Pest control guides

Identify a pest

Seen the pest itself? The pest identification pages go from A to Z with a photo of each one: how to tell it apart, what it means for the house, and when it's a job for a pest business.

Where did you find it?

Thumping or scratching overhead? The roof space page helps you tell a possum from rats or mice, using dusk, droppings and footprints.

Scratching, buzzing or bubbled paint? The walls page covers rodents, wasp and bee nests in the cavity, and termites behind the paint.

Trails on the bench or webbing in the flour? The kitchen and pantry page sorts ants, cockroaches, moths and mice.

Mud on a pier, or soft floorboards? The subfloor page covers termites, borer and what else lives under a raised floor.

Small insects in a damp room? The bathroom and laundry page covers silverfish, booklice, cockroaches and the spiders you'll meet there.

Bites at night or holes in your clothes? The bedroom page covers bed bugs, clothes moths and carpet beetles.

Something outside? The garden and yard page covers spiders, wasps, ants, mosquitoes and ticks, and which ones are worth calling about.

Many pests hide by day, so what you find first is usually what they leave behind: droppings, rub marks, mud tubes, shed skins, dark spots on a mattress. Photograph those before you clean up, with something beside them for scale, and leave anything that looks like termite activity exactly as it is.

Before you book, and the rules

About to book someone? How to choose a pest controller lays out what each state requires, the questions to ask and what a written quote should say.

Got a treatment coming up? What happens at a pest treatment walks through the visit and how long it lasts. Before and after a treatment covers children, pets, pregnancy and when to go back in.

Worried about termites? Termite inspections explains where the inspector looks and how often to book one.

Buying a home? Timber pest inspections separates the pest report from the building report, and fits both around a sale.

Renting? End of lease rules sets out what a lease or pet agreement can require in each state.

Possum in the roof? Possums and the law gives each state's rules before anyone touches anything.

Wondering what's about right now? The pest calendar goes through the year, season by season and region by region.

How these guides are written

Every rule, number and date in these guides comes from a listed source, shown at the foot of the page. Rules change, so check the source before you act on anything, and read our editorial policy to see how the pages are written and checked. Where we couldn't confirm a state's rule at an official source, the guide says so.