Inspection, identification and treatment for the household pests that do well in Tampa's humid, rainy climate.
Fastest: call (855) 974-4733. Or send this and we call you back.
General pest control covers the everyday invaders of a Tampa home: ants, cockroaches, rodents, spiders and other insects that move in when the humidity is high. A technician inspects the building, identifies what is there and explains the treatment before it starts. Tampa Pest Control answers the phone 24/7 and sends a local technician to Hillsborough County homes.
Most Tampa homes deal with the same handful of pests all year, and the humidity is the reason. Warm, wet air keeps ants foraging, roaches moving between the yard and the kitchen, and rodents looking for food and shelter in the roof. A general pest visit starts by working out which of those problems is actually present, because the treatment for an ant trail in the kitchen is not the treatment for a roof rat in the attic.
The National Weather Service Tampa Bay office describes the rainy season as running roughly from 25 May to 10 October, and it says those dates are not firm lines. Heavy rain, standing water and storms push insects and small animals toward buildings through that stretch. Much of the real work is about what a home does between storms: sealing gaps, clearing debris and keeping food and moisture where pests cannot reach them.
Ask what a visit includes before you book. The price is explained and approved before any treatment starts, and the technician will say what is being treated, where it is, and what you need to do before and after.
Do not spray a household insecticide into a wall void or along a baseboard you cannot see into, and do not mix products. Keep children and pets out of any room a technician has just treated until the technician says it is safe to return. If you cannot tell what is inside a bait station or where it was placed, call (855) 974-4733 before you touch it.
The technician asks where the activity is, what time of day it shows up and whether the home has been wet recently. The walk-through then covers the kitchen, bathrooms, laundry, garage, attic access and the outside perimeter.
Ants, roaches and rodents respond to different tools, and a wrong guess wastes a visit. The technician checks for live insects, droppings, trails and nesting sites before recommending anything.
Gaps around pipes, worn door sweeps, weep holes and the seam where a slab meets a wall let pests in. Sealing them usually does more than any spray, so the plan puts that work first.
The technician describes what will be applied, where it goes and which areas must stay off limits for a set time. Nothing starts until the homeowner has heard the price and agreed to it.
A follow-up looks at whether the activity has dropped and whether anything new has appeared. Repeat problems usually point to moisture, clutter or an outside source, and the technician says which one it looks like.
Humidity, rain and warm nights give most household pests what they need to breed and forage. Moisture under sinks, in crawl spaces and around air conditioner drain lines draws insects in, and a rainy season that runs from late May into early October keeps the pressure up for much of the year.
Whatever the foundation type, a home has places where moisture gathers. A dripping condensate line, a dryer vent that lets damp air in, or a planter bed piled against the siding can keep an ant colony or a roach population fed for months. A technician checks for those conditions first, because treating a pest without correcting the moisture that supports it means paying for the same visit again.
UF/IFAS names white-footed, Argentine, ghost, pharaoh, imported fire and carpenter ants among the pest ants common in Florida homes, and it lists several large roaches under the name palmetto bug. Roof rats are the most abundant rodent pest in the state, and they use attics as shelter.
No single pest dominates every home, and this page does not rank them. What a technician can tell you is which group a sighting belongs to. The ant group behaves one way, the roach group another, and the rodent group needs access work in the roof space as well as bait on the ground.
Usually not for the whole house. Most household treatments are targeted, and the technician says when, if ever, you need to leave, keep pets out of a space, or wait before cleaning a surface. Ask for that in writing before the visit.
Some visits stay entirely outside, some are indoor baiting and crack-and-crevice work, and a few involve material that needs time to settle before a room is used normally. The technician should explain each step before it happens and say how long to keep children and pets out of a treated room. If anything about the plan is unclear, ask before the crew starts, not after.
Ask what pest was seen, what the plan covers, how the price is set, whether a follow-up is included and who holds the state certification for the work. The price is explained and approved before work begins, and you can ask for the technician's certification details at any time.
Florida regulates pest control under Chapter 482 of the Florida Statutes, and a business needs a certified operator whose category covers the work being done. Ask for that person's certificate and check it yourself with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. The license check guide explains where to look.
Targeted work inside the home, such as baiting in kitchens and bathrooms or treating the voids where pests hide. It is the right call when the source is indoors, and it leaves the outside alone when the outside is not the cause.
A band of treatment around the foundation, the garage door and the lanai threshold, aimed at insects that come in from the yard. It matters most where landscaping is planted hard against the wall.
For a home with several pests at once, the technician sets an interior and exterior plan with its own follow-up dates, instead of handling each pest as a separate call.
Tampa has a lot of older housing in its core. Hyde Park, Palma Ceia, Ybor City, West Tampa and Seminole Heights were largely built between about 1900 and 1940, and many of those houses still have original framing, plaster and crawl or cellar spaces that give pests more places to hide than a newer slab home. A technician working on one of them looks harder at the foundation, the attic and the wall voids. The Hyde Park page covers the housing there in more detail.
Suburban lots in Hillsborough County often have landscaped beds against the house, irrigation running on a timer and a pond or ditch nearby. Those are the routes ants and roaches use to reach a wall, and where the yard is wet or heavily planted the perimeter and the planting line matter as much as the inside of the home. Brandon and Town 'n' Country are two places where this comes up often.
The rainy season sets the calendar. From late May to early October the National Weather Service describes heavy rain, frequent lightning and damaging winds, and standing water in gutters and planters is the kind of thing that draws insects toward a house. Clearing gutters, emptying saucers and fixing a dripping hose bib are cheap moves before the season starts, and they often do more than a spray.
Tell us what's happening and we'll tell you honestly whether it's a quick fix, and what general pest control should cost.
Not sure if you're covered? Check your ZIP code.
Identifying the pest ant behind a trail and closing the routes it uses, for homes across Tampa and Hillsborough County.
Finding roof rat activity in attics, palms and shrubs, and placing control where the rats climb, nest and travel.
Finding where cockroaches harbor and why they return, for homes and multi-unit buildings across Tampa.
This page does not publish a price list, because no Tampa figure could be tied to a public body.
Most mosquitoes that bother a Hillsborough home breed in water the homeowner can control, so this checklist starts with containers and gutters.
Roof rats are the rodent most likely to nest in a Tampa attic.
Florida regulates pest control through the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services under Chapter 482 of the Florida Statutes.
Tampa's rainy season runs from late May to early October and changes what homeowners see: more standing water, wetter soil, ants on the move, roaches driven in by storms and mosquitoes at their peak.
Standard homeowners policies typically exclude termite damage and damage from vermin, and the policy wording decides every case.
No. General pest control covers ants, roaches, rodents and the other household insects. Termites fall under a separate certification category in Florida, termite and other wood-destroying organism work, and they need their own inspection. A technician can tell you whether a termite inspection is also needed.
Most targeted visits do not require it. The technician says what applies to your home, including whether people or pets should stay out of a room for a set period after treatment.
They can. Ants usually return when a nest is nearby or an entry point is still open. UF/IFAS reports that sealing small entry cracks usually stops most invasions, which is why sealing is the first step in the plan.
Storms can drive large roaches indoors, and standing water and debris outside give them somewhere to go. Repeated sightings usually point to moisture, an entry point or a nearby outdoor population, and the visit looks for all three.
The schedule depends on what was found. Some homes need one visit and a follow-up, and others need a recurring plan. The price is explained and approved before any treatment, and the schedule is written down before work starts.