Pest control myths, fact-checked.

Cats reduce mouse populations somewhat but do almost nothing against Norway rats in residential Metro Vancouver conditions.

Adult Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) weigh 200-500g — often within 50g of the cat's prey tolerance and well above the size most domestic cats will engage. Feral cats hunt young rats but rarely adults. Rats also rapidly learn to avoid areas cats patrol, simply shifting their activity routes within the building. In 10,000+ inspections, a resident cat has never been the reason a rat infestation resolved.

Peppermint oil is mildly aversive to mice in controlled lab conditions but has no meaningful field efficacy against established populations.

The handful of small rodent-repellent studies showing peppermint oil deterrence used concentrations far higher than any residential application achieves, and over far shorter durations than a real mouse infestation. In practical field conditions, mice habituate to peppermint scent within days and move freely through treated areas. Exclusion (sealing entry points) is the only approach that durably works.

Every product a licensed BC Structural Pesticide Applicator uses residentially is registered under the Health Canada Pest Control Products Act and applied at label-specified rates that are safe after drying.

Modern residential pest treatments are targeted crack-and-crevice injections, gel baits, or exterior perimeter applications that dry within 30 minutes and contain no persistent airborne component. Bait stations are tamper-resistant to children and pets. We routinely offer snap-trap-only protocols for households with curious pets. The 'pest control is toxic' framing is a carryover from 1970s-era formulations that no longer exist in the BC professional market.

Consumer-grade bed bug treatments have very low durable success rates against established infestations and typically scatter the population.

Bed bugs (Cimex lectularius) are highly tolerant of pyrethroid-class consumer insecticides due to widespread resistance. DIY foggers and sprays kill visible adults but not eggs or harborage-site populations, while scattering the survivors to new locations in the home. Professional heat treatment (kills all life stages including eggs in one session) or certified chemical protocols are the reliable paths. We've inspected too many cases where a single DIY round turned a single-bedroom problem into a full-home infestation.

Translocated adult raccoons have a 30-day survival rate of roughly 45% in BC Lower Mainland field studies, and the method is illegal in most BC circumstances under the Wildlife Act.

Relocation to unfamiliar territory deprives the animal of known food sources, shelter, and social networks. Studies in Stanley Park and the UBC endowment lands between 1998-2005 documented poor survival and frequent conflicts with established local populations. BC's Wildlife Act (RSBC 1996, c. 488) prohibits relocation beyond 1km in most cases. The standard of care is one-way exclusion — the animal exits naturally, can't return, and the entry point is permanently sealed.

In Metro Vancouver proper, 91% of 'termite' calls turn out to be carpenter ants (Camponotus modoc) on inspection.

Subterranean termites (Reticulitermes hesperus) exist in BC but are concentrated in the Fraser Valley east of Abbotsford and on southern Vancouver Island. Confirmed structural termite infestations in urban Metro Vancouver are genuinely rare. Most wood-damage calls originate from Camponotus modoc (western black carpenter ant). The visual distinction is straightforward once you know it: ants have a constricted waist and elbowed antennae; termites do not.

No peer-reviewed study supports any commercially-available ultrasonic device reliably deterring rodents, bats, insects, or wildlife from established sites.

We've inspected many Metro Vancouver homes with ultrasonic units plugged in simultaneous with active rat infestations. Any initial avoidance behaviour habituates within days to weeks. The FTC has brought multiple enforcement actions against ultrasonic pest-repeller manufacturers for unsupported efficacy claims. Save the $40 and invest in a proper inspection.

Cold winters kill weakest juvenile rats outdoors. Metro Vancouver's mild winters fail to do this, and indoor populations are unaffected either way.

In prairie cities where winter routinely drops below -20°C, juvenile rat mortality outdoors does reduce spring populations. Metro Vancouver rarely drops below -5°C for more than a few consecutive days. The 2025-2026 winter was exceptionally mild, contributing to the 18% year-over-year spike in rat callouts. Indoor populations face no seasonal cull regardless of climate — once rats are in the building, cold outside doesn't help you.

BC banned general-use sale of second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides (SGARs) in 2021 and professional-use sale in 2023.

SGARs include brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difenacoum, and difethialone — single-feeding lethal rodenticides. BC's 2023 ban was driven by documented secondary poisoning of raptors: 70% of tested BC raptors carried SGAR residues, and 44% of great horned owls submitted to wildlife rehabilitation centres had lethal-threshold concentrations. Any Metro Vancouver pest company still offering SGAR-based treatments is operating illegally.

Documentation quality, guarantee terms, exclusion protocols, and regulatory compliance vary enormously between operators in Metro Vancouver.

The gap between a BC-licensed Structural Pesticide Applicator running a documented IPM program and a handyman with a backpack sprayer is the difference between solving a problem and papering over it. Key signals: does the company publish prices, name their technicians, carry visible licence numbers, provide photo documentation, offer a written guarantee, and do physical exclusion work? Most of the sub-$200 'pest control' operators in Metro Vancouver fail most of those checks.

No bat species in British Columbia consumes blood. Metro Vancouver's resident bats — primarily Myotis lucifugus and Eptesicus fuscus — are insectivorous.

Vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) live exclusively in Central and South America and consume blood from livestock, not humans. BC bats eat mosquitoes, moths, and flying insects — a single little brown bat consumes roughly 1,000 insects per hour of flight. They are protected under the BC Wildlife Act and federal Species at Risk Act. The mythology misleads homeowners into fear responses that block the legal, humane exclusion options that actually resolve an attic colony.

Carpenter ants (Camponotus modoc) excavate wood for nest galleries. They do not consume cellulose.

Carpenter ants forage for sugars and proteins outside the structure — aphid honeydew, other insects, sometimes pet food. They excavate soft, moisture-damaged wood to create gallery chambers for the colony, discarding the debris as coarse fibrous frass. Termites actually eat wood, breaking down cellulose with gut microorganisms. The distinction matters for treatment: carpenter ant control targets the foraging trail and the parent colony, often in an exterior stump or log; termite control requires soil-applied termiticides around the foundation.