Multi-Unit Housing Pest Control
When it comes to commercial property management, multi-unit housing faces unique challenges. Collecting rent from numerous accounts. Dealing with tenant complaints. Completing required maintenance and renovations. It may seem that a manager’s job is never done. But we haven’t even mentioned one of the most important tasks: multi-unit housing pest control.
No one wants to deal with irritating insects, rodents, and wildlife, but such situations can become more dire when dealing with multiple residents within a single structure. Pest problems can quickly spread, and it’s frighteningly easy to run afoul of pest control apartment laws or inadvertently violate lease agreements. That exposes associations and managers to fines, fees, and perhaps even legal actions — which is why you need a trusted partner in pest prevention like Smithereen Pest Management Services.
How we serve the multi-unit housing industry
Smithereen is an expert at multi-unit housing pest control. Smithereen understands that multi-unit pest control is all about communication, results, and relationships. With an extensive multi-unit client portfolio, including condos, apartments and more, Smithereen is equipped with the best tools to not only control pests in your facility but most importantly make your residents feel comfortable and safe.
We ensure our technicians are trained to handle any type of pest in multi-unit housing from mice, rats, ants, roaches, and most importantly bed bugs. By building relationships with residents, Smithereen develops a foundation of trust and partnership so we can resolve pest issues faster and with less irritation to you and your clients. We conduct apartment pest control inspections with thoroughness and sensitivity to residents.
Pests are not only a threat to your residents but also to your facility reputation and resident turnover. Smithereen will partner with you to be ahead of the pest issues that loses you rent, clients, and sleep. We will proactively address issues with comprehensive programs designed to find the source of pest issues and stop them before they spread throughout your building. At Smithereen we have built our reputation by helping you maintain yours.
The most common multifamily housing pests
When people live together in close quarters, you can expect that their proximity will draw certain specific kinds of pests. Some of the most common irritants that you’ll likely have to deal with in a multi-family residential context include:
- Rodents. The appearance of mice and rats prompts highly negative reactions in those who encounter them, and it’s no mystery why. The CDC lists nearly a dozen illnesses directly spread by rodents and 15 they indirectly spread. Additionally, rodents represent a physical threat to residents.
- Cockroaches. Few pests signal uncleanliness quite as strongly as cockroaches. Drawn by even small amounts of food, water, or shelter, they can quickly achieve a hard-to-eradicate toehold in your property through exponential population growth. For example, consider that the German cockroach can produce 48 eggs every six weeks, which means that a single roach can produce roughly 400 offspring over the course of a single year.
- Ants. Though ants don’t spread illness like other pests, they can prove equally irritating. In addition to being hardy and difficult to eliminate, their tiny size means they can slip from unit to unit through cracks and crevices, swiftly proliferating and expanding.
- Bed Bugs. These are among some of the most dreaded and feared pests. While they won’t cause illness, bed bugs are difficult to detect, harder to eliminate, quick to spread, and can cause significant bodily distress through their itchy bites.
- Fleas. A close second to bed bugs, fleas plague pets just as much as they do people, and tenants don’t want to watch their furry friends suffer as these tiny, biting insects multiply within a complex.
- Flies. Flies are possibly the most common pest that apartment complexes will face, and they often signal inadequate sanitation.
- Birds. You may not think of birds as pests, but their droppings can damage automobiles, wood, and even concrete if ignored long enough.
Common places to find pests
Pests don’t function fundamentally differently in a multi-unit housing context than they do in offices, commercial spaces, or single-family homes. They’re always looking for the same things: food, water, and shelter. So, if you’re wondering where pest control sprays in apartments, you can expect to find attention focused on some common places, which include the following:
- Kitchens
- Pantries
- Trash Receptacles
- Closets
- Crawl Spaces
- Moldings and Baseboards
- Bathrooms
However, tenants and incautious caretakers often create places that pests can call home. How? Consider that piles of trash or bins of rarely emptied recyclables easily become a home for pests. Similarly, failure to quickly empty community trash receptacles or to allow dumpsters to overflow offers easy sources of nourishment. And the worsening of worn weather stripping, the development of cracks around caulk, and shallow splits around baseboards allow for easy movement of pests between units. Time, deferred maintenance, and a lack of vigilance can make almost any area a haven for pests.
Fortunately, pests don’t have to become a permanent problem. If you manage or sit on the board of a multi-unit housing complex, reach out to Smithereen Pest Management Solutions. We have more than a century worth of experience in eliminating problematic insects, rodents, and wildlife. Additionally, you won’t have to worry about setting up apartment pest control notices or worrying about how to prepare apartment for pest control. Our integrated pest management approach remains tough on the irritants while staying safe for people and the environment.