Pest Control Between Tenants: A Turnover Checklist for South Florida Landlords

Day one: walk the empty unit

Before the cleaners arrive, walk through with a flashlight and look at what the last tenant left behind. You're looking for clues, not doing a deep inspection.

• Kitchen: inside the cabinet under the sink, the corners of drawers, behind and under the fridge and stove, the hinge side of cabinet doors. Small dark specks that look like ground pepper usually mean roaches.
• Bathrooms: under the vanity, around the toilet base, behind the access panel if there is one.
• Closets and garage: droppings along the walls, chewed boxes, shredded insulation or paper.
• Outside: gaps where pipes and wires enter the wall, torn screens, worn door sweeps, branches touching the roof.
• Pet signs: if the last tenant had a dog or cat, note where it slept and where it spent time in the yard.

Take photos as you go. They're useful later.

What pest control between tenants covers

Every unit is a little different, so we start with a FREE inspection and treat what we find. On a typical turnover, that looks like this:

• Roaches: bait and crack-and-crevice treatment in the kitchen, bathrooms and anywhere the inspection shows activity. A vacant unit is the easiest time to reach the hinge gaps and the voids behind appliances. Small tan roaches in the kitchen are usually German cockroaches, which travel in boxes and bags and won't leave on their own.
• Rodents: if we see droppings or gnaw marks, we inspect for entry points, set traps and tamper-resistant bait stations, and seal the gaps rodents are using with exclusion work, to help keep them from getting back in. Inside the unit we use snap traps only, never loose bait. More on our rodent control page.
• Fleas: if the last tenant had pets, fleas can be waiting in the carpet and in the yard's shady spots. We treat inside the unit and the yard around it. See flea and tick control.
• The outside: for a house, or a ground-floor unit with the association's OK, a treatment band around the foundation and spot treatment at entry points.

Skip the store-bought spray before the visit. It tends to scatter roaches deeper into the walls and makes bait less attractive to them.

Set up the next tenant

The first month of a new lease is when tenants are most likely to tell you about a problem, so give them a reason to.

• Put a line in the move-in packet asking them to report any roach, droppings or bites right away, with a photo.
• Remind them to keep food sealed and take trash out often. Small habits matter in a South Florida kitchen.
• Decide who keeps up regular service. If you keep a plan on the property, our general pest plan is $125 per quarter (about $42 a month), and for plan customers: "If pests come back between visits, so do we, at no extra cost." Monthly and custom schedules, and turnover treatments, are quoted after the inspection.

There are no long-term contracts and no cancellation fees. We're family-run and licensed, with 30+ years in the business, and hablamos español, which helps when tenants are more comfortable in Spanish. See plans and pricing and our pest control services.

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