A house at night with the downstairs windows lit, seen from the garden

Somebody answers this phone at 3am

First: does this actually need somebody tonight?

Usually it does not, and we would rather tell you that than sell you an emergency call-out. Find what you have got below and we will tell you honestly how fast you need to move — including the things you can leave alone entirely.

Find out how urgent it is (313) 555-0171

What have you got?

How urgent is it, really

Everything we deal with, ranked by how fast you have to move

Most pest control sites are a list of services in alphabetical order, which is useless at eleven at night. This is the same list in the order that matters, with what it costs and what you will actually be seeing. The bottom tier is the one we would ask you to read first.

Today

Ring us, do not fill in the form. These are the ones where waiting until Monday makes it materially worse, or somebody in the house is at risk.

Wasp or hornet nest

$145

By a door, a window or a play area — or anybody in the house is allergic. Treated same day, usually within four hours, and the nest is removed once it is dead.

Rats indoors

from $245

Heard in the kitchen or under the floor rather than seen in the garden. They gnaw cabling, and that is a fire risk that does not wait for an appointment.

A swarm

Free

A hanging cluster of thousands, usually in May or June, is honeybees. We do not treat those — we ring a local beekeeper who comes and collects them, and nobody charges you.

This week

Worth booking properly rather than panicking. Every week you wait roughly doubles the work, but a few days changes nothing.

Mice

from $185

Droppings like black rice along a skirting, a scratching in the wall around dusk, or a smell in a cupboard. Three visits included, proofing included.

Bed bugs

from $480

Bites in a line, black specks along the mattress seam. Per room, heat treatment, and no you do not have to throw the bed away. This has nothing to do with how clean your house is.

Cockroaches

from $295

Seen at night when you put the kitchen light on. Gel bait rather than a spray, because a spray scatters them into the neighbouring flats and makes it everybody's problem.

Fleas

from $195

Usually after a pet, sometimes after a previous tenant's. Bites round the ankles is the giveaway. The house needs treating, not just the animal.

This month

Annoying, spreading slowly, and cheaper to deal with before the season turns. None of it is an emergency.

Ants

from $135

A trail across a worktop in June. One treatment at the nest usually ends it for the season — the spray from the supermarket kills the trail and not the nest, which is why it comes back in a fortnight.

Squirrels in the loft

from $320

Heavy footsteps overhead in daylight, unlike mice. Proofing is most of this job, and it has to wait until we are certain there are no dependent young up there.

Clothes moths

from $240

Holes in wool, little cases in the carpet under furniture that never moves. Slow, and genuinely expensive if you leave it a year.

Wasp nest, away from the house

$145

At the end of the garden, in a shed nobody uses. It dies off on its own by November and you are entitled to just leave it.

Do not ring us

We are a business and this is the section that costs us money, but every one of these is a call we would end by telling you not to book.

One spider, one wasp, a few woodlice, silverfish in the bathroom, a ladybird cluster at the window in October

No charge

None of these is an infestation and none of them will become one. Silverfish mean the room is a bit damp — an extractor fan fixes that better than we can. Woodlice mean damp wood somewhere outside. If you send us a photograph we will tell you which it is and what to do, and we do not charge for that or follow it up with a sales call.

Prices are for a standard house and include every visit in the programme, not the first one. Flats, restaurants and anything with a food hygiene rating attached get quoted after a survey, and the survey is free. Annual cover for a home is $18 a month, which is worth it if you back onto fields or a watercourse and is not worth it if you do not — ask and we will tell you which.

Book a survey

Discretion

Nobody on your street needs to know we came

About half the people who ring us apologise for the state of the house before they have finished the first sentence. You do not have to. Bed bugs arrive in luggage from good hotels, mice come in because it got cold, and cockroaches move through a block of flats along the pipework regardless of who mops. None of it is a verdict on you, and none of it is anybody else's business.

  • The vans are plain white

    No logo, no livery, no phone number down the side, and no roof beacon. It is the single most common thing people ask us on the phone and the answer has been the same since 2004.

  • We will park round the corner

    Say so when you book and the van does not stop outside your house at all. It costs us two minutes and it is not a strange thing to ask for.

  • Nothing goes in your outside bin

    Not the packaging, not the monitors, not anything with our name on it. It all leaves in the van.

  • If a neighbour asks, we are doing maintenance

    Which is true. What we are treating is between you and us, and that holds for landlords, letting agents and anybody else who rings up asking about your address.

A plain white van with no signwriting parked on a quiet residential street

Who is knocking

You will know exactly who is at the door before they are

You are about to let a stranger into your bedroom to look at your mattress. The least we can do is tell you who he is the night before, with a photograph, so that when somebody knocks you already know the face and the van.

Every technician here holds an RSPH Level 2 in pest management, is DBS checked, and carries the card in the photograph. If anybody turns up who is not the person on your text, do not let them in and ring us.

Sent 6:40pm, the evening before

Dane Corbin, pest control technician

Dane Corbin

Technician · 14 years · RSPH Level 2

  • LicencePC–4471
  • ArrivingThu, 8:00–10:00am
  • VanPlain white, no livery
  • ParkingRound the corner, as asked
  • Visit1 of 3 · survey & treat

Reply STOP to this and you will never get another one. Reply with a photograph of what you have found and it goes to Dane before he sets off.

Anybody can kill what you can see.

That is the easy half and it is the half the whole trade sells. The mice come back in October because there is a gap behind the boiler pipe the width of a pencil, and a mouse gets through anything it can fit its skull into. A firm that only ever treats has bought itself a customer for life and an annual invoice, and plenty of them know exactly what they are doing. We survey, we proof, and the aim is that you do not need us next year — which is a strange thing to build a business on and the only version of it we are interested in.

The programme

Three visits, and it is not finished when they stop appearing

A rodent job is three visits over three weeks, and the price on the triage above is for all three. Insects vary. What does not vary is what "finished" means, which is the part of this job most people are never told.

  • Day 0Survey

    Survey and first treatment

    An hour, most of it with a torch in places you have never looked. How they are getting in, where they are living, and what is feeding them — which is usually a bird feeder, a compost bin or a bag of dog food in the garage. You get the survey with photographs the same evening.

  • Day 7–10Second

    Second visit, and the proofing goes in

    We read what has been taken and what has moved, then we close the building up: wire wool and mortar on the pipe runs, brush strip under the doors, mesh on the airbricks, and the drain cover nobody has lifted since 1998. This is the visit that decides whether you see us again.

  • Day 21Sign-off

    Third visit and the monitors

    Non-toxic monitors have been down since day 0. If they are clean, we take everything away and sign it off in writing. If they are not, we keep coming until they are and it does not cost you anything further — that is what the price included in the first place.

Reviews

What Wyeford says

Told us not to book
I sent a photo of something in the bathroom fully expecting a call-out charge. Got a reply in twenty minutes saying they were silverfish, that I needed an extractor fan rather than a pest firm, and that was that. No sales call afterwards either. They will get the business the day I actually need it.
E. MbekiWyeford
Bed bugs · 2 rooms
I was in a state about it and convinced the whole street would work out what was going on. Plain van, parked two doors down without me even having to ask twice, and the man was so matter-of-fact about it that I stopped being embarrassed halfway through the first visit.
L. ProsserMillbrook
Mice · signed off
Two firms before this one came, put bait down, took the money and left. Corbin spent the first hour in the crawl space and found a hole under the extension where the two builds meet. Sealed it, monitored it for three weeks, and that was two winters ago now.
G. ThrelfallBellwood

Questions

The ones we get asked

Is it safe with children and pets in the house?
Yes, and it is the first thing we plan around rather than the last. Rodent bait goes in locked stations that a child cannot open and a dog cannot chew, and in a house with a crawling baby we will use break-back traps and monitors instead so there is no toxicant in the building at all. Say what is in the house when you book and it changes what goes in the van.
Will the neighbours be able to tell?
Not from anything we do. Plain vans, plain clothes to the door, nothing in your bin, and we will park round the corner if you ask. See the discretion section above — it is the most-read part of this website by a distance, which tells you how normal a worry it is.
Do you charge for the survey?
Not for a home. We survey, tell you what it is, what it will cost and how urgent it is, and you decide. For a commercial kitchen or anywhere with a hygiene rating attached there is a $95 survey fee, refunded against the work if you go ahead.
What if they come back?
Inside the guarantee — six months on rodents, three on insects — we come back and it costs you nothing. Outside it we will tell you honestly whether it is the same job returning or a new one, and if it is the same one returning we treat it as ours.
Do I have to leave the house?
For most jobs, no. Bed bug heat treatment is the exception: the room goes to about 55°C for several hours, so you are out for the day and pets go with you. We will tell you exactly what needs to be off the floor and out of the wardrobes beforehand, in writing.
Can you tell me what it is from a photograph?
Usually, and we would rather you sent one than guessed. Text it to the number above. If it is something on the bottom tier of the triage we will say so and you will not hear from us again unless you get in touch.
Which areas do you cover?
Wyeford, Millbrook, Bellwood, Ashgate, Thornbury, Rowan, Kingsley and Hartley. Same-day work is limited to the first four in practice, and we will tell you on the phone rather than take the booking and turn up at seven in the evening.

Get us out

Tell us what you have got, or send a photograph

If it is on the top tier of the triage, ring — the form is not fast enough for a wasp nest by a door. For everything else this reaches somebody who will come back the same day with a price and an honest answer about how quickly you need us.

Answered by a person, any hour(313) 555-0171 Send a photograph, we will identify it freehello@corbinpest.example
The unit · not a shopUnit 9, Halewood Estate, Wyeford
Every technicianRSPH Level 2 · DBS checked · insured

Tell us what is going on

Five fields, and a straight answer about how urgent it is.