Selecting A Pest Control Company
By Aldene Fredenburg, Fri Dec 9th

If you have a problem with unwanted pests in your home, andyou've exhausted all the self-help remedies you know, you may beconsidering hiring a commercial pest control company to dealwith the problem. Hiring a professional might be exactly theright solution for you; but you need to do your homework.

First, how do you locate a company? Checking the yellow pages ofyour local phone book might be a good start; doing a keywordsearch on the Internet for your area could also work, and youhave the added benefit of seeing what information the companyprovides, on itself and on pest control generally. Ask friendsand coworkers for recommendations

After you've developed a list of pest control services, andbefore you call these companies, start asking more questions ofyour friends and coworkers. Have any of them used thesecompanies? What was their experience? Did the company inquestion solve their pest infestation issues? Were there anyproblems dealing with the company? Any problems in the homeafter the company performed their services?

Once you've narrowed

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down your list to a few potentialproviders, call them on the phone, and ask some more questions:does the company offer a free home evaluation and estimate ofcosts? Does it give you advice on what you can do to deal withthe problem yourself? Is the company willing to answer questionsreadily?

Specific questions to ask: what kinds of chemicals are used? (Ifpossible, have them provide written information on thechemicals.) What sorts of side effects or potential dangers dothese chemicals have on family members, adults and children, andon pets? Do your family and household pets need to vacate thepremises during the pest control treatment?

Make sure you ask whether the company offers nontoxic, naturalpest control. The company should be willing to at least discussthe options; if its representative just dismisses the notion ofnontoxic pest control without intelligently discussing the prosand cons of the natural remedies available, but just wants toget into your house and spray, beware!

With written information (or your own notes) in hand, do yourown research on any chemicals that will be used - theireffectiveness, their possible side effects, their potentialtoxicity. (The Internet is a great place to start for this.) Ifyou have family members with serious health issues, particularlyasthma or other respiratory ailments, make sure you know whatthe potential effect of sprayed compounds could have on them.

Finally, if you have any questions about the company'sreliability, and you can't find anyone you know and whosejudgment you trust to vouch for them, contact your local orstate Better Business Bureau or Consumer Fraud Division, to findout whether there have been any complaints lodged against them.

Once you've hired a company, make sure you know who is going tobe showing up at your home and when. Make sure they have properI.D., and ask if you can be there to supervise the process or ifyou have to leave, and for how long. And while you've got accessto the professional treating your home, ask what you can do toavoid pest control problems in the future, particularly thoseinvolving destructivecarpenter ants and termites. The guy (or gal) who actuallydoes the work probably has insights into the subject that theoffice staff doesn't have.

About the author:Aldene Fredenburg is a freelance writer living in southwesternNew Hampshire and frequently contributes to Tips andTopics. She may be reached at amfredenburg@yahoo.com.