You let the technician in. He sprayed. Nothing changed, so you stopped letting him in. That is a reasonable thing to have done, and nobody explained the difference to you.
There are two different visits, and they look the same from your doorway: a technician, a sprayer, glue boards. They do different jobs, and only one of them clears what you already have.
The monthly visit
Once a month the technician works the paths between apartments: the basement, the compactor room, the hallways, and the walls and pipes that every apartment shares. In your apartment it is a light pass, and that is on purpose. It is not trying to clear an infestation. It is trying to keep your neighbor’s from arriving in your kitchen.
What it cannot do is treat behind a closed door. When an apartment with a problem stays closed month after month, that apartment is usually where the next round comes from.
The apartment treatment
This one is aimed at your apartment: bait in the cabinets, treatment inside the wall voids where a spray never reaches, and a follow-up visit two to four weeks later. This is the one people mean when they say “the intensive,” and it is the one that clears what you already have.
Why the heavy one came back
It fixed your kitchen. It could not fix the apartment on the other side of your wall that has never been opened. The monthly visit is the only thing that reaches that apartment, and it only reaches it on the days that door opens.
Why opening your door helps you first
When the technician is standing in your kitchen, he sees what you are seeing. If it is more than the light pass can handle, he writes it down on the spot, and the heavier treatment gets requested for your apartment that day. You do not have to call anyone or wait for a callback.
That is the fastest route to the treatment you actually want, and it takes ten minutes on a day the technician is already in the building.
What to do
- Open the door on your building’s service day. Ten minutes. Nothing to move.
- Show the technician where you are seeing it. He writes it down, and that is what starts the apartment treatment.
- After a treatment, keep food sealed and the sink area dry for two weeks. That is not about you. It is what the bait needs to work.
- If it comes back after a treatment, say so. Tell your super or the technician. We arrange any follow-up visit with your building.
If you would rather not open the door for a stranger, the lobby notice has the service day, and the technician wears a badge with his name and license number. Check one against the other.
Pest control in an apartment building requires treatment, repairs, access and information working together. See how the pieces fit.
Send this to your building
If you cannot be home on service day, this is the message that gets the apartment treatment scheduled for you. Copy it and send it however you already talk to your super or managing agent.
Edit it before you send if you want. No sign-up, nothing collected, and we do not see who you send it to.
About this page
We are a pest control company working in Bronx and Brooklyn apartment buildings. This page describes how the monthly building visit and the apartment treatment are run in the buildings we serve; other companies may run them differently. It is general information rather than advice about your apartment or your lease.