerous other unfortunate places. The notion that mice will leave the home in search of water before they die is simply not true. Mice die from rodenticide inside homes all the time, usually causing a terrible smell for 3-4 weeks while they decompose. We have a vastly different approach that is way faster, safer for the customer, a better long-term solution, and often cheaper due to fewer or no follow-up visits being needed. Once we arrive, we will discuss the situation with the customer to determine the best plan of attack. Based on that information, we will set up clean, sanitary trapping stations that can be used inside the house in all of the areas mice activity has been found. The next part of the inspection is the most important which is outside. This is the part of the process where our company really shines the most. There are many common access points such as damaged weather stripping on the garage door or gaps around where the air conditioning lines enter the house. But there are a lot of other potential problem spots where mice frequently get in too – even in brand new homes. As problems are discovered, we will seal up small issues, and if there are larger repairs needed, those concerns will be clearly documented on the inspection form, so the customer knows if anything still needs to be done.

Have you ever been immediately turned off by a pushy sales person who basically tried to word things in a way that made you feel like you NEEDED to buy something from them? Did you tell him no and he immediately ignored what you said and went right into his next rebuttal, still pressuring you to buy? We have all dealt with that sort of tactic and obviously (unfortunately) it must work because there are still plenty of pushy commission-based sales people out there. Many of them go door-to-door selling pest control services. We frequently hear how annoying they are from our current customers. So, if it works, why don’t we do things like that? There are a couple reasons. The first one might sound a little cheesy in this day and age, but basically, we really try to treat our customers and potential customers how we want to be treated. We try to just give them the facts about our service and expectations, our pricing, and then without pressure let them decide if that is something they want to buy. The second reason is retention. If a customer feels pressured to buy, they often have buyer’s remorse. They may soon be looking for ways to cancel the service, and they will feel virtually no loyalty to the company that pressured them when they weren’t ready to make a decision. We only want customers who have CHOSEN us because they like the service we provide, and stick with us year after year because they know they can always expect awesome results and great continued customer service. We work hard every day to continue to impress our customers, and this is why we retain over 96% of our customers from one year to the next.

Here in the Spokane metro area, wasp issues account for approximately 90% of our new customer calls during the summer. Paper wasps, yellow jackets, and bald-faced hornets ruin family barbeques, chase children inside, and routinely create a huge, sometimes dangerous & painful, nuisance. With any flying insects, it is never possible to achieve 100% control, but there are things that can be done to greatly reduce their population near your home. We have created a plan of attack to combat these annoying pests that goes well beyond what many other companies are doing. The typical standard treatment is for a service technician apply a repellent insecticide to the eaves that can be easily reached by a sprayer from the ground. This will potentially prevent wasps from building nests in the areas that were treated for 6-8 weeks, but it does very little to reduce the population unless it happens to eliminate a few of the current nests that are conveniently located in visible areas during the treatment. Even then, new wasps entering the area will often find spots to nest where the chemical wasn’t applied. Most customers hate chemical residue on their windows, so it is extremely common for technicians to skip high peaks, and areas directly above windows even when regular pest control services are being performed. Our approach is different and far exceeds industry standard. For homes with chronic wasp problems with challenging architecture, we take extra time to spot treat as many of the absolute most attractive nesting spots on your home. We use a product that wasps can't detect and more importantly that product can then be transferred to other wasps - even if they haven't landed in the area that was treated. When applied precisely, this can result in FAR fewer wasps around your home! Additionally, we routinely spend extra time inspecting a property that has known wasp issues, and find nests that can be easily missed. Areas up under low decks, inside the non-cooking area of BBQ grills, inside sprinkler control boxes, under patio furniture, are just a few of the endless places we find active wasp nests. We pride ourselves on finding and eliminating nests that other companies may miss.

Don't let wasps ruin your summer, Spokane Pest Pro can help you with all your wasp control needs. Learn more about wasp control in Spokane.