When hiring pest control services, it can often be tempting to shop around and go with the company that is the least expensive. However, there are cavities that can go with that seemingly good deal. Sometimes it can actually prove to be counterintuitive, with a client paying more for the pest control services in the long run.

Simple economics is that if a pest control company is offering their services cheaper than their competition (often just to ensure they get the job), they will almost certainly be forced to make savings somewhere along the line. This may be the quality of their product(s), quality of construction, or simply the amount of time they allocate for each job.

If, for example, they’re getting treatment for a lower price than the competition who are offering their services at the national average cost, then they will most certainly have to do more jobs a day. This means the client won’t be getting the correct allocated time needed to be spent on treating whatever pest it is they have that needs controlling or eradicating.

Pesticides can also be very expensive. So there’s also an incentive to make savings there. Rodenticide and insecticide resistance are increasing by the day. So, for professional pest controllers, it’s a case of having to purchase not only the best, but often the most expensive pesticides on the market.

Manufacturers are continuously having to tweak and develop new pesticides merely to stay ahead of pesticide resistance, and this, of course, comes at a financial cost for both the manufacturer in production/licensing fees and pest control businesses who use the products when carrying out treatments.

A pest control company that is offering a cheaper service is likely to be using inferior and cheaper pesticides, which pests are growing resistant to, thus not effectively controlling or eradicating the pest entirely.

A typical example of how this may later come back to bite someone (no pun intended) who has opted to hire a cheaper pest control service is bed bug treatment. Bed bugs are notoriously difficult to eradicate. It takes considerable time and effort to treat a property’s infestation effectively.

If a pest control company is offering cheaper service when treating bed bugs, for example, if they’re not using a premium insecticide and/or allocating enough time to do the treatment thoroughly, they will only have to have missed an impregnated bed bug for the whole cycle to restart weeks or months later.

Another example is rat control. Any pest control technician can eradicate a rat infestation with rodenticide and trapping. The trouble for the client is eradication can often be a temporary fix. Rat investigation to find the root cause of the problem is what’s needed, and that can take time.

Locating rat ingress is detective work. Any pest control technician worth their salt would have been trained in rat detection. But that costs time and money for the company. That’s something cheap pest control services have neither of. So, if you opt to go for the lowest price for the treatment, the rat infestation may go on for many years, with multiple pest control visits.

When you’re hiring pest control services, it really doesn’t pay to go with whoever is offering their services at the cheapest rate. It can often mean the infestation not being completely eradicated, or your property’s ingress points not being proofed, which leads to more stress and spending more money yet again later on.

When someone hires pest control services, they not only pay the pest control technician to apply an effective product, but they’re also paying for their knowledge, skills, and labour, along with a plethora of the operating costs associated with running a professional pest control business.

The moral of this article is to pay for a pest control service that at the very least charges the lower end of the national average. If, however, you’re tempted to pay less than that, just be warned that you could be paying more in the long term, with a load of unnecessary stress that was entirely avoidable had you not tried to save a few quid.

 Last updated: 09-07-2024