What homeowners can legally do: the full list
- Apply domestic-class (PMRA schedule 6) pesticides at label rates on your own residential property — no license required. Products sold in hardware stores and garden centres in the pest-control category are typically schedule 6.
- Use any physical control method: snap traps, glue boards, bait stations without chemical, exclusion sealing, copper mesh, hardware cloth. No regulatory restriction on physical pest control.
- Use biological pest control: nematodes, predatory insects, pheromone traps. Not regulated under IPMA.
- Hire a licensed pest company to apply restricted-class products that you cannot apply yourself.
- Apply dormant oil or insecticidal soap on ornamental plants in your garden — these are typically exempt from IPMA schedule classification.
What's banned: SGAR and other restricted products
The 2023 BC ban on second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides (SGARs) removed the following active ingredients from residential use at any classification level: brodifacoum (the active in many d-CON and Havoc products in the US), difethialone, bromadiolone, and difenacoum. These products — regardless of how they're packaged or marketed — cannot be legally applied in residential contexts in BC. Licensed commercial applicators can still use some of these in specific commercial contexts under permit, but residential application is prohibited.
The practical effect: if you find brodifacoum-containing products on Amazon Canada or at a US border store and bring them across, you're potentially violating both the BC IPMA and the federal Pest Control Products Act. CBSA does intercept some pesticide imports. More importantly, you're exposing raptors and owls to secondary poisoning risk — the reason the ban was implemented.
The mothball question: more complicated than you think
Mothballs (naphthalene or paradichlorobenzene) are a registered pesticide product. Their label authorises specific uses: controlling clothes moths in enclosed storage containers (sealed garment bags, airtight boxes). Using mothballs outside of this specific labelled use — placing them in attics to repel raccoons, scattering them in garden beds to deter cats, or putting them under decks to deter skunks — violates Health Canada's label requirements. This is not theoretical enforcement: these off-label uses are documented bylaw violations and are chemically ineffective.
What requires a license: the commercial-class line
- Schedule 1–3 pesticide products: any product that requires a licensed applicator to purchase (not available at retail) requires that licensed applicator to apply them.
- Application of any restricted-class product to someone else's property: even if you hold a domestic-class product, applying it to your neighbour's property (even with permission) technically crosses into commercial application territory.
- Any pest management activity on commercial property for compensation: applying any pesticide product on commercial property for payment requires a license.
- School, hospital, or sensitive-site applications: additional licensing and notification requirements apply even for domestic-class products near sensitive sites.
The label is law: what this means
Under the federal Pest Control Products Act and BC IPMA, the pesticide product label has legal force. If a label says 'do not use within 3m of water,' that restriction is legally binding, not advisory. If a label says 'use only in enclosed container for moth control,' using the product in an open space violates the law. The label is not marketing — it is the legally approved use conditions that Health Canada evaluated when registering the product.
Homeowners often exceed label rates ('if some is good, more is better') or apply products in locations not covered by the label ('spray around the whole perimeter' when the label covers only specific indoor application sites). Both actions are technically violations of the Pest Control Products Act. In practice, residential enforcement of this is rare — but the principle matters because exceeding label rates also means increased human and environmental exposure, which is why the label restriction exists.
Post-SGAR DIY rodent control: what's available
| Method | Legal status | Effectiveness | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Victor snap traps | Legal, no license needed | High for small populations | Best with peanut butter bait, placed at wall edges |
| First-generation anticoagulant bait blocks (chlorophacinone) | Legal domestic-class for homeowner use | Moderate — requires multiple feedings | Read label; not for exterior use residential |
| Non-anticoagulant bait (bromethalin) | Legal domestic-class | High — single-feed lethal | Higher risk to non-target species; use cautiously |
| Glue boards | Legal | Low for rats, moderate for mice | Inhumane for large rats; mainly mice use |
| Electronic kill traps | Legal — physical device | Moderate | Useful indoors; battery-powered |
| SGAR products (brodifacoum, etc.) | BANNED — residential BC | N/A | Illegal for residential use regardless of source |