Author: /u/China_1

I recently bought my first home, a new construction home in a new neighborhood. Before this I have been living in apartment complexes in Houston, typically on the higher floors so bugs were not that big of an issue (except my first apartment where my morning routine including fighting the cockroaches daily). But since moving into my home it seems like its always a constant issue.

My home was sold as having some special bug spray tubing built into the walls that has a “propriety” hook up that only the pest control company HomeTeam can use. So I just assumed that I should sign a contact with them to do the pest control since their “tech” was already in my house.

The first bug issue I had was what they called “Spring tails” Little black bugs that were coming out of the sink and tub drains. I put in two requests, the first time they sprayed what looked like just a can of raid in the drains, and the second one they told me that they should just go away on their own and didn’t treat for them. They continued to be a problem it feels like until I ended up buying like $40 worth of drain fly killer and applying that every night. They are not gone by any means, but at least the sinks and tubs are not crawling with them every day.

The second issue we have is ants. I noticed a ton around the outside walls of my house a little after moving in, and a month later they were coming out of small holes in the walls on the first floor, usually after my cats’ food. After caulking the hole and moving the cats food to a more internal area, we had ants coming out of an internal wall to get to the cat food. Both times I put in bug service request, they just sprayed some liquid along the wall that they were coming out of. And just yesterday the ants started coming out of a wall in my pantry! Another internal wall. This time HomeTeam just sprayed around the outside of the house and said that would starve anything on the inside.

Finally there are just spiders everywhere. Thankfully not too many inside the house, but in the garage and my back patio I can probably find a good 20-25 if I just stand in one spot and look around. I know spiders can be beneficial, but they are making webs like crazy, making it impossible to walk out the patio or garage door without walking through webs every time.

For the pest control I pay just shy of $450 a year, split into quarterly payments, is it a reasonable expectation that paying that much I don’t feel like I should have to deal with this/buy my own bug killer as well (so far I have spent about $70 for the ants and for the drain flies/spring tails), or is this just something that comes with being a home owner and would be worse if I canceled my pest control and DIYed it?

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TL;DR Am I just see the survivor’s bias of the bugs that make it through the pest control and I have to deal with them myself, or am I wasting $450 a year on pest control that still has a lot of bugs in my house?