Ants £85, fleas £120 for the house, cockroaches £220 for three visits with monitors
Ants, cockroaches and fleas
A trail of ants across the worktop, a cockroach under the fridge at midnight, flea bites round the ankles after the cat came home: gel baits for ants and cockroaches that the insects carry back to the nest, a whole-house flea spray with a growth regulator that stops the next generation, and a return free within 28 days.
Insects are about getting the treatment to the nest. Black garden ants come in for sugar in spring; spraying the trail kills the foragers and nothing else. A tiny dot of gel bait on the trail is carried back and shared, and the nest is gone in a week. Cockroaches in Cardiff are mostly German cockroaches in kitchens and the oriental ones in old cellars and drains; both go for gel bait in the warm dark places they live, which is behind the fridge, under the dishwasher and in the motor housing of the oven.
Fleas come in on pets and live in the carpet: an adult on the cat is one in twenty; the rest are eggs, larvae and pupae in the floor. The treatment is a spray of every floor in the house with an insecticide and an insect growth regulator, after you have vacuumed and treated the pets with something from the vet the same day. Pupae are protected for two weeks, so you will see a few fleas after the treatment; that is them hatching onto treated carpet, and it is why you keep vacuuming and why the return within 28 days is free.
Cockroaches in a flat are usually in the block, not just the flat, and three visits with sticky monitors tell us where they are and whether the numbers are falling. In a block we talk to the managing agent about treating the risers at the same time, because treating one flat moves them to the next. Food premises with cockroaches go onto the commercial page, where the inspector's paperwork is part of the job.
What is included
- Identification first: species decides the treatment
- Gel baits for ants and cockroaches, carried to the nest
- Whole-house flea treatment with a growth regulator
- Sticky monitors to measure cockroach numbers
- Pet-safe products and the safety data sheets left with you
- A return free within 28 days
What it costs
Ants £85 for one visit and a return within 28 days if needed; fleas £120 for the whole house; cockroaches £220 for three visits with sticky monitors. All including VAT. The call-out is £85 by day and £130 by night and comes off the job if you book it. Not sure what you have? The identifier covers 12 pests, including black garden ant, german cockroach, cat flea, carpet beetle.
Questions about insects
Is the flea spray safe for my pets?
Once it is dry, which takes about two hours; keep pets and children out of the treated rooms until then. Fish tanks need covering and the pump turning off.
Why not just buy ant powder?
Powder kills the ants that walk through it and leaves the nest, which makes more. Gel bait is carried home. It costs us more than the powder, which is why the shops sell powder.
Seen something? Ring. Anything else, book a slot.
The 24-hour line is answered by a technician, and the call-out is a fixed price before anyone leaves. For anything that can wait for the morning, the booking form takes two minutes and we reply within the hour in working hours with a two-hour slot. Not sure what it is? The identifier will tell you, and what it costs.