Some people don’t want to go to the time and effort of calling in a professional pest management company, thinking they can get rid of pests on their own. Fred Willey is owner and president of Invader Pest Management, based in Glendale, Arizona, and says that’s all good – as long as you do it right, and know when it’s time to call in the pros.
A lot of people here in Arizona have problems with pests, and a lot of them choose to do pest control themselves. But one thing we see happening today in the national pest control industry is that the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, is making a reduction in the number of pesticides available to the consumer. That means that they provide to individual, private customers pesticides of a lesser strength than we can provide professionally. So if you choose to do it yourself, you may not be doing as good a job as we can do.
One thing we do differently than a lot of other companies is train our customers in the correct use of pesticides around their homes. We educate them to try to discover the reasons they have bugs in the first place, and then how to eradicate them properly, so they will not come back.
If a homeowner learns everything they need to know about getting rid of bugs – such as keeping areas clean, doing proper maintenance and taking preventative measures on a regular basis, then it’s okay to try and do pest control yourself.
But if the customer is just relying heavily on going out to the home store, buying tons of chemicals and then spraying them everywhere, that really is not a good idea. If an individual is not trained in pest management, and if he has pets and children who can potentially be playing in the pesticides, then that is dangerous.
So for people who need pest control taken care of, the best way to do that is to call a professional. There will always be a fair share of customers who want to do it on their own, and I’m okay with that. But they should not use the glug-glug theory. That means having the opinion that if a little is good, then a lot must be better. Those types of customers just take a bottle of pesticide and spray it. But, all they are doing is contaminating their yard, when they should really be aiming to reduce the amount of pesticide on their yard.
I would also recommend the people who do their own pest control still call in a professional for an annual inspection. The benefit of having a professional come in is that he can point out what the self exterminator might be missing, such as termites or a hidden infestation. So even if you choose to do it yourself, don’t do it completely on your own. Get an annual quality professional pest inspection, so you know you are doing it right.
