Choosing a Pest Control Professional

Tips on Selecting a Pest Control Company

When choosing a pest control professional in Australia, the first question most people ask is usually something along the lines of, “What sort of bureaucratic red tape am I going to run into?” This is a fair question to ask, as no one with a pest problem is likely to have much patience, even with the professionals.

When you are looking for a local pest control company, there are four things you need to consider: Their licenses, insurance (yours and theirs), experience, and training. This might seem like an overwhelming list but break it down one at a time and you will see no one thing is unmanageable.

Licenses

The licensing requirements differ from state to state. For instance, in New South Wales, pest control professionals do not need a license to run a business, but they do need a license to operate fumigation equipment. Compare the Australian Capitol Territory, which works the other way around.

There are lots of different kinds of equipment that a pest control professional might need a license for, but luckily the rules tend to be absolute. Either you need a license for everything, or you do not need a license for anything. Specifically, the ACT and the Northern Territory do not require licensing for pest control methods.

Insurance

One of the unsung heroes of the pest control industry is the insurance provided to the employees. It is unlawful for an Australian pest control service to operate without insurance in every state of the federation.

If the pest control service you are looking to hire does not have insurance, then it might not be legal, effective, licensed to operate its equipment, or any combination of the three. But why is insurance so important? Many pest control professionals ask the same thing. But ultimately, it is there to protect the workers.

What are they supposed to do about if an employee is hurt? There will inevitably be a period where they need to recover from their injury but cannot work. Insurance protects them from that eventuality.

Insurance also protects the consumer (you) from any damages the pest controllers might cause in the course of their work. In essence, it is there to ensure that the pest control business cannot be negligent in its behavior.

Training

Scrutinizing the efficacy of a pest control professional’s training is a bit different from doing the same to their licenses or insurance. Licenses and insurance are public knowledge—many businesses will have these documents framed on their walls somewhere so they are easily viewable to anyone who walks in.

Training, however, is not public knowledge. This is because licenses usually answer most of the questions a person might have about a pest controller’s skills. Training is usually reserved for understanding how to navigate specific types of areas. It is not always required, for instance, that a pest controller scale a building.

In this case, the best way to know if a pest controller has the training required to access a specific area is to ask. And even then, they only need training if the area is uniquely adverse.

Experience

Experience is one of the hardest things to gauge in a pest control professional. This is the reason why people usually go for the most recognizable names, both in the pest control industry as well as basically any other product: If you can recognize it, you assume it has some degree of credibility to its name.

The best way to tell if a business is experienced is by combining knowledge from the other things you have to look for. Ask them what their licenses, insurance, and training are, and when they received them. If they received them before 2015, then you are absolutely safe. No one stays in business that long without expertise.

Do not trust their experience if they have difficulty answering those questions. They may also claim that any of their paperwork is still being processed. This is not to say that they are a completely untrustworthy business; they can be new and still good at their jobs. And it is not like the government has never failed to do paperwork quickly.

However, it is a possible red flag that they have not obtained the necessary licences, insurance, or training. And without those things, you can be sure they will not do a good job.