Roaches, ants, and bed bugs in Miami-Dade

These are the pests that pay for most of the quarterly pest control in Miami-Dade, and the ones most often treated wrong. A can of spray makes the kitchen look empty for a week and leaves the colony behind the dishwasher intact. This page explains what a licensed treatment does differently for each, so you know what you are paying for.

Call or send the form with what you are seeing and where. A licensed company that serves your area calls you back to schedule a visit, usually within a day or two, or same day for bed bugs and heavy roach activity.

Roaches: which one you have matters

The small tan roach with two dark stripes behind the head is the German roach. It lives indoors, breeds in the warmth behind the refrigerator and the stove and inside the dishwasher, and a single female produces hundreds of offspring in a few months. It is not a cleanliness problem; it comes in on cardboard, grocery bags, and used appliances, and it moves between apartments through the plumbing. Treatment is gel bait placed in the cracks where they hide, insect growth regulator so the nymphs cannot mature, and dust in the wall voids. Follow-up visits are part of it. Spraying makes it worse.

The big brown one that flies at you in the bathroom at night is the American roach, the palmetto bug. It lives outside, in the sewer lines, the palm boots, the mulch, and under the slab, and it comes in for water. Treatment is at the perimeter and the entry points: the drain covers, the weep holes, the gap under the garage door, the AC line penetration, plus granular bait in the yard. Seeing one every few weeks is Miami; seeing them every night means an entry the company needs to find.

Ants

Ghost ants (tiny, pale, almost invisible on the counter) and bigheaded ants (the ones that leave sand piles along the patio and the driveway cracks) are the two that generate most calls. Both have many queens and many nests, and both bud into new colonies when sprayed. The treatment is bait matched to what the colony is eating that week, sweet or protein, placed on the trails, and a non-repellent perimeter treatment that the ants walk through and carry back. Fire ants in the lawn are a separate bait broadcast over the yard, done in the spring and fall. Carpenter ants in the roof framing mean a moisture problem to find as well as a colony.

Bed bugs

Bed bugs come home from hotels, from a used couch, from the unit next door, and from a guest’s suitcase. They live in the seams of the mattress and box spring, behind the headboard, in the couch, and in the cracks of the nightstand, and they come out to feed at night. The bites are the sign most people notice first; the confirmation is the insect itself, the size of an apple seed, or the dark spots on the seams.

Treatment is either heat (the room is brought to about 130°F for several hours, which kills every stage in one visit and needs no chemical) or an inspection-plus-chemical program over two or three visits with a residual that keeps working between them. Both start with an inspection of every bed and couch in the house. The company will give you a prep list: bag and hot-dry the bedding and clothes, clear the floor, do not move furniture out. In a condo, the neighbors on either side and above and below should be inspected too, and the association usually has a process for it.

What a quarterly plan buys

Most companies in Miami-Dade sell an initial service plus a quarterly exterior treatment with interior visits on request. For American roaches and ants that is the right model: the pressure is from outside and constant, and a perimeter barrier renewed every three months keeps it out. For German roaches the initial visit and the two follow-ups are what matter, and the plan afterward is prevention. For bed bugs, a plan is not the answer; a defined treatment with a warranty period is.

What drives the cost

We do not set or quote prices. The company’s number depends on the pest, the size of the home, how established the problem is, whether neighboring units are involved, and the method (heat versus chemical for bed bugs is the largest price difference on this page). Ask for what is included, how many follow-ups, and what the warranty covers before you agree.