Pests in the house right now in Miami-Dade

This page is for the call you make while it is happening: roaches pouring out from behind the stove, a rat you can hear over the bedroom, a mattress seam with bed bugs on it, hundreds of winged termites at a window, a wasp nest over the door your kids use. Call the number and say what you are looking at. A licensed company that serves your area calls you back, usually within the hour during business hours, and tells you what to do until they arrive.

The same page covers what to do before they get there and what not to do. Most of what people spray in the first hour makes the visit harder.

Until the company arrives

• Photograph what you saw, where, and the time. A picture of the insect helps the technician more than a description; in Miami "big roach" is three different species with three different treatments.
• Do not spray. Repellent sprays scatter German roaches into the walls and split the colony, drive bed bugs into the next room, and leave a residue that keeps baits from working. Ant sprays make a colony bud into several.
• Seal food, wipe counters, empty the trash, and dry the sink. Pests in the kitchen are eating something; take it away and the bait the technician sets becomes the only meal.
• For a rat or mouse: note where you heard it and when. Do not put out poison, especially with pets or children in the house, and do not seal the hole you found yet; a sealed-in rat dies inside the wall.
• For bed bugs: do not move the mattress, do not start sleeping in another room, and do not haul furniture to the curb. Both spread them. Bag the bedding, wash and dry hot.
• For a wasp nest: leave it alone and keep everyone away from the entrance. Night is when the company will treat it.
• For a termite swarm: collect a few in a bag or on tape. Swarmers with no wings left on the sill are still swarmers. Note where they came from: a window frame, the baseboard, a light fixture.

What counts as urgent

Anything with stings and a person who is allergic. A rodent in the living space or the kitchen. Roaches in a home with a baby, an asthmatic, or a food business inspection coming. Bed bugs, because every night adds bites and every day adds spread. A swarm inside the house, because it tells you the colony is in the structure, though the treatment itself can wait for an inspection.

Most other calls, ants on the counter, an occasional palmetto bug, mosquitoes in the yard, are same-week visits and are handled through the request form on the other service pages. If you are unsure, call and describe it; the company on the line will tell you.

What the first visit looks like

The technician identifies the pest, finds where it is coming from, and treats the source rather than the spot you saw it. For roaches, that means gel baits and dust in the voids behind the kitchen, not a spray along the baseboard. For a rat, it means finding the entry at the roofline or the AC line, setting traps on the runway, and a plan to seal the entry after the traps have done their work. For bed bugs, an inspection of every bed and couch in the house before any treatment, and a plan for follow-ups, because no single visit ends a bed bug problem.

Expect a written summary of what was found, what was applied, and when the next visit is. In Florida, the company must hold a state license and the technician must be trained under a certified operator; the license number should be on the invoice.

What it costs

We do not set or quote prices; the company does after seeing it. A same-day visit for roaches or ants in Miami-Dade is typically a one-time fee or the first visit of a quarterly plan; rat trapping is priced by the visit or the program, with exclusion work quoted separately; bed bug treatment is priced by the room and the method. Ask what is included, how many follow-ups, and what the warranty covers before you agree.