Why Vancouver pest activity is different
Three things make Metro Vancouver one of the more pest-active climates in Canada.
Vancouver's mild Pacific winters mean pests don't get the long, cold pause they get in most of Canada. Our average winter low sits a few degrees above freezing, and rats, mice, and German cockroaches stay active and reproductive year-round indoors. By the time most Canadians are dealing with one or two pest seasons, Vancouver homeowners are dealing with all of them — sometimes at once.
Add the rain. Vancouver's annual rainfall is among the highest of any major Canadian city, and pest control follows moisture. Carpenter ants need wet wood. Carpenter ant colonies need wet wood that's been wet for a long time. Roof flashings, deck ledgers, fascia returns, gutter overflows, basement window wells — every one of these is a moisture point, and every moisture point is a potential nest. Most carpenter ant calls we run aren't about the ants. They're about the moisture.
And the housing stock varies more than people realize. A 1925 Craftsman in Kitsilano has completely different pest exposure than a 2018 high-rise in Yaletown. Older homes have more access points, more wood-on-soil contact, and more cumulative moisture damage. Newer construction is tighter, but the high-density rental market drives bedbug activity that didn't exist in the same volume twenty years ago. We work both — and the inspection looks completely different in each.
Pests we treat across Metro Vancouver
Vancouver homes deal with a specific catalogue of pests, each one driven by a specific environmental factor. Here's what we see most often:
- Carpenter ants — pre-1980 wood-frame homes with cedar shake roofs, especially in Kitsilano, Dunbar, North Vancouver, and West Vancouver. Spring swarmer flights in April–May are the classic warning sign.
- Norway rats and house mice — older basements, garages, and crawlspaces across East Vancouver, New Westminster, and Burnaby. Strathcona and downtown corridor have heavy commercial-source activity.
- German cockroaches — restaurant supply chains in downtown, Yaletown, Metrotown, and Richmond. The most common indoor commercial pest in Metro Vancouver.
- Bedbugs — Point Grey (UBC student housing), Newton (rental-heavy areas), and any short-term-rental-saturated downtown building. Activity peaks in September during student turnover.
- Yellowjackets, bald-faced hornets, paper wasps — every Metro Vancouver neighborhood, July to October. Tree-canopy-rich areas (Shaughnessy, Dunbar, Point Grey) see the heaviest hornet nest density.
- Spiders — house spiders are everywhere; the false widows have established in basement and outbuilding populations across the region.
- Cluster flies — west-facing walls in older homes, especially in Surrey, Cloverdale, and the agricultural-edge neighborhoods of Langley and Maple Ridge. October–November overwintering wave.
- Raccoons, squirrels, skunks — the mountain-adjacent neighborhoods (North Van, West Van, Coquitlam, Maple Ridge) and any neighborhood with mature trees and accessible attic vents.
How our pest control method works
Find the source. Seal the entry. Then treat. Every job, every pest, every time.
Most pest control failures aren't about the chemical. They're about the diagnosis. A technician who shows up, sprays the perimeter, and leaves a 12-month contract has not solved your pest problem — they've just chemically masked the symptom. The pest comes back, and now you're locked in.
Our method is different. Every Vancouver pest control job we run goes through the same three-stage protocol:
Find the source
We start with a 25-point inspection. The technician walks the perimeter of your home, checks the attic, the crawlspace, the basement, the kitchen, and any specific area you've reported activity. The goal isn't to find the pest — it's to find the conditions that brought the pest. A trail of carpenter ants on your kitchen counter tells us almost nothing. Where the trail enters the wall, what wood it's nesting in, and what moisture source is feeding that wood — that's the diagnosis.
Seal the entry
Treatment without exclusion is a recurring revenue model, not a solution. Every job we run includes physical exclusion work — sealing gaps with appropriate materials (steel wool + foam for rodents, copper mesh for crawlspaces, silicone for plumbing penetrations, hardware cloth for vents). Carpenter ants get the moisture source addressed. Cockroaches get the harborage points eliminated. This is the work most companies skip because it's slow and labor-intensive — which is exactly why it works.
Then treat
Now — and only now — we apply treatment. The product, the application method, the placement — all chosen to match the diagnosis. A bedbug job in a Yaletown high-rise condo gets a totally different product profile than a carpenter ant job in a Kitsilano Craftsman. We use the lowest-toxicity option that solves the problem, never the strongest option that pads the invoice.
Our 60-day return guarantee
If the pest comes back within 60 days of your treatment, we come back. No charge. No argument. No hidden conditions about "a single sighting doesn't count" — if you see the pest, we see the pest.
And our return visits aren't a reapplication of the same treatment. They're a fresh diagnosis. If the pest came back, something in our diagnosis was wrong. We figure out what we missed — moisture source we didn't catch, entry point we didn't find, harborage we didn't see — and we redesign the plan. Not respray.
There are no contracts. You pay for the visits you need. If our quarterly plan makes sense for your home, we'll tell you. If it doesn't, we'll tell you that too. About 60% of our customers stay on the plan; about 40% take the one-time service and renew if and when they need to. Either is fine — we built the business so we don't need to lock you in.
Vancouver pest control pricing
Transparent, posted before the visit, never surprised at the door.
We post our pricing because we don't have anything to hide. Most Vancouver pest control companies don't, because their model depends on quoting high after the technician is already at your door and you're committed. We don't run that play.
| Service | Starting at | What's included |
|---|---|---|
| One-time pest control visit | $249 | Full 25-point inspection, exterior perimeter treatment, interior spot-treatment as needed, photo report, 60-day guarantee. |
| Quarterly plan (recommended) | $139 / visit | Four visits per year, full perimeter + inspection each visit, free re-visits between appointments. Cancel anytime, no contract. |
| Bedbug treatment (per bedroom) | $450 | Whole-room thermal or chemical treatment, mattress + box spring + furniture, 60-day guarantee, follow-up at 14 days. |
| Rodent exclusion + treatment | $349 | Entry-point seal, snap trap deployment, bait stations where appropriate, 30-day follow-up. |
| Wasp/hornet nest removal | $179 | Nest removal + safe disposal, 14-day re-treat guarantee. Same-day in most cases. |
Larger homes, severe infestations, or commercial properties get a custom quote — but we send it on WhatsApp before the visit, with a clear scope, so there's no surprise at the door. If you don't accept the quote, there's no charge.
Areas we serve from our North Delta office
Same-day across Metro Vancouver. 35-km dispatch radius from Sunshine Hills, V4C 1L6.
Our crews dispatch from Delta and cover all of Metro Vancouver inside a 35-km service radius. Same-day SLA is reliable across the core (Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey, Richmond, North Delta, Coquitlam, New Westminster); same-day is best-effort for the further-flung edges (West Vancouver, Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows) when capacity allows. If you need same-day at the edge of our radius and we can't make it, we'll tell you up front and book you for next morning at first availability.
- Vancouver — Kitsilano, Marpole, Dunbar, Kerrisdale, Point Grey, Shaughnessy, Downtown, Yaletown, Mount Pleasant, East Vancouver, Strathcona
- Burnaby — Metrotown, Brentwood, Lougheed
- Surrey — Cloverdale, South Surrey, Newton, Fleetwood, Guildford
- Richmond — Steveston and the rest of the city
- Delta — North Delta (HQ), Tsawwassen, Ladner
- North Vancouver, West Vancouver
- New Westminster, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody
- Langley, Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows, White Rock