The situation
The strata had been on a monthly bait-station service contract with a national pest control provider for 18 months. Rat sightings continued, including residents reporting nocturnal sightings in ground-floor hallways and near elevator lobbies. The strata council had received formal complaints from six units over the preceding quarter and was facing pressure from the property manager to change approach or risk insurance implications. The 2023 BC SGAR restriction had changed their previous provider's bait options, and the current baiting strategy was visibly failing.
The assessment
Our building-level assessment took a full day. Findings: uncapped loading-dock door (active rodent entry, grease rubs confirmed), three utility penetrations in the mechanical room with foam-only sealing (rats had chewed through), unsealed joint at the base of the garbage chute on the ground floor, and a gap under the bin-room pedestrian door where the sweep had worn away. The bin room itself had active nesting in the corrugated cardboard bale area — the waste management vendor had been stacking cardboard against a wall for two years. Black-light urine stains mapped two travel corridors between the bin room and the mechanical room. Rat density estimated at 15-25 individuals on-site.
The intervention
Phase one (day 1-3): hardware cloth and galvanized mesh sealing on all identified entry points, new rodent-grade door sweeps on loading dock and bin-room doors, cement-backed sealing of mechanical room penetrations. Phase two (day 4-21): snap-trap monitoring network with 12 stations mapped to travel corridors, twice-weekly check-ins, photo documentation for strata records. Phase three (day 22-90): monthly inspection and ongoing bait-station updates within the BC SGAR-compliant framework. We also delivered a written recommendation to the strata for waste management process changes: stacked cardboard relocated to an exterior compactor, organics bin kept closed, daily bin-room sweep.
The outcome
Zero resident rat sightings reported from day 45 onwards. Zero trap activity at day 90. Strata council received positive feedback from residents at the following AGM. The strata moved to a preventive quarterly plan at a fraction of the monthly contract cost they had been paying, with better outcomes.
Why monthly baiting wasn't working
A bait station does not seal an entry point. The strata's previous provider had been replacing bait blocks on stations for 18 months, but the unsealed loading dock, unsealed utility penetrations, and bin-room door gap were allowing new rats to enter the building as fast as bait was consumed. Exclusion seals the corridor; baiting merely thins the population passing through it. The SGAR restriction accelerated the visible failure of pure-baiting programs across BC strata — exclusion-first IPM is the durable approach.
Customer outcome“We'd been paying monthly for 18 months and still had rats in the hallways. The Wild Pest came in, mapped the problem, sealed the building, and we haven't had a single sighting in 90 days. Wish we'd switched a year ago.”
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