A resident at a university-owned townhouse reported seeing a bed bug.
During Sprague’s inspection, the team found two areas of bed bug activity on the second-floor landing inside the townhouse. Inside the bedroom were hundreds of live adult bed bugs and eggs in the wooden bed frame, dresser and folds of the mattress.
The resident saw one bug.
They were right.
They just couldn’t see everything else.
A resident complaint gives you a place to start. What you capture when the complaint comes in, what the Route Manager finds and what your service history shows can tell you much more.
Start with a better complaint
Residents don’t need to identify the pest or figure out where it came from. That’s our job.
What they can provide is useful context. When a resident reports pest activity, capture four things:
- What did you see? Let them describe it in their own words rather than asking them to identify the pest.
- Where did you see it? Get more specific than the unit number. Kitchen cabinet, bathroom sink, bedroom wall or patio can all provide useful context.
- When did you see it? Note when it happened and whether they’ve seen it more than once.
- Can you get a photo? If possible, a clear photo gives the Route Manager another piece of information to work with.
Keep the resident’s description when you pass the request along.
“Small brown bug near the kitchen sink three mornings this week” gives the Route Manager more to work with than a work order that simply says “cockroaches.”
What an experienced Route Manager is looking for
Gabe Chavez spent more than 15 years as a Sprague Route Manager before moving into Sales. We asked him what goes through a Route Manager’s mind when a complaint like that comes in.
“One bug in one apartment gives you a place to start. I want to know what we actually found, what was happening around that unit and whether we’ve seen it there before. That’s when you can start to tell whether you’re dealing with one complaint or a pattern.”
Gabe Chavez, Account Manager, Sprague Pest Solutions
That broader view matters in multifamily properties. Sprague’s guidance considers individual units along with common areas, trash and disposal areas, moisture issues and structural conditions. For bed bugs specifically, Sprague has multifamily program protocols that can include inspection of adjacent units.
The individual service record tells you what happened that day.
The history can tell you whether you’ve seen it before.
One ticket tells you what happened. Five might tell you something else.
Take the last five pest-related service records for one property and put them next to each other.
Look for repetition.
Is the same pest appearing more than once? Is activity showing up in the same building, floor or area? Does the same maintenance or sanitation condition keep appearing? Was something recommended during an earlier service that shows up again later?
You may find five unrelated events.
Or you may find something that wasn’t obvious when each complaint was sitting in its own work order.
That’s the difference between keeping pest records and using them.
The resident is part of the record, too
Bed bugs make this especially clear.
Sprague’s documented multifamily bed bug program considers more than whether treatment occurred when evaluating elimination. The program also considers whether live bed bugs are found during service, whether new bed bugs appear in monitors and whether tenants continue reporting live bed bugs or bites.
The resident’s report can help start the investigation. What the Route Manager finds adds information. Monitoring and follow-up add more. Resident reports can continue adding information afterward.
A pest complaint shouldn’t disappear when the work order closes.
Keep the report. Add what the Route Manager found. Add what was done. Add what happened next.
Then, every so often, look at those records together.
You may not find a pattern.
But if there is one, that’s where you’re going to see it.