Surrounding Units and When They Should Be Looked At

“They’re everywhere! You have to do the whole building!”

These are common statements that we hear all the time, and sometimes they are actually true!

We have successfully eliminated pharaoh ants, bed bugs, mice, silverfish and cockroaches from entire buildings. However, in most cases all you need to do is inspect and possibly treat the units directly touching the one reporting the issue. That is the units above, below, beside and possibly across the hall should all be inspected, then treated depending on results of the inspection and which pest is being dealt with.

Pest	*Need to inspect* surrounding units?**	*Need to treat* surrounding units?**
Bed bugs	Yes, always	Yes, Very common
Mice	Yes, always	Yes, Very common
Rats	Yes, sometimes	Highly unlikely
Cockroaches	Yes, always	Yes, Very common
Pharaoh Ants	Yes, always- and treat them too	Yes, Very common
Silverfish	Yes	Yes, Very common
Fleas	No	No
Stored Food Bugs	Rarely	No
Fabric Moths	Sometimes	Yes, but rare
Birds	No	No
Wildlife	No	No

The key is to be aggressive initially so that you surround the problem you know about, and eliminate it before it gets out of hand. Just responding to complaints and not doing proactive inspections are great ways to end up having a much bigger problem down the road.